Critique of the ReRemixx

I was most impressed with George Shry's remix, or ReRemixx. I am terrible at any computer editing program, and I think his project really showcased how skilled he is with Photoshop. The point of this assignment wasn't to show everyone how talented you are, but I think being skilled with certain computer programs definitely makes your project more appealing. I thought George also did a great job at incorporating other lessons from class into his project. For instance, he contacted an artist for permission to use one of the drawings. I sat on Creative Commons for an eternity searching for works I could alter without having permission to do so. Maybe had I just contacted users on Flickr, I could have used the images I originally wanted to use. Good thinking, George.

I also liked how George's project seemed very seamless, or if it hadn't even been remixed. I guess this is also another example of how skilled he is at Photoshop. Most of the projects screamed "I've been remixed!," but George's seemed like it was in it's original format. He actually mentioned that he added the text because the image seemed like he didn't really alter it in any way. I think that is a sign of great work. If it is impossible to tell that things were added and altered, then it probably took a long time to create this image. It seems like George spent a great deal of time creating this image.

The main thing I liked about George's project is that he used different mediums to create the image we now see. The main dragon was a pencil sketch, the crystal ball is a digital work, and the fingers holding the crystal ball are George's, taken with a digital camera. Combining three different types of images to make one image must have been challenging. It is a very creative idea, that worked out very well. 

The quotes that George used are very applicable to this project. This project was very driven by imagination. Without that, none of us could have come up with our sources to remix. And, it seems as though George certainly did use a lot of imagination in producing this project.

Overall, I feel that George achieved his goal of making his remix project "seamless". And, although he expressed concerns that his hours of labor that went into the project may be lost because of the seamless effect,  I think most of us were aware that this was a tedious and time consuming remix project. 

I wouldn't change anything about this remix project, because if I did it would be entirely noticeable and only serve to mess up all of the work that George put into creating this. I would like to steal all of George's techniques and learn how to use Photoshop. 

The Remix

Remix Project: Alice's (in)famous Adventure's in Wonderland

(click on images to enlarge!)

For my Remix Project, I decided to mix Lewis Caroll's, Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, with images of celebrities. At the beginning of this class I made a celebrity blog, and decided this direction for the Remix Project would be appropriate to make my assignments cohesive. I originally planned to use the illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but later thought of celebrities who could be used in place of Lewis Caroll's characters. In place of Alice, I decided to use Alice Cooper (mainly because the only other Alice I could think of was the maid from the Brady Bunch). Elvis is of course the King (just beating out the Burger King for the role), and the Queen was also an obvious choice. The White Rabbit is a Playboy Bunny, whose name I am not sure of. Finally, the Mad Hatter is T-Pain, who often wears hats that always make me think of the story. I obtained all of these images from Creative Commons. The borders and text that were added to the images were obtained from archive.org.

The first thing I did was edit the images in Comic Life. This allowed me to alter the images into an acrylic comic. I then realized that I am a self-proclaimed Mac user, but I felt helpless without Microsoft Paint. So, I saved everything to a flashdrive and attempted to use the only PC in the house -- a beauty from forever ago that still has a floppy disk drive. To my dismay, someone had removed MS Paint. I was forced to google how to retrieve this amazing application, and after hours of searching was successfully up and doodling in my beloved MS Paint. I opened two windows of MS Paint, one of my acrylic comic images and one of the pages from the book. I resized the images to 80% of their original size and then began with the magic of copy and paste. I copied the borders from the actual pages of the book and pasted them around the images of the celebrities. I then began to copy the quotes from the book; breaking down the words and playing with the constituents. However, I thought it was important to not mix the words up, because I still wanted the quotes to be easily read. After doing this for each picture, I saved them to my flashdrive and uploaded them on The New Small Talk. I decided to post these to my blog because successfully incorporated celebrities into this assignment. Had I not used celebrities, then I would have posted this project separate from my blog.

This project was challenging for someone who has no editing skills other than what she learned in elementary school on MS Paint. My main goal was to create an end product that wasn't horrible, and also to create one that was semi-clever. My purpose was to combine two things that bring joy to my life: 1. Disney Movies, 2. Celebrity Gossip. Since Disney is crazy, I decided to not get sued and use Lewis Caroll's work instead. This assignment also gave me a chance to read Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland again, and I was also able to watch the movie... passing it off as "investigative work" for a project. Overall, I am pleased with the end results, but wish I could have thought of someone to be the Cheshire Cat.

Image sources:
Bunny: http://www.flickr.com/photos/synthesizers/1650281422/
Elvis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/e06158/2648766400/
T-Pain: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/3039211994/
Alice Cooper: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kylemacdonald/147436334/
Queen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13790198@N08/2364680828/

Text: http://www.archive.org/details/alicesadventures00carr2

It's only getting worse...

 Jessica Simpson's singing career is pretty much over. Personally, I'm not sure if it really ever started. Now I feel like she is even making fun of herself. First she announces her new line of luggage, appropriately entitled something along the lines of Fat Sack. And now she is releasing a line of plus size dresses because she has run out of clothing options. 

Okay, no. She is releasing the plus size line because she "knows what looks good on curvy women". REALLY? Is this something she recently learned, or did she always know this?