Thursday, September 17, 2015

Comedy Writing

Hello my fabulous fellow media enthusiasts. If you read my last post, I left a hint about what our newest project is. If you got it, good for you. If not, that's okay because I'm about to explain it all! So, if you read the title, you were probably able to discern that we are doing something about comedy. This is another project I'm pretty excited about. Do you remember last years project, Visual Poems? If you didn't read that post, I'll link to it below, and you can check that out. Not to mention you can read more of my hilarious bantering! It's a win-win. You get banter. I get page views (Hint hint). Well, this project is going to be similar, except instead of a poem, we will be reading our very own comedic monologues. When I say our very own, I mean it. We actually have spent about two weeks doing research and all that jazz to figure out how to write our own monologues. So, without further ado, I present to you... Comedy Writing
So, the great question we will be answering in this paragraph is... Why is sense an important character trait? Well, I mean, what would you guys do without my hilarious sense of humor to keep you smiling? The truth is, humans crave laughter. We bond with people we can laugh with, and a sense of humor is an important character trait we look for in relationships with others. We look for things that make us laugh online, or in our realities. Laughter is something that fuels us, that makes us happy, and without it, life would be dull and colorless. The color of my laughter is purple. Don't ask me why, because I have no clue. What's the color of yours?

While writing my humorous narrative, I came up with a few tips I would like to share with you, in case you're ever in a jam and need to write up something funny. I started by brainstorming. My idea of brainstorming is a little... unconventional. Instead of coming up with a bubble chart or something to write out productive ideas in, I basically write anything that comes to mind. Then, sometimes, I find a gem amidst all the garbage, which will sometime become my story. Another tip I have is base your jokes off of a funny experience you've had, or something funny about your life. Let's see... do your research is another good one. If you don't know how to write a joke, it's not going to be as funny. When I write, one thing I do is just get everything out on paper. I know that sounds kind of like brainstorming, and I guess it's kind of similar. However, it's a little more productive. I write my whole essay, or in this case monologue, out, so I can work from there. I don't try to make it funny. The main goal is to get it on paper, so when I edit, and begin to cut down on my work, that's when I go back and make it funny. It helps immensely, having every part of the story and then some spread out in from of you. Once I have a huge amount of writing, most of which is unnecessary, I begin to cut down. When it's cut down to size, I begin to edit. That's my final tip. Editing is a crucial step for me, because if I don't edit my work, especially when it comes to comedy, not only is not going to be funny, but it's going to make sense. That's five, (Thank goodness, I'm running out of tips!) so I'm going to move on!

My comedic monologue is about cats. Yes, you heard me correct, I said cats. Specifically my cats. I explain my experiences with cats, from ones that liked to use my clean laundry and a toaster as a litter box, to one that sat in my garage and attempted to kill everything that moved. Yes if you are wondering, the idea did come from a brainstorm. It turned out pretty good, and as of this week we've filmed the monologue and B-Roll, so by the end of next week I'll be (hopefully) done with editing, and maybe even have a blog post started. The next post will most likely have the finished video, so stay tuned! My monologue is funny, mainly because I've had some very funny cats. So thanks for that cats.

Anyway, that is all I have for today, or rather this week, so check out these links, browse the blog a little bit. I have some crazy old stuff on here, it's basically a portfolio of everything I've done in the three years I have taken this class. We've done some cool stuff, and I explain how a lot of it works, and how it can be done, so check it out! For links today we've got my old visual poem post, because it was a similar project. Below that I've got a link to a quiz you can take to get the color of your soul, which was as close as I could find to the color of your laughter. I have a great article about writing jokes, courtesy of Wiki How, and we all used it in the process of writing our monologue. Last but not least, I have a list of really corny cat jokes you can use to impress your friends. Enjoy! Anyways, bye for now. Signing Out.

(Pssst- Links!)
Visual poem
Color of Your Soul
How To Write Jokes (Actual article we used)
Corny Cat Jokes (Didn't use this one)

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Motivational Poster

Are you ready to be amazed by the stunning beauty of my final motivation project? I swear guys, this time it's for real. My final poster will blow you away with it's wonderful motivation prowess. Okay, so at the time I'm writing this introduction it's not completely finished, however, by the time this post is complete it will be. So sit tight, and prepare to be amazed. I'll see you at the bottom, because we all know that those who read these only read them to read my lovely sarcastic intros and conclusions. Anyway, keep on reading to finally get to find out what we did with our Manifestos, personal quotes, and those fabulous symbols I had posted on the last post without telling you what they meant. Tricky of me, I know.

So, I'm going to start by describing all of the requirements for our motivational posters. First of all, we were required to use those three symbolic images we took. Mine were on my glasses, combat boots, and candles, and if you want to find out how they represent me, check out the hashtag #gtsym1, #gtsym2, and #gtsym3 on google+. You'll also see the rest of the GT student symbols, and it's really cool, so check it out. We also needed a portrait of ourselves. The lovely Kasiah Vercelli took mine, I'll link to her blog below. Our personal manifestos and personal quotes were also a requirement, and the text had to be nicely kerned. Also important was the kerning of our text, a triadic color scheme with one dominant and two harmonious colors, blending options such as drop shadows, stroke, outer glows, and bevel and emboss, and layer adjustments for our pictures like color balance and exposure.

Now I'm going to move on and explain the step by step process we used to create our pictures. We started by writing out our personal quotes and manifestos. Then we kerned them until they fit perfectly without any gaps. After that we added effects and a triadic color scheme to the text, as well as adding our portrait and symbolic images. Next, we added color balances to our pictures to make them match the triadic color scheme we had chosen. Finally, we focused on adding the finishing touches and layer effects to the pictures to make sure they stood out.

I'm actually really happy with how mine turned out. Usually when I do a project, any type of project, I never feel ready to stop. With this one though, I feel like it turned out really well, and I believe that I followed the requirements. The biggest challenge for me was getting my pictures balanced and with enough color balance. I hadn't realized that by choosing yellow I would end up having to use 6 different color adjustment layers! In the end though, I'm glad I chose yellow, and saved my blue and purple for the text, because this way the text really pops, which was my goal. My base color was the warm purple on my manifesto, and the two supplementary colors were the turquoise used for the personal quotes, and the yellow used for the pictures.


Okay you guys, thanks for reading! Stay tuned for our next project, it's going to be really fun to film, (hint) so check it out. The first post will come in about a week or two, depending on how long we will be spending on this project. It's going to be a barrel of laughs! (hint two) Until then, enjoy yourself by checking out the links below, to help you understand the "techno babble." If you already speak fluent babble, check out Kasaiah's blog to see her poster! By the way, the first kerning link leads to a definition, the second to a fun little game related to it! See you later my lovelies!

(Psssst- LINKS!)