I chose to critique "Prufrock Remixed" by Justin Higgins. I'll just start off by saying that overall I really liked this project. I think it is very creative way of storytelling. The idea of taking something like a short story or a poem and stretching out over a variety of different sites and using a variety of different media to convey said poem is quite ingenious.
The obvious criticism here is that this method of storytelling does nothing but complicate the original poem but that is the whole point of this remix. The idea is to use an original method of storytelling regardless of how complicated it may be. Personally, my feeling is that it could be more complicated. I think it would be more fun for the reader to have to figure out where to go next as opposed to simply being told. That said, I understand that an insane amount of work has already gone into making this and no more is really necessary. That said, while I'm suggesting other possibilities, the author could also give the readers a choice of places to go and different stories could be linked together in order to change the meaning.
The suggestions above are just that, suggestions. It is a very original way to tell a story without really making anything too complicated. I would interested to see someone do this with an original story so they could do more to play with the content of the story as well as the way it is read. It is the potential of what can be done with this form of storytelling that makes this such an interesting remix.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Remix Explained
As I have stated before in this blog, I am a journalism student. I have been trained to write in the most simple way possible. So my goal with this project was to take the least simplistic writing I could think of, Shakespeare, and adapt the flowery language into something that is a little more in keeping with what I normally write.
The way I accomplished this was to take four excerpts from Shakespeare's Hamlet and put them on a flowery background (get it, to represent the flowery language). Then I used the rollover image function in dreamweaver (anyone who has seen my homepage knows that this is my FAVORITE tool) so that when you mouse over the excerpts they rollover and reveal my simplified translations on a plain white background.
The point of my project, beyond the obvious simplification, was to display the aesthetic value of white space which is something that many of my journalism professors have preached. I tried to have fun with the way i arranged the words without really doing anything special to the meaning. Overall, I am satisfied with the way the core of the project turned out. I'm not thrilled with the title or the sub-heading above the excerpts. If anyone has any suggestions I am open to them because honestly, I think what I have up there right now is pretty lame. If you haven't seen the project yet then you can look at it here.
The way I accomplished this was to take four excerpts from Shakespeare's Hamlet and put them on a flowery background (get it, to represent the flowery language). Then I used the rollover image function in dreamweaver (anyone who has seen my homepage knows that this is my FAVORITE tool) so that when you mouse over the excerpts they rollover and reveal my simplified translations on a plain white background.
The point of my project, beyond the obvious simplification, was to display the aesthetic value of white space which is something that many of my journalism professors have preached. I tried to have fun with the way i arranged the words without really doing anything special to the meaning. Overall, I am satisfied with the way the core of the project turned out. I'm not thrilled with the title or the sub-heading above the excerpts. If anyone has any suggestions I am open to them because honestly, I think what I have up there right now is pretty lame. If you haven't seen the project yet then you can look at it here.
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