Schedule | Fall 2014

Day 27: Presentations

Homework

Post a link or image to Moodle

For our final class meeting, please post an image--or link to an image--to the Moodle forum "What I'll Remember."

You do not need to say anything in the post, but be prepared to explain in class how the image shows or represents something you will remember from this class about "visual rhetoric" or "visual culture."

The image can be one from the presentations, from this web site, from one of your (or someone else's) projects, a still screen-shot from a video, or an image we haven't looked at together.

Day 28: Conclusions, Evaluations

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.

WEEK 1

T 9/2

Day 1: Introduce Class, Visual Rhetoric, and the Confection Project

Syllabus

We'll look at and discuss the syllabus

Access to Photoshop this Semester

• Computer Labs ("Full Service" including Dreamweaver and Photoshop CS6)
• Adobe Photoshop Free 30-Day Trial (CC)
• Options for individual subscriptions of Photoshop (CC)

Course Web Site

Visual Rhetoric?

• How is "visual rhetoric" different from graphic design?
• Representational Space (Visual, Verbal, Hybrid)
• Rule-Bound Writing Space vs. Intuitiveness of Visual Space
• concepts, data, narratives, culture/history
• "Know Your Career Path with the G+P+V Formula"

Edward Tufte and the First Assignment (Visual Confection)

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

See the assignment page for the Visual Confection Project

Homework

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 "vrc".

Your folders should then look like this:

vrc

Lesson01

www

4260

ciab

exercises

data

narrative_title

You will need to complete this lesson sitting at a computer with Photoshop installed. See the following options for accessing Photoshop.

• Computer Labs ("Full Service" including Dreamweaver and Photoshop CS6)
• Adobe Photoshop Free 30-Day Trial (CC)
• Options for individal subscriptions of Photoshop (CC)

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.

Day 2: Tufte C1, Photoshop CIAB 1

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"

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

2. See the article "Readers Absorb Less on Kindles Than on Paper, Study Finds."

Introducing the Confection Project

Let's look over the Confection Project. Scroll down to find the due date, or do a "Find" search with your web browser for the words "confection due by".

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.

• Urge to See
• Thurderstorms
• Sunspots

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.

Homework

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

See the page Confection Concepts: Getting Started for directions

Day 3:

• Tufte's Visual Confection (C7);

• CIAB2;

• Converting and Uploading Images

Getting Ready for Class

1. Insert your USB drive into your computer
2. Be sure you have rearranged your folders as described below (discussed last meeting)
3. Open Photoshop and your files from the homework
4. Get out your Tufte book
5. Look again at Tufte's commentary on the painting "The Myth of Depth" on pages 132-33
6. Read over the homework for next time, especially "The Myth of Depth" portion.

Tufte's Blind Spot

• Tufte Image: The Urge to See
• "cultural literacy" (a.k.a., cultural codes)
• See Edward Hopper's Night Hawks. What about the image suggesst that the time period of the scene is the early 1940s?

Rearranging Folders on your USB

Be sure you've made the following changes to the arrangement of folders on your USB:

1. that you've moved "ciab" from "4260" (that is "www/4260") to "vrc"
2. that you created a new folder "ciab1" inside of "exercises" (that is "www/4260/exercises"

vrc

ciab

Lesson01

www

4260

exercises

ciab1

data

narrative_title

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
• Can I Use That Picture?
• Tufte Image: Road to Ruin
• Tufte Image: The Constructor

Myth of Depth

Pages 132-33, Tufte

• The Myth of Depth
• abstract expressionism
• Jackson Pollock

Homework

Bring Your Tufte Book

Chapter 3: Classroom in a Book

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

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.

Day 4:

• Tufte's Confection,

• Tansey's Myth of Depth;

• CIAB 3

Getting Ready for Class

1. Insert your USB drive into your computer
2. Open Photoshop and your files from the homework
3. Get out the book, article, or printout that contains the concept for your confection (homework). Consider the questions below. Think of questions or concerns you have.
4. Get out your Tufte book
5. Look again at Tufte's commentary on the painting "The Myth of Depth" on pages 132-33
6. Read over the homework for next time, especially "The Myth of Depth" portion.

Concept for Your Confection?

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?

Troubleshoot Optimizing .PSD Files, Uploading, Posting URLs to Moodle (10 Mintes!)

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.

Discuss Tufte C7 "Visual Confections"

• Confection Concepts: Getting Started
• parts, relationships, structural backgrounds
• "Know Your Career Path with the G+P+V Formula" vs Road to Ruin
• Chickens on Harpsichord
• Remember first day: Writing Space vs. Visual Space
• Can I Use That Picture?
• The Constructor
• Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Myth of Depth (Homework)

Pages 132-33, Tufte

• The Myth of Depth
• abstract expressionism
• Jackson Pollock

Help Session

CIAB C3 (Working with Selections)

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)

Myth of Depth

Look and Find

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.

Think

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)?

Write and Bring

Write a paragraph containing the best of what you saw, found, and thought: that is, explaining who your person was, describing what role he/she played in abstract expressionism's challenge to the "myth of depth," and analyzing the ways Tansey represents your person in the painting.

Come in Ready

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. I will collect your paragraphs so please have them on paper.

Day 5:

• CIBA - Layers, Masks and Channels;

• Confection Analogies and Parts

Getting Ready for Class

1. Insert your USB drive into your computer
2. Open Photoshop and your files from the homework
3. Get out the book, article, or printout that contains the concept for your confection (homework from Day 4). Consider the questions below. Think of questions or concerns you have.
4. Get out your Tufte book
5. Get out the paragraph (on paper) that you wrote about one of the people represented in "The Myth of Depth," and be prepared to talk about your figure and how he/she is represented in the Tansey painting on page 132-33.

Looking Ahead

See Week 4 in the schedule below for when the Confection is due.

Troubleshoot 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.

Prospectus for Your Confection Concept (Homework)

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 (Myth of Depth):

Understanding "The Myth of Depth"

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

Exercise:

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

Then, you will complete the Moodle forum activity "Visual Analogies as Confection Backgrounds" following the directions on the page Self Analysis Activitity)

Resources

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

Homework

Read and Complete

CIAB 7 (Typographic Design)

Write a Prospectus

Come in with a "prospectus" of your Confection Project idea on your USB. In class, I will ask you to copy and paste responses to the following items to me via a web form:

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 (for example., "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 describing a visual structure that would suggest that dynamic of parts. This structure (according to Tufte) might be:
   
   A. an imagined scene (or analogy) that characterizes the parts of the concept as a road, a map, a weather system, a mountain, a mansion, a dramatic imaginated scene or tableau, etc.
   
   B. a series of "compartments" arranged and/or connected to suggest the relationships of the parts (see, for instance, the flowchart or the frontispiece of "The Anatomy of Meloncholy."
   
   
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

Day 6:

• Typographic Design

• Confection Prospectus Due

• Genre

Extra Credit in CIAB

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 7" (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.

Troubleshooting 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.

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

Example of concept: 10 Things the Perfect City Needs

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 a margin of about an inch around the outside of the frame. This will be the size and shape of your confection. This is its vehicle.

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

• who
• what
• when
• where
• why

Which Sample Confection is Your Most Likely Model?

• The Myth of Depth
• Beethoven and Romanticism
• Elizabeth Kubler Ross's Stages of Grief
• Evolution/Creationism Debate
• The Useful Milkweed Plant
• El Lissitzky's The Constructor
• Road to Ruin
• Chickens on Harpsichord
• Anatomy of Melancholy

Confection or Collage?

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

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

Day 7:

• Vector Drawing (C8)

• Advanced Composing (C9)

• Elaborating Confection Parts

Getting Ready for Class

1. Insert your USB drive into your computer
2. Open Photoshop and your files from the homework
3. Talk with your neighbors about the homework and troubleshoot any problems.
4. If you haven't already, convert and upload the homework files and send the URLs to the appropriate Moodle forums.
5. Get out your Tufte book

Troubleshooting 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?

Visual vs. Informational Depth

• The Useful Milkweed Plant
• The Ultimate Weed
• Tufte's visual examples of low-res information and high-res information on 149 and 150
• EAD:
• Eloquent pixels,
• Administrative pixels, and
• Decorative pixels

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
• Bring your Photoshop CIAB book

Day 8:

Studio Session for Confections

Review Criteria

See the Criteria Checklist for The Confection Project

Review Process of Turning In

Review Homework for Next Meeting

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".
   
   For the image to be accessible to a web browser, you will also need to have an "index.html" page in the "confection" folder.
   
   
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"

Day 9: The Visualized Data Project

Collect Confection Commentaries

Troubleshoot Uploading of Images

I will give you a copy of the tutorial handout, "Creating a Link from an "index.html" Page to An Image."

Introduce

the "Visualized Data Project"

Tufte's Chapter 2

I will give you a copy of the Discussion Guide

Significance of Data

If we have time, we'll watch part of Hans Rosling's talk on International Health at the 2006 TED Conference

Resources

• Tufte: Broad Street Pump
• Tufte: Handle Removed
• Tufte: Broad Street Aggregation
• Tufte: O-Ring Damage
• Tufte: O-Ring Aggregation
• Google Street View of the corner of Broad and Lexington Streets in London

T 10/2

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

Here are a few sources for statistical data you might use if you don't find your own:

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

Complete Tufte Discussion Guide

Complete the Discussion Guide for Chapter 2 that we began working on in groups last time.

Remember you don't have to answer the questions in sentences and paragraphs, only with page numbers and notes for yourself to use in discussion.

Day 10:

• Tufte's Visual and Statistical Thinking

• Excel Charts

• Data Sets

Getting Ready for Class

1. Put your USB drive in your computer
2. Be sure you have posted your homework to the "Reviewing a Data Set" Moodle forum.
3. Click the link "Cell Phone App Usage and Loyalty" to download and open an Excel file for later use.
4. Get out your Tufte book and turn to Chapter 2
5. Get out your completed Discussion Guide for Tufte's Chapter 2
6. Chat with your neighbors about what you found to add to the Discussion Guide. In discussion, I'll be asking for what your group found and thought.
7. Look over the Visualized Data Project page to see if you have thought of any questions.

Review from Last Time

See the image Tufte: O-Ring Damage and think about the title of Tufte's chapter.

Reviewing the Assignment

See the Visualized Data Project

Discuss Tufte's Chapter 2

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

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.

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.

Resources

• Tufte: Geography of the London Epidemic
• Tufte: Handle Removed
• Tufte: Broad Street Aggregation
• Tufte: O-Ring Damage
• Tufte: O-Ring Aggregation
• a handout of 2 Excel techniques
• Google Street View of the corner of Broad and Lexington Streets in London

WEEK 6
T 10/7

Homework

Decide, Find, and Bring

Decide on a topic for your Visualized Data Project. Come in with some data that quantifies that topic (turns it into numbers).

Ask Yourself and Be Prepared to Answer in Class

Consider these questions to analyze the possible significance of the data you found concerning your chosen topic.

On a piece of paper, make some notes for each question to help you analyze your topic and how well your data supports it.

1. what the data is about:
2. what it compares,
3. what it suggests,
4. why that matters,
5. whom it's speaking to,
6. what it intends,
7. how many "data points" it includes.

What You Like, What You'd Suggest

Look carefully at the following examples of visualed data (some created in response to the assignment, some not). For each, identify:

1. something you like about the "visual and statistical thinking" demonstrated by the graphic
2. something you'd suggest to make the graphic (or statistical thinking) more effective--especially as an example of what the assignment calls for.

• The Crimes of Walter White
• English Proficiency in the Hmong Population
• Baseball Teams' Payroll and Winning Percentage
• Religion and Income
• Barry Bonds' Slugging Percentage and Age Compared to Other Batters

Bring Your Tufte Book

Day 11:

• Data Sets

• Excel Charts

Reviewing the Assignment

See the Visualized Data Project

Review from Last Time

• Tufte: Handle Removed
• Tufte: Broad Street Aggregation
• Tufte: Geography of the London Epidemic
• Thinking about the next time I teach the Confecton Project (Beethoven and Romanticism, Fives Stages of Grief, Meet My Family (Poster Edges Filter) examples

Reviewing the Assignment

See the Visualized Data Project

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.

What You Liked, What You'd Suggest

• The Crimes of Walter White
• English Proficiency in the Hmong Population
• Baseball Teams' Payroll and Winning Percentage
• Religion and Income
• Barry Bonds' Slugging Percentage and Age Compared to Other Batters

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.

Homework

Bring

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

Day 12: Excel Charts

Visualized Data Project

Reviewing the Assignment

Questions about your choice of topic?

Visualized Data Documents: From Excel to Photoshop

I will give you a copy of the handout "Visualized Data Documents: Excel to Photoshop"

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

Uploading Excel/Photoshop Images

• Use Dreamweaver to upload your Excel chart image folder "excel" into your "exercises" folder on the web. Be sure to add an "index.html" page to that folder
• Post a link to your "excel" folder image to the Moodle forum "Excel/Photoshop" before the end of the day today.

One More Excel Trick

Multiple Y-Axis Charts (note that you may need to adapt these directions according to your version of Excel and the operating system).

What You Liked, What You'd Suggest

• The Crimes of Walter White
• English Proficiency in the Hmong Population
• Baseball Teams' Payroll and Winning Percentage
• Religion and Income
• Barry Bonds' Slugging Percentage and Age Compared to Other Batters

Homework

Bring

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

Day 13: Studio Session for Visualized Data Project

Visualized Data Documents: From Excel to Photoshop

I will give you a copy of the revised, complete exercise

Criteria for the Visualized Data Project

I will give you a copy of the evaluation sheet.

Questions...

about the "Visualized Data Project"?

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.

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

Read Scott McCloud's Chapter 2 from Understanding Comics

Write, Print, Bring

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.

Day 14: Narrative Title Sequence Project, McCloud Chapter 2

Turn in

I will pick up the Visualized Data commentary

Introduce Next Assignment

The third visual technique:

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

See the assignment Narrative Title Sequence Project

Terms: Narrative, Plot, and Montage/Editing

• Sopranos (narrative through plot)
• Twin Peaks (narrative through montage)
• Mad Men (narrative through a combination)

Resources

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

Homework

Read

Scott McCloud's Chapter 3 from Understanding Comics

Review Chapter 2, Make a Visual Index

Look back at McCloud's Pyramid on page 52-53. Here, McCloud surveys the varieties of visual styles discussed in this chapter and organizes them into a confection.

The rest of Chapter 2 is an explanation of how these styles differ (that is, why a particular style is located where it is in the pyramid), and why such differences matter.

On a piece of paper, draw a triangle like McCloud's (minus all the faces, of course). You are going to use your triangle as a visual index to the chapter.

Go back through Chapter 2 and write page/row/panel numbers on your pyramid to refer to moments in the chapter where McCloud:

• defines a particular visual style represented in that part of the pyramid on page 52-53
• explains how that style is different from others (located in different parts of the pyramid)
• demonstrates how that style affects the reader, the meaning, the feeling of a visual text

Day 15: Narrative Title Sequence; McCloud Chapters 2 & 3

Next Homework: Prospectus

A series you know well: how would you use this rubric to break it down?

Indexing Chapter 2 with McCloud's Confection

This is a follow-up on your homework in McCloud's Chapter 2

McCloud's Chapter 3

• McCloud Transitions
• Mad Men Title Sequence (from falling to chilling)

Return of Confection and Visual Data Projects

Revisions for Extra Credit

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

Resources

• McCloud's Pyramid
• McCloud's Abstraction Ladder
• McCloud's World of Concepts
• McCloud: Disappears into abstraction
• McCloud: Listened if I Looked Like This
• McCloud: Me and Other (Simplification)
• McCloud: Reality-Icon Continuum
• McCloud: Simple Character, Realistic World
• McCloud: Simplicity and Identification
• McCloud: Charlie Brown's nose (abstraction)
• McCloud: Wizard of Oz

Homework

Try Out the Form

Think about a television series you know well. It could be a comedy, drama, police procedural, reality-TV, etc.

On the paper version of the Prospectus for a Television Series Premise form--which I handed out in class--try answering the questions with details from that series.

We will discuss your chosen, existing series and your answers next time.

Write Prospectus

By the beginning of class, write--but do no submit--a tentative Prospectus for Television Series Premise.

Be sure to write it in Word or some other form you can save on your USB (inside of "vrc")

You can use the online version of the form in Word to compose and save your work on your USB.

Day 16: Slideshows in iPhoto

Questions?

See the Narrative Title Sequence assignmenmt

Series Premise

We'll discuss how the actual series you know well fulfill the individual criteria of the prospectus form.

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

By the End of the Day

Revise and submit the the Prospectus for a Television Series Premise to use in your Narrative Title Sequence Project.

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

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) from Chapter 3 across an entire title sequence of your choice. (Note that title sequences for most series can be found on YouTube or other sites.)

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

Paste in a Screen Shot

Take a screen shot of your shot-tracking chart that is no larger than 600 pixels wide, and paste it into a message to the Moodle forum "Shot Tracking"

Comment on Shot Tracking (Editing)

Beneath the pasted-in image in your message to the Moodle forum, "Shot Tracking,"

1. post a URL to your title sequence online, and
2. write a paragraph about something you noticed about one or two instances of editing in that title sequence.

On at least two occasions in your anaylsis, be sure to refer to a specific page and frame from McCloud's Chapter 3 (or perhaps 2).

Day 17: Complete Slideshows in iPhoto; Shot Tracking

Current Assignment Questions?

Narrative Title Sequence

Homework for Next Time

The task of translating McCloud to our purposes.

Complete 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

New Narrative Title Sequence Projects

• Looking for Alaska
• Redemption
• My Letters to Father
• The Snow Child
• The Jungle

Shot Tracking (Noticing)

The point of doing this tracking table lies in what it brings you to realize about how the editing works in the title sequence.

What did you notice?

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)

No Class Meeting

Homework

Read McCloud Chapter 4

Read Scott McCloud's Chapter 4. Come in ready to discuss how a principle or technique from the chapter might relate to a particular shot or edit in a particular title sequence (=panel or gutter in a comic).

This is an exercise in translation: how can we translate what McCloud says about static, print-based comics to

• a video-based title sequence, and
• the slideshow format (not quite video) which we are using for out title sequences?

Post to Moodle

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.

Day 18: Five Areas of Technique; Cinematography Through Position) and with Movement/Time)

Five Areas of Technique:

1. Visual Style: see McCloud C2, accomplished in Photoshop
2. Montage: Transitions, Edits, Gutters, and Cuts: see McCloud C3, accomplished in iPhoto
3. Cinematography Through Position (within the shot): (See "Camera Work" below, accomplished primarily in Photoshop, supported in iPhoto)
4. Cinematography With Time/Movement (within the shot): see McCloud C4, accomplished in iPhoto as panning, zooming, text effects
5. Sound (and the relationship of sounds and image)

Camera Work (Cinematography Through Position)

see Camera Work

Cinematography with Time/Movement; McCloud's Chapter 4 "Time Frames"

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

Same Show, Different Title Sequences

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

Different Shows (Different Generations), Similar Sequence Design

• North by Northwest and Mad Men
• To Kill a Mockingbird and Almost Famous

Resources

• McCloud Transitions
• Diachronic and Synchronic
• McCloud party (C4)
• McCloud party with dialogue (C4)
• McCloud timeless (C4)
• McCloud window (C4)
• Cheers title sequence

Homework

Write and Print a Five-Technique Plan for Your Title Sequence

At the beginning of class, be prepared to turn in a written plan for your Narrative Title Sequence Project using the format provided below.

See if you can use the challenge of filling the columns of the form to help you visualize your sequence, and more fully realize the possibilities of technique.

1. Open this Word document, and save it on your USB drive in your "vrc" folder. (You can make your own form in the same style using a six-column table)

2. In the designated lines at the top, type your name and the title of the series

3. In the table, enter a brief description of the contents of each shot (image) in the "Contents of shot" column. You do not need to have the actual images yet to do this exercise.

Add rows if necessary in Word by clicking in the last row and choosing Table > Insert > Rows Below.

4. Imagine your title sequence as if it were finished. For each shot, describe in the appropriate columns what you see happening in each of the five areas of technique:

1. Visual Style
2. Montage [Editing]
3. Cinematography Through Position
4. Cinematography With Motion/Time
5. Sound
   
   

For each shot, type in something specific about how technique will suggest meaning, set mood, or create impressions in at least two or three of the five technique columns.

5. Go back through to revise, add, and elaborate. Try to use terminology from McCloud, the assignment, class discussion, the Camera Work mini-lecture, etc.

6. Print the completed document to submit in class.

Day 19: Introduce Essay Project; Sound Mixing with Audacity

Briefly Introduce Final Project

See the Essay Project

Five-Technique Plan

I will collect your homework, and we'll talk about what you realized working on this plan.

Exercise: Audacity

I will give you a copy of the exercise "Editing the Length of Audio with Audacity Mixing Sounds, and Adding it to a Slideshow."

We will edit a song down to the length of a title sequence--a minute or so at the most, and try to make the edit as unnoticable as possible.

We will also add sound effects on separate layers.

Exercise: Converting a Sound File to .mp3

Try out the web app AudioFormat to convert your .wav file to .mp3.

Save the resulting .mp3 version of the file in the same "assets" folder as the .wav file (that is, www/4260/exercises/audacity).

Resources

Download the sound files "Crickets" and "Among the Falls" found in Moodle in the section "Resources"

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.

For cards, you can also use some regular paper folded into quarters and cut into pieces.

Day 20: Essay; Storyboard to Photoshop

Review Assignment

• Narrative Title Sequence, including Criteria/Principles

Next Project

• Introduce the Essay Project
• Due date, presentations

Key Critical Ideas for the Essay Project

• 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)
• Pink Shirt Guy

Handout

• Three Paragraphs

From Storyboard to Photoshop

• Shape
• Work Large
• Don't Break the Frame (Redemption)

Resources

• Looking for Alaska
• Redemption
• My Letters to Father
• The Snow Child
• The Jungle

Homework

Bring in all materials for working on your project.

Day 21: Narrative Title Sequence Studio Session

Even though you're working individually, please plan on staying and being productive until the end of the class period.

WEEK 12

M 11/17

Narrative Title Sequence Due by Noon Monday:

1. Save the Project as a video file.
2. Upload your file to YouTube. You will need to use a non-UMD email address.
3. Visit the video online with a browser and copy the URL as a clickable link to the Moodle forum "Narrative Title Sequence URLs."

Day 22: No Class Meeting;

Narrative Title Sequence Project Commentary Due; Optional Conferences

Optional Conferences will continue Wednesday.

Homework

Work on your essay.

Day 23: Essay Project: The Cultural Work of an Image

Questions?

The Essay Project

Signing Up for a Presentation

You will be able to sign up for a conference starting at 11 a.m. today through the Moodle site. Follow these steps:

1. In our Moodle site, look for the section "Presentations"
2. open on the three Wikis, one for each of the three days.
3. choose the "Edit" tab at the top of the Wiki page
4. In edit mode, type your name beside one of the times listed
5. Click "Save" at the bottom of the page
6. In the "View" mode, check to make sure your name appears next to the time you chose.

Your presentation should

1. run from 6 to 8 minutes total
2. show the image that you analyzed (Post images and links needed for your presentaiton in the Moodle forum "Presentation Resources," which you will be able to access from the podium's computer)
3. introduce and describe the cultural context that you used in your essay to analyze the image, the cultural theme you identified, and the particular cultural group for whom this image was or is meaningful at a certain moment
4. analyze how the visual composition of the image enabled its cultural work from an "informational" viewpoint (Tufte)
5. analyze how the visual composition of the image enabled its cultural work from a "design" viewpoint (McCloud or "Camera Work" from the Narrative Title Sequence)
6. draw a conclusion about some principle or technique of "visual rhetoric" or "visual culture" which is suggested by your image and the analysis you did on it.

Sample Paper Topic and Analysis

• Three Paragraphs from a Cultural Work of an Image Essay

Sample Thesis Statement Formats

• "The image enabled _________ to ____________ ….  "  
  
  
• "The _______ of this image served to remind _____________ that ______________  …."  
  
  
• "Combining ___________, __________, and __________, this image represented for __________________ the __________________ ....

Resources

• Camera Work

Day 24: Optional Conferences: No Class Meeting

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Homework

Work on your essay and presentation

Day 25: Essay Due;
Presentations Begin

Collect Essays

Presentions should:

1. run from 6 to 8 minutes total
2. show the image that you analyzed (Post images and links needed for your presentaiton in the Moodle forum "Presentation Resources," which you will be able to access from the podium's computer)
3. introduce and describe the cultural context that you used in your essay to analyze the image, the cultural theme you identified, and the particular cultural group for whom this image was or is meaningful at a certain moment
4. analyze how the visual composition of the image enabled its cultural work from an "informational" viewpoint (Tufte)
5. analyze how the visual composition of the image enabled its cultural work from a "design" viewpoint (McCloud or "Camera Work" from the Narrative Title Sequence)
6. draw a conclusion about some principle or technique of "visual rhetoric" or "visual culture" which is suggested by your image and the analysis you did on it.

Directions for Responding to Presentations

You will respond to each of your classmates' presentations by

• completing an evaluative checklist and turning it in at the end of the class meeting
• asking questions to show appreciation of your classmates effort and accomplishments.

Presentations

1. 8:20 Kendelle
2. 8:30 Sarah F.
3. 8:40 Brilynn
4. 8:50 Jack
5. 9:00 Dean

Day 26: Presentations

Day 27: Presentations

Homework

Day 28: Conclusions, Evaluations

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.