Live E-poem
Our assignment for the finished "Audio Essay" project was this:
"Create an audio essay that brings together poetry and either 1) personal experience or 2) cultural concerns. First, identify a poem that speaks to an event, change, or experience in your life or to a cultural concern (e.g., consumerism, gender, war, relationships, etc.) You can choose any poem, but you may want to think about sonic elements of the poems you consider as you decide."
The final project was broken up into little, digestible bits. The live improv e-poem was essentially me messing around with the Camtasia software. But you also had to learn how to sequence what your waudience saw. I layered my videos so that certain images corresponded to what I was saying or that the audio from one video would make sense with the visual of another.
It was on a pretty trial-and-error basis. We had a day dedicated to trying to work this strange new technology (the software we used, Camtasia 2, seemed pretty complicated at first) and a couple of assignments dedicated to figuring the program out.
I dub thee very first e-poem Warmer:
Reflection Time
The "cultural concern" I decided to focus on was global warming. Obviously, my first idea was to go with something the audience would associate with being warm (the sun). Then I tried to think of what else came to mind and then I thought of weather forecasts. At the time I composed this video it was the beginning of the semester and it was quite warm. Just going from class to class induced an all-over-body shine. So this is where my mind is when I think "there should be music... but what songs are about heat?" This is why I chose Elvis. As well, in his song he mentions something about the air getting harder to breathe and it coinsides perfectly of a visual from another video of smog taking over the city of an illustrated couple.
At the same time I was creating something to look at and to hear, I was also creating something to read. I chose to freestyle my own poem and influence key points of global warming (other students used existing poems and emphasized the content others, including myself, wanted to create literature from content). I had to think of what my viewer was going to read and when.
It was a funky fusion and definitely a little rough around the edges but we worked toward correcting our e-poem tech skills. The next two assignments are also Camtasia-based and work with literary topics.
| Previous page on path | Jill Cahill's Portfolio, page 3 of 6 | Next page on path |
Discussion of "Live E-poem"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...