Schedule | Fall 2013

Homework

Write and Print

Write and print the essay portion of the Essay and Visual Project to turn in at the beginning of class today.

Conclusions, Evaluations, and Studio Session

Essay Due at the Beginning of Class

Permission to Share your Projects in Future Classes

Please complete the brief Permission Form.

Students who agree to permit sharing of their projects in future classes become collaborative partners in the development of the course, the program, and UMD generally.

Consider providing permission--with any restrictions you'd like to include--for future students to benefit from your work this semester.

Course Evaluations

Studio Session for the Visual Paratext

Return of Projects

FINAL EXAM TIME
Tuesday, 12/17 at 4:00 p.m.

Homework

The Visual Paratext to the Essay due Today

Complete and upload the Visual Paratext portion of the Essay and Visual Project. Post the clickable URL to the Moodle forum "Essay's Visual Paratext URLs" by the scheduled final-exam time (see column to the left)

No Final Exam in This Class

WEEK 1

T 9/3

Introduce Class, Confection Project

Syllabus

We'll look at and discuss the syllabus

Visual Rhetoric

How is "visual rhetoric" different from graphic design? What is the relationship of "rhetoric" and "culture"?

Representational Space (Visual, Verbal, Hybrid)

Edward Tufte and the First Assignment

Edward Tufte is a professor of statistics from Yale, as well as an artist.

See the assignment page for the Visual Confection Project

Access to Photoshop this Semester

• Computer Labs ("Full Service" including Dreamweaver and Photoshop)
• Options for free trial or student subscriptions of Photoshop

Collect

Obtain all books and a USB drive

Create Folders on Your USB Drive

Create the suggested set of folders on your USB drive.

vrc

www

4260

ciab

exercises

data

narrative_title

Read and Complete in Photoshop

Read Chapter 1 of Photoshop Classroom in a Book (aka, "CIAB"), "Getting to Know the Work Area," and complete the lesson, pages 8-37.

Before you begin, copy the "Lesson01" folder onto your USB drive into the "ciab" folder you created above.

When you work on a lesson, be sure you're working on and then saving the copy in the lesson folder inside of "www/4260/ciab/"

You will need to complete this lesson sitting at a computer with Photoshop installed. See

- Computer Labs ("Full Service" including Dreamweaver and Photoshop)

- Options for free trial or student subscriptions of Photoshop.

Come into class with the completed files "01A_Start.psd," "01B_Start.psd," and "01C_Start.psd" saved in the folder "Lesson01" inside of the folder "ciab"

Read

Read Edward Tufte's Chapter 1, starting page 13

Come with Questions

Read over the syllabus and come in with any additional questions.

Photoshop and Confection Project

Questions on the Syllabus, Class, Homework?

We will start by trying together to locate Photoshop CS6 on the lab computers.

Review: Visual Rhetoric or "Analytical Design"

The experiment you attempted on paper: making a visual display say something complex or subtle...making an image "eloquent."

Introducing the Confection Project

Let's look over the Confection Project, due M 9/30

Look at Homework Assignment for Next Time

Tufte's Techniques of "Analytical Design" (C1)

In Moodle, I'll ask you to write a paragraph about one graphic example from Chapter 1. In this paragraph,

1. type the name and page number of the graphic,
2. make the argument that this example offers us a valuable technique for visually representing a complex or subtle idea/situation, and
3. explain what the graphic represents, what it reveals, how it works to explain or convey information and ideas, and why it's "eloquent."
   
   

This posting will count as a quiz grade.

Tufte's Blind Spot

Cultural encodings or "cultural codes"

See Edward Hopper's Night Hawks. What details in the image itself suggest that the time period of the scene is the early 1940s?

Rearranging Folders on your USB

I will ask you to make a couple of changes to the arrangement of folders on your USB:

1. to move "ciab" from "4260" (that is "www/4260") to "vrc"
2. to create a new folder "ciab1" inside of "exercises" (that is "www/4260/exercises"

vrc

ciab

Lesson01

www

4260

exercises

ciab1

data

narrative_title

Help Session Photoshop's Work Area (C1)

Troubleshoot Chapter 1 of CIAB.

Chapter 2: Classroom in a Book

Read and Complete Chapter 2 of CIAB (Photo Corrections)

Read and Be Prepared

Read Tufte's Chapter 7 ("Visual Confections"), pages 121 - 151

Be prepared for a possible quiz on the major ideas in this chapter and the examples Tufte uses to illustrate these ideas.

Trying Out Ideas for the Confection Project

Confection Concepts: Getting Started

Tufte's Visual Confection; Converting and Uploading Images

Photo Corrections (C2)

Troubleshoot C2 CIAB

Converting and Uploading .psd Images to the Web

We'll use the handout to complete this process together. After uploading, I will ask you to send a clickable URL to your final products from the first CIAB Chapter to the Moodle forum "CIAB1"

Discuss Tufte C7 "Visual Confections"

• Confection Concepts: Getting Started
• Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Myth of Depth

Pages 132-33, Tufte

Homework

Bring Your Tufte Book

Chapter 3: Classroom in a Book

Read and Complete Chapter 3 of CIAB (Working with Selections)

Myth of Depth

Look at Tansey's "The Myth of Depth" on Tufte's pages 132-33. Choose one of the artists or critics named in the text and do a web search on that figure.

What information or ideas can you find about that person which helps explain how he or she is represented in this painting? What he/she is doing in the scene?

Where does your figure stand in relation to the "whole picture" of abstract expressionism (of which Jackson Pollock was the most famous practitioner)?

Come in ready to discuss the person you chose, his/her place and attitude in the picture, and what Tansey might be saying or explaining with this confection.

Tufte's Confection, Tansey's Myth of Depth

Help Session

CIAB C3 (Working with Selections)

Discuss Tufte C7 "Visual Confections"

• Confection Concepts: Getting Started
• Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Converting and Uploading .psd Images to the Web

We'll do the final products from CIAB 2 and 3

"The Myth of Depth"

(Jackson Pollock) and background analogies for confections

Homework

Read and Complete

CIAB 4 (Layer Basics) and CIAB 6 (Masks and Channels)

Save the .psd files from both exercises in the lesson folders in "vrc," and save optimized .jpg versions in folders "www/4260/exercises/c4" and "www/4260/exercises/c6" respectively.

In the lab, upload those folders via Dreamweaver to your folder "4260/exercises" on the web.

Visit both exercise folders with your web browser and copy all URLs to the Moodle forums "CIAB 4" or "CIAB 6" (respectively)

A Concept for Your Confection Project

Decide on a concept for your Confection Project and bring in a book, article, or printout of a web page which elaborates that concept in writing.

Bring your Tufte book

Layers, Masks and Channels;
Genres, Collages;
Confection Analogies and Parts

Converting and Uploading .psd Images to the Web

We'll use the handout to troubleshoot/complete the process of uploading web-compatible image from CIAB 4 and 6, as well as earlier lessons.

Considering Your Confection Concept

1. Is it sufficiently complex or conceptual to give you enough to visualize?
2. Can your visualization help someone to understand or remember the concept who needs to?
3. Does it need to be visualized to be clear?
4. Does it include parts that have some order or relationship?
5. Does the concept provide you with an opportunity to produce a visual text that is original and analytical?

"Low Res"/"High Res"

What makes a genuine concept for a Confection? ("low resolution" vs. "high resolution"). See Tufte's examples on 149 and 150.

Visual Analogies and Parts:

Drum Major (parade vs. the ocean/boat as a background analogy in "The Myth of Depth," Tufte page 140-41). Break down differences.

I will ask you to come up with four visual analogies for your chosen confection project concept.

Exercise: Visual Analogies as Confection Backgrounds (Self Analysis Activity done in class)

Resources

• El Lissitzky's The Constructor.
• Plato's Allegory of the Cave
• Plato's Cave (Google Image Search)
• Myth of Depth II (Mark Tansey)

Homework

Read and Complete

CIAB 7 (Typographic Design)

Write a Prospectus

Come in with a "prospectus" of your Confection Project idea. In class next time, I will ask you to copy and paste the following to me:

1. a word or phrase standing for the concept you'll visualize
2. the source of the idea (title of the book, article, review, URL of online resource)
3. the name of the author or originator of the concept/idea
4. the component parts of the idea (how you might break it down)
5. a word or phrase describing how the parts dynamically relate (e.g., "a process of development," "a set of branching choices over time," "a set of options for a single choice," "an 'anatomy' of types or features," "the mutual interdependence of two complex systems," "a set of positions in a debate or controversy," etc.).
6. a short paragraph making an analogy that suggests that dynamic of parts: that is, describe the parts of the abstract idea as a road, a weather system, a mansion, a dramatic imaginative scene or tableau, etc.
7. a sentence identifying the genre of your confection and explaining the size, shape, and medium (for example, a 4"x6" postcard, a 2' x 1.5' landscape-oriented poster, a 6.25" x 9.5" book cover).

You are, of course, able to change your mind about any aspect of your prospectus as you work on your project.

Bring your Tufte Book

Typographic Design; Confection Prospectus Due

Extra Credit

I've had a few students ask me about the Extra Credit exercises at the end of the lessons in the CIAB book.

If you have done them--or are interested in doing them now--I will award an additional 20% per lesson. In other words, each lesson is worth 5 points toward your "Projects, Lessons, Exercises" grade (80% of the total grade), and completing the extra credit will give you 6 points per lesson.

If you want to get credit for the Extra Credit assignments, please

1. upload the final product to the web in a web-compatible image file format (see the handout)
2. visit the image with your web browser,
3. copy the URL,
4. visit the Moodle forum for that chapter, and click to reply to your own message (not mine at the top) which contains your URL(s) for the required part of the lesson.
5. In that reply message, type "Extra Credit CIAB 1" (or whatever the chapter number),
6. make those words an active link by highlighting the words, clicking the link icon in the menu above the message window, and then pasting the URL into the box labeled "Link URL."

The extra credit work must be submitted no more than two weeks after the other lesson products are submitted.

Help Session

CIAB 7

Save the finished product as a .jpg file to your USB drive, upload it to the web, and send the URL to the Moodle forum "CIAB C7." For details, see the handout.

Confection or Collage?

Hail to the Thief cover art: confection or collage? How do we decide? (start with Tufte's pages 140-141).

Review, Discuss, and Submit Confection Prospectus

1. Fill out--but don't send--the prospectus form
2. Discuss your project with a neighbor. Express any concerns or uncertainties you have about your answers or the project generally. Give you neighbor feedback on his/her prospectus, and help to make the answers clearer and more complete.
3. Make changes to your prospectus to improve it
4. Send the prospectus of your Confection idea.

Genre

Genres are technical, economic, social vehicles for creative work, either verbal or visual.

Some examples of genres are the postcard, magazine cover, book or magazine illustration, poster, web site image (page design), CD/DVD cover, bookmark, frontispiece, Internet "meme." Others?

On a piece of paper, draw a frame of a shape (and size, if possible) of your genre. Leave some margin around the outside of the frame. This will be the size and shape of your confection. This is its vehicle.

Around in the margins, write words and phrases to identify the following for your project in this genre:

• who
• what
• when
• where
• why

Confection Samples:

• Elizabeth Kubler Ross's Stages of Grief
• Evolution/Creationism Debate
• Beethoven and Romanticism
• The Useful Milkweed Plant
• Radiohead's album cover for Hail to the Thief
• El Lissitzky's The Constructor,

Homework

Read and Complete

CIAB 8 (Vector Drawing) and 9 (Advanced Compositing).

As always, post an optimized version (.jpg) of the final projects to your web space, and send the URL as a clickable link to the Moodle forum "CIAB 8" and "CIAB9."

Collect

Collect the images you'll need for your Confection project and save them in a folder "vrc/confection_files"

Bring your Tufte book

Vector Drawing (C9); Elaborating Confection Parts

Help Session

CIAB 8 (Vector Drawing) and 9 (Advanced Compositing).

Questions and Concerns

What is the essential challenge or concern you have about the Confection Project?

Literalism, Visual Real Estate, and Informational Depth

The Useful Milkweed Plant

Elaborating Parts

Elaborating Parts in a Confection

Each step, stage, or part as a page in an essay.

Genre Scenarios

poster, postcard, book illustration

Homework

Work on your Confection Project

Bring

Bring in all materials for the studio session

Studio Session for Confections

Criteria Checklist of Confections

Confection Due by Noon Monday

By noon on Monday,

1. upload an optimized version (.jpg) of your Confection image file to the web in the folder "www/4260/confection",
2. visit the image with your web browser, and copy the URL from the location bar
3. paste the URL as a clickable link into the Moodle forum, "Confection URLs."

Homework

Confection Commentary

Write, print, and bring in a Confection Commentary due at the beginning of class, turned in on paper, double-spaced. In writing it, you should

1. follow the general guidelines for excellent commentaries
2. also follow the specific requirements mentioned in the assignment.
3. attach to the end of your commentary a printout of your confection (black and white okay, smaller than actual size if the work is larger than standard paper)

Read

Tufte Chapter 2, "Visual and Statistical Thinking"

The Visualized Data Project: Class Cancelled

Introduce

the "Visualized Data Project"

We'll watch part of Hans Rosling's talk on International Health at the 2006 TED Conference

Discussion of Tufte's Chapter 2

For Next Meeting

I will give you a copy of Chris Anderson's article "The End of Theory"

Resources

• Tufte: Broad Street Pump
• Tufte: Handle Removed
• Tufte: Broad Street Aggregation
• Tufte: O-Ring Damage
• Tufte: O-Ring Aggregation

Homework

Confection Commentary

Write, print, and bring in a Confection Commentary due at the beginning of class, turned in on paper, 2 pages long, double-spaced. In writing it, you should

1. follow the general guidelines for excellent commentaries
2. also follow the specific requirements mentioned in the assignment.
3. attach to the end of your commentary a printout of your confection (black and white okay, smaller than actual size if the work is larger than standard paper)

Read

Tufte Chapter 2, "Visual and Statistical Thinking"

The Visualized Data Project

Introduce

the "Visualized Data Project"

We'll watch part of Hans Rosling's talk on International Health at the 2006 TED Conference

Discussion of Tufte's Chapter 2

For Next Meeting

I will give you a copy of Chris Anderson's article "The End of Theory"

Resources

• Tufte: Broad Street Pump
• Tufte: Handle Removed
• Tufte: Broad Street Aggregation
• Tufte: O-Ring Damage
• Tufte: O-Ring Aggregation

Homework

Data Sets

Find on the web an example of a "data set" of at least 20 data points.

In a reply to the Moodle forum "Reviewing a Data Set," paste in the URL of the report you chose and write a paragraph explaining

• what the data is about:
• what it compares,
• what it suggests,
• why that matters,
• whom it's speaking to,
• what it intends,
• how many "data points" it includes.

Be prepared to share and talk about what you found

• Pew Research CenterNationMaster
• StateMasterGoogle TrendsWorldmapper
• FedStats (Gateway to US Government Federal Statistics)
• UMD Library's Databases by Subject

Bring Your Tufte Book

The End of Theory (Big Data)

Data Sets

Excel Charts

You Will Receive

a copy of Chris Anderson's article "The End of Theory"

Reviewing the Assignment

See the Visualized Data Project

Discuss Tufte's Chapter 2

We'll begin with the end: Tufte's six principles (53)

Your Data Sets

Why it's called "visual rhetoric"

I will ask you to compare your data set with a neighbor to decide which one would make the best example to visualize to illustrate one of Tufte's principles 2, 3, 5, or 6.

Excel Charts

We'll follow one of the following tutorials to create a chart from a table of data in either Excel 2010 or Excel 2011.

Open the the Excel worksheet "Cell Phone App Usage and Loyalty" for some data to work with.

Resources

• Tufte: Broad Street Pump
• Tufte: Handle Removed
• Tufte: Broad Street Aggregation
• Tufte: O-Ring Damage
• Tufte: O-Ring Aggregation
• a handout of 2 Excel techniques

Homework

Bring

Come in with data to support your Visualized Data Project idea.

Read

Chris Anderson's article "The End of Theory"

Excel Charts, The End of Theory, Visible Images in Moodle

Visualized Data Project

Reviewing the Assignment

Questions about your choice of topic?

Layers of Data: Minard's Famous Map and the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria (Homework)

• Minard's Map
• See the site "Re-visions of Minard" (Best online Version)
• Handout: Salem Village: Social Geography of Witchcraft

Excel Charts

We'll follow one of the following tutorials to create a chart from a table of data in either Excel 2010 or Excel 2011.

Open the the Excel worksheet "Cell Phone App Usage and Loyalty" for some data to work with.

More Excel Tricks

• How to Fill Sequential numbers and dates automatically
• adding data to an existing chart

• Multiple Y-Axis Charts
• Saving Chart as an image file. Save the file in a folder "www/4260/exercises/excel" on your USB.

Big Data and the Digital Humanities

Google books Ngram Viewer

Uploading Excel Chart Images

• Use Dreamweaver to upload your Excel chart image folder "excel" into your "exercises" folder on the web.
• Use the directions "Inserting Visible Images into a Moodle forum" to post your image as a reply to the forum "Excel Charts from Data"

Homework

Bring

Come in with data to support your Visualized Data Project topic.

Read

From Amazon's customer reviews of the book Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, see the review "A Rational Look at an Irrational Moment" for a summary of the authors' argument. Scan others for additional information.

Make a bring in a list of facts, numbers, distances, etc. that could help us tell this story with data. If we were researching this phenomenon quantitively, what data would we want to find?

For more detail than on the handout (Salem Village: Social Geography of Witchcraft) see also W.P. Upham's Contemporary Map of Salem Village 1692

Be prepared to discuss the reading and your list.

Choose and Be Prepared to Discuss

Take a look at the varieties of charts we created which are displayed in the Moodle forum "Excel Charts from Data"

Imagine you are a app developer deciding on the best type of app to create and you are basing your decision on two sets of data: popularity and loyalty.

Be prepared to answer the following questions in dicussion:

1. which version of the chart would be the most helpful in helping you make your choice?
2. what about that one chart makes it your choice?
3. identify some aspect of a less helpful chart and say why your first choice is more effective? (Don't worry about criticizing anyone's chart since we picked these formats pretty much at random.)
4. Is there a single aspect of any of the charts that you found unique, distinctive, interesting, surprising, etc.?

Salem Witchcraft Hysteria (Maps, Data, and Layers); Excel and Photoshop

Questions about the Project?

• "Numbers become evidence by being in relation to" (Tufte 44).
• See the Visualized Data Project Assignment, which is due by noon next Monday. Questions?
• Samples of Two Formats
• Chart-based (Barry Bonds)
• Map-based (Minard's Map: Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow)

Excel Charts from Data: Significance of Visual Design

We will discuss your answers to the questions posed in the homework.

Salem Witchcraft Hysteria (Maps, Data, and Layers)

From Amazon's customer reviews of the book Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, see the review "A Rational Look at an Irrational Moment" for a summary of the authors' argument. Scan others for additional information.

From the summaries and reviews of this book, think about the "layers of data" that could be added to the map of accusers, defenders, and accused at the top of the handout.

Make a list of possible additions to the map that would help explain the underlying causes of the hysteria: physical features (see the contemporary map), legal and economic data (see the handout's example of the actual landholdings of the rival Putnam and Porter families), and other relevant demographics. Assume that this data would be available.

Once you decide on a limited number of key layers that could be added to the map to visually explain the causes, try hand-drawing them into your map to build your graphic. The more you can suggest quantities and comparisons with your graphic, the more persuasive.

• Handout: Salem Village: Social Geography of Witchcraft
• W.P. Upham's Contemporary Map of Salem Village 1692
• Minard's Map

Discuss Significance of Data

Chris Anderson's article "The End of Theory"

Anderson argues that "theory" is obsolete. Science should rethink its insistence on scientific theory, political science on political theory, literary studies on literary theory, etc.

Why does Anderson believe this, and what alternative(s) does Anderson imagine to theory? What purpose does theory have and what is the logic of Anderson's alternative?

You will write your own quiz question in the Moodle forum "Anderson" to help direct us to specific reasons and answers from Anderson's article.

Big Data and the Digital Humanities

Google books Ngram Viewer

From Excel to Photoshop

Some examples of

Tracing Layers (see Distribution of Income by Religious Belief)

Adapting an Excel Chart

Matching Background Colors

Return of Confections

Today, I will also return your Confection Projects. Please see the page on the Collaborative Revision Project if you are interested in revisiting this project for extra credit.

Homework

Bring

Come in with all materials needed to work on your Visualized Data Project.

Studio Session for Visualized Data Project

Questions...

about the "Visualized Data Project"?

1. I will suggest posting a place-holder image to the location of your project so you can be sure to have a URL posted to the Moodle forum well before Monday at noon.

2. I will also give you a handout of 2 Excel techniques

Visualized Data Project Due By Noon Today

1. upload an optimized version (.jpg) of your Visualized Data image file to the web in the folder "www/4260/data",

2. visit the image with your web browser, and copy the URL from the location bar

3. paste the URL as a clickable link into the Moodle forum, "Visualized Data URLs" in the "Projects" section

Homework

Read

Scott McCloud's Chapter 2 from Understanding Comics

Write, print, and bring in

your commentary on the Visualized Data Project. This document should fulfill:

a. the general guidelines for excellent commentaries as well as the

b. specific requirements mentioned in the assignment.

Narrative Title Sequence Project

Turn in

I will pick up the Visualized Data commentary

Introduce Next Assignment

The third visual technique:

1. visual analogies
2. visualed data
3. visual narrative
   
   

See the assignment Narrative Title Sequence Project

Terms

Montage, narrative, (The Odessa Steps scene from The Battleship Potempkin)

Resources

• McCloud's Pyramid
• Snow White (student project example)
• Mad Men Title Sequence (narrative and montage)
• Sopranos Title Sequence (narrative, mise-en-scene)
• Gilligan's Island Title Sequence (backstory, but themes?)
• Simpson's Title Sequences (old and new)

Homework

Read

McCloud Chapter 3

Post to Moodle

2. On YouTube or some other online source, find the URL of a opening title sequence from a television show or movie. Be sure to pick a sequence that is narrative.

Post a clickalbe URL to that video in the forum, "Sample Narrative Title Sequences."

In that same forum message, write a paragraph that

a. explains the ways that the sequence does or does not fulfill the requirements of the assignment (especially the terms in bold)

b. applies one of the techniques or issues discussed by McCloud in Chapters 2 and/or 3 to the style or content of the sequence. Be sure to include the page number from McCloud. Say how this technique or issue can be useful for the Narrative Title Sequence Assignment.

c. Write a "logline" for the entire series

Bring

Bring in a song in digital form (if you're able to) on your USB.

Diachronic and Synchronic Meaning;

McCloud Chapters 2 and 3

Diachronic and Synchronic Meaning

• "dia-" comes from Greek "passing through" (as in "dialogue" = dia + logue, meaning "word or reason")
• "syn-" comes from Greek "together" (as in "synthesis," meaning "combining together"
• "-chronic" comes from Greek for "time" (as in "a chronic problem" means it's been a problem for a long time)
  
  

See the online handout Diachronic and Synchronic

We'll then review the diachronic and synchronic aspects of:

• Simpson's Title Sequences (old and new) - diachronic meaning (four simultaeous stories of charactrers converging on home)
• Twin Peaks Title Sequence -synchronic meaning (lots of thematic balls thrown in the air)

Then we'll discuss the "Mad Men" Title Sequence

McCloud C2

McCloud's Pyramid

Why and how do these choices of visual style matter to the meaning of a visual narrative? How are these choices not just abitrary?

McCloud C3

McCloud Transitions

Sample Title Sequences and McCloud

Talk about your "Sample Narrative Title Sequences"

Resources

• Arrested Development Title Sequence

Homework

Read

McCloud Chapter 4, "Time Frames"

Do in Excel or Word

In the cells of an Excel file (or you can use a Word file like this one if you like), chart McCloud's six kinds of montage (editing) across an entire each shot-transition of a title sequence.

Save the Excel or Word file on your USB and bring it to class. Add additional columns if you need to. See this sample chart.

Visual Styles and Shot Transitions; Begin Slideshows in iPhoto

Current Assignment Questions?

Narrative Title Sequence

Shot Tracking

Take a screen shot of your chart, use Photoshop to resize it to no larger than 600 pixels wide, and save it as a .jpg to your "vrc" folder on your USB.

Post the .jpg as a visible image in the Moodle forum "Shot Tracking." With the image, post the URL of the title sequence online.

Follow these directions for visible images in Moodle:

A. save the screen shot as a .jpg, .gif or .png image on your USB. Make the screen shots 800 pixels wide.

B. In Moodle, choose to "Reply" to the appropriate forum's introductory message

C. above the message window, choose the "Insert/edit Image" icon (looks like a tiny picture of a tree)

D. from the "Insert/Edit Image" window, click the "Find or Upload an Image" bar

E. from the "File Picker" window, choose the "Browse" button and naviage to your image file, click "Open"

F. click the "Upload this file" button,

G. back in the "Insert/Edit Image" window, choose "Insert"

H. In the message window, space down and then repeat for any other images you want to include.

Exercise: Slideshows in iPhoto

I will give you a copy of the handout, "iPhoto 09 Slideshow to a Web-Compatible Movie File"

For this exercise, I'll ask you to download these three images

McCloud C4

Time in shots (panels)

- How can McCloud's techniques for handling time in panels translate to our slideshows?

Resources

• McCloud Transitions
• Diachronic and Synchronic
• Mad Men Title Sequence
• North by Northwest Title Sequence
• To Kill a Mockingbird Title Sequence
• Almost Famous Title Sequence
• Sound of crickets mp3 (see section 2 in Moodle)
• McCloud party (C4)
• McCloud party with dialogue (C4)
• McCloud timeless (C4)

Homework

Write Prospectus

By the beginning of class, write--but do no submit--a tentative Prospectus for the Subject of the Narrative Title Sequence Project. Be sure to write it in Word or some other form you can save on your USB (inside of "vrc")

Comment on Shot Tracking

In a reply to your own message in the Moodle forum, "Shot Tracking," post a URL to your title sequence online, and write a paragraph on one or two instances of editing in the title sequence. On at least two occasions, be sure to refer to a specific page and frame from McCloud's Chapters 3 or 4.

Complete Slideshows in iPhoto;

Camera Work; Visual Styles and Transitions Workshop

Current Assignment

Narrative Title Sequence

McCloud's Visual Styles and Transitions in a Title Sequence

1. Take a screen shot of your seven-row table in Word, crop it, and insert it as a visible image in the Moodle forum, "Shot Tracking"

2. Diachronic and Synchronic Narratives, mise-en-scene

Mini Lecture

Camera Work 1, Camera Work 2

Resources

Diachronic and Synchronic
"Mad Men" Title Sequence
Sopranos Title Sequence
Snow White (synchronic, character-based title sequence)
The Walking Dead Opening Credits
The Talking Dead "Fan"-Produced Opening Credits and the "Making of" Commentary at Art of the Title)
Narrative Title Sequence Assignment

Homework

1. Reveiw again McCloud's Chapter 4. Come in ready to discuss a principle or technique from the chapter as it relates to a particular shot or edit in a particular title sequence (=panel or gutter in a comic).

As a visual aid for the point you will make in class, take and crop a screen shot--or shots in the case of an cut or transition--and insert them as visible images (400 pixels wide) in a reply to the Moodle forum "McCloud and Video Sequences." Also include a URL to the entire video.

Please post this reply at least by 3:00 on Monday

2. Watch both versions of The Walking Dead title sequence, as well as reading the "Making of" page

• The Walking Dead Opening Credits
• The Talking Dead "Fan"-Produced Opening Credits and the "Making of" Commentary at Art of the Title)
  
  

In a reply in the Moodle forum "Five Jobs of a Title Sequence, post a list of five sentences, each describing a possible job of a title sequence for a television series, and, as illustration, use specific examples from either of these sequences. If a sequence we've all seen from another show comes to mind you can mention that as well.

Jobs of the Title Sequence;

Panels to McCloud/Shots to Video

Four Areas of Technique:

• Visual Style (McCloud C2)
• Transitions, Edits, Gutters, and Cuts (McCloud C3)
• Use of Time Within and Among Frames (McCloud C4)
• Camera Work

Time Frames

Discuss specific panels from McCloud's Chapter 4 and sample title sequences.

Visual Styles and Transitions

McCloud's Visual Styles and Transitions in a Title Sequence

Five Jobs of a Title Sequence

• The Walking Dead Opening Credits
• The Talking Dead "Fan"-Produced Opening Credits a

Resources

• McCloud Transitions
• Diachronic and Synchronic
• Mad Men Title Sequence
• Sound of crickets mp3 (see section 2 in Moodle)
• McCloud party (C4)
• McCloud party with dialogue (C4)
• McCloud timeless (C4)

Homework

Download Audacity to a laptop or other non-lab computer.

Try following the tutorial "Editing the Length of Audio with Audacity and Adding it to a Slideshow."

Edit a song down to the length of a title sequence--a minute or so at the most. Try to make the edit as unnoticable as possible.

You could also try adding sound effects or voiceovers on separate layers.

No class meeting

Homework

Storyboard

Create a storyboard for your title sequence: See examples of storyboarding: Taxi Driver, Sara Conner Chronicles

Use 4x6 or 3x5 index cards (if you have them) to plan each panel/shot and the ways edits or transitions between them suggest either diachronic or synchronic connections.

Storyboards and Principles

Audacity Mixing

Tone and Atmosphere

Review Assignment

• Narrative Title Sequence, including Criteria/Principles

Audacity Troubleshooting

• Mixing Voice, Sound, Music with Audacity (Audacity)
• Crickets (right-click on the link and choose "Save As...")
• Car Sounds
• Royalty-Free Music Loops

Storyboards: Tone and Atmosphere

• Sample Narrative Title Sequences
• Weeds Title Sequence

Narrative Title Sequence Project Commentary Due

Essay and Visual Project: The Cultural Work of an Image

Extra Credit

Please see the page on the Collaborative Revision Project if you are interested in revisiting the Visualized Data Project or Confection Project for extra credit.

Next Project

Introduce the Essay and Visual Project
We will use the Moodle forum "Cultural Work"

Key Terms for Critical Ideas

• Cultural Work
• History (Fredric Jameson)
• displacement as a means of cultural work

Resources

• The Accidental Tourist
• Reader's Poll: Best Album Covers
• Battleship (see other versions of the box)
• Google's Ngram Viewer

Handout

• Three Paragraphs

Homework

Read

• the "Three Paragraphs" handout
• McCloud Chapter 6: Show and Tell

Find and Bring

Come in with the image you have selected for your Essay and Visual Project.

Bring

Bring Tufte and McCloud books, and the handout "Three Paragraphs...."

Assignment Elements; Thesis; Words and Image Relationships

Questions

• ...about the Essay and Visual Project?
• ...about the optional Collaborative Revision Project Option?

The "Three Paragraphs" handout

• The image itself
• First Paragraph (context)
• Close Reading
• Second Paragraph (Visual Information)
• Critical Writing
• Third Paragraph (Visual Design, Camera Work)

• Mingling Your Elements: Thesis, Context, Visual Design, Information Design, Conclusions ("...and now there is a quote from Robert Frost.")

Thesis

We will use the Moodle forum "Thesis (Washington Shirt Company Image)"

• "The Washington Shirt Company image demonstrates…  "
• "The _______ of the Washington Shirt Company image represents…."  
• "Combining ________, __________, and __________, this image asserts…."  

McCloud's Chapter 6: Words and Images

• Image/word relationships in the Washington Shirt Company image?
• McCloud's account of "traditional thinking" about mingling words and images.
• 7 relationships of image and words
• Example of different relationships with the same set of images (157-)

Visual Design

McCloud techniques and Camera Work in the image "The Accidental Tourist"

Optional Conferences: No Class Meeting

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Write two paragraphs combining your thesis, details of context with details of information design (Tufte) and/or visual design (McCloud).

Conference Sign-Up
Dialogical Writing: Details and Ideas
Non-Fiction Trailers (Non-Fiction)

Next Two Meetings are cancelled for conferences: Humanities 437

Sign up for a time via the Moodle page under "Conference Sign Up"

By 24 hours before your conference, please complete the Essay and Visual Project Prospectus form

Dialogical Writing Technique

"You have to let words talk to words...." - Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers (26).

Resource

The handout "Three paragraphs from a Sample 'Cultural Work of an Image' Essay" (.doc)

The Visual Paratext

The visual aspect of the Essay and Visual Project?

How would we visualize our youth culture sample?

We will watch the following non-fiction, non-narrative film trailers, and discuss

1. What arguments, analyses, and evidence are the trailers summarizing and publicizing from the film?

2. What are the visual and narrative techniques by which these large, abstract, verbal ideas are presented in these sequences of images and words?

3. How do these trailers indicate what comes next? What the viewer is to do?)

• The Fog of War
• Helvetica (and the non-verbal alternative version)
• The Corporation

Conferences

Sign up for a 20-minutes conference on Thursday, Monday, or Tuesday via the Moodle Wikis under "Conference Sign Up"

No less than 24 hours before your conference, please complete the Essay and Visual Project Prospectus form.

Please let me know by email if you cannot meet during one of the available conference times, and we can arrange a different time.

No Class Meeting: Conferences

No Class Meeting: Conferences

• 8:10 Shelby
• 8:30 Lance
• 8:50 Seth
• 9:10 Jessica
• 9:30 Megan
• 9:50 Eva
• 10:10 Cindy
• 10:30 Amber

Homework

Write and Print

Write and print the essay portion of the Essay and Visual Project to turn in at the beginning of class today.

Conclusions, Evaluations, and Studio Session

Essay Due at the Beginning of Class

Permission to Share your Projects in Future Classes

Please complete the brief Permission Form.

Students who agree to permit sharing of their projects in future classes become collaborative partners in the development of the course, the program, and UMD generally.

Consider providing permission--with any restrictions you'd like to include--for future students to benefit from your work this semester.

Studio Session for the Visual Paratext

Return of Projects

FINAL
Tuesday, 12/17 at 4:00