Compared last project, I have made the significant progress on three aspects: the practical skills of operating different softwares, the understanding of the main features of online interactive media, and creative brainstorming of producing a new project.

For assignment 3, there are a few requirements, which can also be seen as constrains, that encourages us to achieve a higher level of modularity and variability. Firstly, it asks for twelve 30-second clips, implying that we should have a general theme but also think about how small pieces can both share a same feature and still have unique contents. This is greatly related to the feature ‘modularity’ that we want every piece of online media can function because of the viewing habit of the time. After the project is finished, I think we did a good job of this part. We considered very rich and detailed content for every clip, that each of them represents an exisiting album cover, and all our clips are interesting by showing their true first impression of the covers, rather than just reacting what the cover actually look like. Secondly, we are asked to use Korsakow to build a real webpage, which is so different from the last assignment. This is my first time to do a webpage media, and I really enjoy that. Korsakow is a software that designed for interactive media work, and it uses the so called ‘algorithmic editing’ — the system will randomly choose the clips under the same in or out keyword, so viewers get the ability to watch through different paths. As a result, using Korsakow is an very significant part to respond to variability, yet we didn’t have this skill in assignment 2. 

During the entire producing, the problem we discussed mostly is how to reveal our real theme — making the connection between the first impression clips and the original album covers. In my own opinion, our final solution has both advantages and disadvantages. For the positive side, it allows greater creative freedom for us to film the first impression videos, so videos could more abstract and intentional. Also, the final project is more thought-provoking, and to some extend, more interactive. However, the negative side, just like the feedback for Thursday’s presentation, we are not sure that how many people have that patient to watch the first eleven clips and finally figure out they are the first impressions of album cover. Now, people always like to critique right after reading the title, or watching the beginning, but our work actually needs more time to have a guess. And one point we could develop more is that we didn’t put too many texts in the outdo video, there are only the names and musicians of albums. When I watched the example Talk With Your Hands Like An Ellis Island Mutt, I was so confused that I really couldn’t know what he was talking about and didn’t have enough interest to dig deeper. I think it is better to have more explanation of our idea, but still put it at the end of the film, and find a way in Korsakow to ensure audiences will watch the outro clip in the end. Another limitation of our work may be the choice of album covers. We first have the idea to let viewers upload their own liked album covers, and express their impression in any form they like. However, it’s not that easy to pick a cover to do first impression. That means the cover should not be too specific, like shows the name and even face of the singer. If we still want to do a project that allows viewers to participate in, the theme should be more contained.

Finally, in all, I’m so happy that our group did a great collaboration, came up together with such a cool idea, and completed most as expected. Beyond having a deeper understanding of this course, I also had an unforgettable experience to work with local students, and really improved my English a lot.