Class Reflection

    When I first got into this class I didn't know what to expect out of it, and I had never heard of Multimedia Literature before in my life. As the year went on I began to realize that multimedia literature is many things. Multimedia literature is a way to appeal and even interact with your audience. Throughout the year we learned many different multimedia techniques used by many different people such as interactive stories, sound effects, and visual motifs. As I said before, when I first got into this class I did not know what to make of it, but now as the end of the semester is coming closer I have formed a greater appreciation for and a deeper understanding knowledge of multimedia literature. After taking this class I now know how to create a hyper link, create and function my very own website, and how to create a compelling story using different sensory techniques. 

    Before taking this class I would have said that I was a pretty good writer, but a less knowledgable creator. Our first task of the year was creating our own website. Although it was fairly easy, beforehand I had no clue how to make a website. We then dove into different forms of multimedia literature such as postcards and radio broadcasts. The Postcard Lab taught us how to use images to give the text a deeper meaning and the Sound Lab presented a way to use sounds to capture an audiences attention. We also had assignments like the Correspondence Lab and Comic lab that allowed us to create our own stories by using different forms of literature. Each and every one of these assignments challenged my creative abilities and after each one of those projects I felt like I had become more and more creative. 

    There were a lot of fun assignments we did this year, but I think my favorite one was reading Fahrenheit 451 and creating our own comic. Yes, one of the reasons why I enjoyed it so much was because it was a graphic novel and not a boring, regular novel, but that is not the only reason I found this assignment very interesting. I also really enjoyed the story. It was an interesting interpretation of what the future may be like. I really liked how the pictures on each page gave me a better sense of what was happening in the story. And after reading the story, I have come to realize that books and other written accounts of history are very important to our world. It was also fun to create our own comic as a little twist off after reading the graphic novel. My second favorite assignment was creating our class project. It was fun to get together with my classmates and create our own type of multimedia literature story. And it was surprising to me, but I also thought the William Blake poems were also very interesting. The poems were sometime difficult to interpret, but I thought it was a fascinating read. I am very glad I was able to take this fun and interactive class. 

Fahrenheit 451

    The graphic novel and the movie versions of Fahrenheit 451 are very similar, but also very different. Both versions of the story follow the main story line of Guy Montag, the fireman, rebelling against his society and becoming one of the "book-keepers". In both the graphic novel version and the movie Guy Montag realizes that their society is wrong and that he does not want to be apart of it anymore. He kills the captain of the firemen and runs away from the city and meets others who had done the same as him. Besides the two versions following the same plot, the author of the graphic novel, Tim Hamilton, and director of the movie, François Truffaut, had a lot of different interpretations of how they understood the story. For example, in the book version one of the main characters, Clarisse, dies very early into the book, compared to movie where she remains alive and becomes very close to Montag. Also, in the book version since Clarisse is dead, Montag goes to Professor Faber for guidance about the books, instead of listening to Clarisee and following her to the railroad tracks in the movie version. Another significant difference between the two versions is the use of the hound in the book, and then completely getting rid of it in the movie version. Since the graphic novel was directly based off of the book and the movie was somewhat different, the visual motifs used in both have similarities and differences. 

    When reading a regular novel the author must use vivid imagery to really paint a picture in the readers mind, but in a graphic novel, the author already gives you the pictures on the page. This type of multimedia literature really enhances the readers experiences by appealing to multiple senses rather than just one. In Tim Hamilton's graphic novel of Fahrenheit 451 he uses many different techniques such as visual motifs to enhance the readers perspective of the story. There were two particular visual motifs that Hamilton used that really enhanced the story: the contrast of bright colors for fire or dramatic lighting and somber colors for the gloomy, rainy days, and the depictions of the characters' faces. Throughout the story Hamilton uses the red, orange, and yellow colors to emphasize the bright fire and then quickly contrasts those bright colors with dark and dull colors to emphasize the dreariness of their society. This distinction of color really gave me a sense of what their world was like: boring. And it also displayed how a sudden flash of bright colors can be so important to that society. Another way Hamilton was able to convey the story was by the close-up portrayal of the character's faces. While reading what the characters are saying and being able to see their emotion through their facial expressions allows the reader to understand what is going on in that scene. Likewise, one visual motif that François Traffaut used to portray his understanding of the story was using the same actress to play the roles of Linda Montag and Clarisse. This technique is used to show what people in their new society look and act like compared to what the old and traditional people act like. Although all three visual motifs used by the creators are different, they are all meant to further engage the audience into the story. 

    And if I had to pick a book to memorize and essentially become the book, I think I would choose Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow. Although I have never read the book, I have watched the musical, and his story is so inspiring that I would not want his story to ever be forgotten. 

Super Bowl Ads

 Super Bowl LV was filled with many funny, interesting, and persuading super bowls ads. However, there were two particular ads that stood out to me, the Jimmy John's commercial, Meet the King, and Michelob Ultra's Happy commercial. 

In the Jimmy John's commercial, Meet the King, we are introduced to a man named Tony Bolognavich, who is also known as the "King of Cold Cuts". Tony lives in a huge mansion with lots of nice cars, and a pool in the shape of a giant sandwich. Tony has always been the top dog of the sandwich business, but when the new business that he calls "Jimmy's Johns" shows up on his turf claiming they have the "sandwich of all sandwiches", he takes matters in his own hands. Members of Tony's family and colleagues go behind his back by eating Jimmy John's which makes this personal to Tony. Finally, the commercial ends with Tony saying him and Jimmy John's are now in a sandwich war. During the whole commercial, Jimmy John's uses Tony's character to advertise all of the good qualities of Jimmy John's sandwiches like freshly baked bread all day and all natural meats sliced by hand compared to his fake and processed meat which is shown coming out of a giant container with gases coming out. All throughout the commercial there is different background music to fit the mood of the scene, whether it's happy and lively or dramatic and suspenseful. I think Jimmy John's does a good job in persuading people to eat their sandwiches by providing information about their all natural sandwiches and their customizable options to fit people's needs. I would definitely go to Jimmy John's and try one of their sandwiches after watching this commercial. 

The Michelob Ultra, Happy, commercial opens up with a bunch of clips of famous athletes smiling after winning a championship in their respective sport, while the narrator poses the question, "Does happiness only come at the end, or has it always been there?". Then it goes on to show videos of those same athletes having a fun time with their friends, while drinking a Michelob Ultra. Implying that the good times during the path to greatness included drinking Michelob Ultra. And the narrator ends the commercial with another quote saying, "Are you happy because you win, or do you win because you're happy?". Michelob Ultra is using these famous athletes as an act of propaganda. By showing these famous people drinking Michelob Ultra's, they want some people to think, "If they are drinking them, I should be too!". During the whole commercial, the narrator is engaged with the audience telling them that the path to greatness  includes happy times along the way and those happy times involve drinking Michelob Ultra's. I think the use of the famous athletes drinking Michelob Ultra while they are having fun with their friends and family is a great way to advertise their product because it associates good times with Michelob Ultra. 

Bandersnatch

 Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is a very interesting Netflix show. It is an interactive, ‘choose your own adventure’ show with multiple pathways and outcomes. In this particular episode, Bandersnatch, it is set in 1984 and is about a teenager named Stefan who is trying to create his very own video game. Throughout the whole show there are scenes in which two options are posed to the audience watching it and they are able to choose which one the character enacts. As I said earlier this type of ‘choose your own adventure’ show leads to many different paths based on what the audience chooses. It can be a yes or no question, or in this particular case, Option 1: Kill Dad or Option 2: Yell at Dad. And that is what is so cool about this type of show, the uncertainty. You don’t know what’s going to happen next and you are at a stalemate trying to figure out which path to take. 

The main plot of Bandersnatch is that a boy named Stefan is trying to make his own video game called Bandersnatch. He demo's his game for a big video game company called Tuckersoft. Then the rest of the show is about Stefan’s journey programming the game.  The show also goes into some background about Stefan’s personal life when he goes to see his therapist. His mother was killed in a train accident and he blames himself for it. He lives with his father who he hates. During the show we witnessed different outcomes of Stefan’s game being a huge success and also never being released because he never finished. We also saw outcomes of him murdering his father and getting into a sword fight with his therapist. Although I didn’t particularly like this type of creepy and ominous storyline, I did enjoy the interactive aspect of the show and thought it was a new and interesting twist. 

War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds broadcast was very interesting. The broadcast made it seem like there was an actual alien invasion happening in real time. It was cool to kind of experience what it was like to listen to only sound in 1938. Entertainment back then was a lot different than it is today. We are very fortunate to have such advanced technology and forms of entertainment. Although the whole alien invasion ended up being fake, the broadcasters made it very believable that it caused the nation to panic. Because there was only sound and no images being broadcasted, the listeners could only believe what was being said and hear the horrible background sounds. The performers played their roles very well by dramatizing the whole situation. The occasional silence played very big roles in convincing the audience it was real. Silence is so important because it is so convincing to the listener. As you are listening to someone talk and then the sound abruptly cuts off, you think that the people talking have just been killed or taken away, or the line of the broadcast has been cut in order to interrupt communication to the outside world.

The morning after the broadcast aired on the national radio, Orson Welles found himself to be the most talked about person in America. From coast-to-coast people believed that there really was an alien invasion. Many people in America became furious with Welles for deceiving them. There were reports of massive protests, suicides, and death threats directed at Welles. In countless interviews after the broadcast, the same question was asked: “Did he intend, or anticipate, that War of the Worlds would throw its audience into panic?”. Welles answered by saying that no one involved with the story expected to deceive anyone because they all thought it was too outlandish and improbable for people to believe. However, if I was in the same situation as the people listening to the radio in 1938, I probably would have believed the broadcast too. Because it was played out so well, it seemed believable. Although the story was the only thing people were talking about, it was not for good reasons. And I don’t think that Welles and his team thought that this broadcast would destroy their careers.