02/15 WK 05 UT/ WK 04 NYU
"If you like me, please book me and help me take your jobs." - Jon the Robot
IN CLASS
CHECK-IN 6-6:10pm, then meet with UT Students
It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, and I know people have been shifting classes, etc..., but POST TODAY your blog URLs HERE >> here <<HERE if you have not already done so. Also, if you're behind on a few VRLs and micro assignments get caught up this week, as I'll be taking a deep dive into all of your work and assignments, up to this point, THIS weekend!
ANNOUNCE: 3D Scanning at NYCAP. Picking a Friday that hopefully can work for as many people as possible.
ANNOUNCE: Visiting Speakers next week Nathan Phillips and Joe Schiappa will be discussing how jokes revolve with media, from radio comedy to jokes in the metaverse. Basically they will explain how to always be funny in any medium forever. NATHAN PHILLIPS BIO Nathan Phillips is co-founder of Technology, Humans And Taste [THAT], a creative and innovation company in New York City. They collaborate with global brands, future focused start-ups and non-profits to make work people want. Their methodology is deeply collaborative and built on decades of experience as a creative OUTSIDE of advertising. Nathan began his career as an interactive artist. He has worked in every medium creating interactive experiences for Broadway legends in Vegas, in breakthrough experiences like The Ride New York, and he was a Blue Man for a hot second, He's shown interactive films at Sundance, IDFA, the Tribeca Film Festival, and has collaborated on digital art at MOMA, The Museum of Contemporary Art in LA, and The New Museum. He has done performance art atThe Whitney. He won The World Press Photo Contest, an Emmy and a big pile of Webbys. He also wrote a best-selling comedy book called “The Unorthodox Haggadah, A dogma-free Passover for Jews and Other Chosen People” But, he started to feel like a lot of art was using the excuse of being “avant-garde” to get away with lazy storytelling. He became really interested in the challenge of making what he calls “art where you have to prove something”, or what is more commonly known as advertising, and he's spent the last decade using everything he learned as an artist to collaborate with brands, nonprofits and the occasional politician to make campaigns, concepts and products that are designed to create desire in humans, drive engagement and give people their own stories to tell. As co-founder of Technology, Humans And Taste, Nathan has led the development of a proprietary collaborative methodology, which invites diverse and unfamiliar collaborators to co-create innovative concepts for any medium, leveraging AI to supercharge any idea. They use it for all of their projects and have built a community of several thousand collaborators. JOE SCHIAPPA BIO Joe Schiappa works as a comedy writer, creative content developer, and teacher with a portfolio that encompasses various media platforms. He has created content for Sierra Mist, MTV, IFC, Sony, and Clear Channel. He is trained in improv by the Second City Training Center and has taught improv and sketch writing at The People's Improv Theatre and the American Comedy Institute in New York City. He is known for his work on The Making Of: Please Don't Make Me Play Piano Man (2020), Truth or Dare (2014) and Conventioneers (2005).
PRESENTATIONS "Cry Until you Laugh"
UT & NYU Students who didn't get to go last week
COMPUTATIONAL HUMOR, DEEP FAKES and PERFORMING THROUGH AVATARS: Carla Gannis Presentation and Q & A
Class Exercise 01 Let’s try some pun and joke generators!
Please document any puns or jokes you like, to be used in a later exercise today when you’ll be working with avatars of yourself.
https://pungenerator.org/
https://brendansudol.com/neural-jokes/
https://random-ize.com/bad-jokes/
Class Exercise 02 Team up with classmates and each of you should record the other trying to perform what you perceive to be a robotic gesture or form of speech or voice intonation. Work with your face too! Save these recordings and upload to your class process blogs.
Class Exercise 03 Get Siri or Alexa to tell you some jokes on your smartphone. If you don’t have a smartphone, pair with another person in class who does. Again, make sure you document these jokes for our later exercise.
Class Exercise 04 Get into groups, and at least one person in the group should download the WOMBO app on their phone. Choose a photo of yourself or someone else, select a song, and then generate a video of the photo animated and singing the song. Save all of your videos, and share on your process blogs.
My WOMBOS (which I posted on IG, but they got removed b/c of copyright)
Class Exercise 05 Download the Face Scan and Face Cap apps to your iPhones (*tutorial after this slide). If you don’t have an iphone or if your phone doesn’t support scanning, you will be using your instructors Use Face Scan to capture different facial expressions and to create a texture map of your face. Try to use a face gesture you came up with in Exercise 02 (if possible). Use Face Cap to motion capture your face and to make an audio recording of your voice Recite one of the jokes or puns from Exercise 01 or 03 and (if applicable) use the voice you spoke through in Exercise 02 Go to “files” on your iPhone and send the generated files to carlagannis@nyu.edu. During class I’m going to try to work with a few of them for our Avatar Tech Demo.
Beginning MICROASSIGNMENT 03: "iComedy" - Iteration 01 (1) This can be a short video using yourself or another person, or an animation or a social media work (TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, etc...) that addresses some form of technology in a comical or absurdist way. You can use the material gathered from you in-class exercises and from the tech demos in Maya and Unity. (2) This can be a collaborative or individual project. *This will be ITERATION 01 of this assignment. You will be presenting this assignment via youtube or website or social media platform in 2 weeks!
To consider: Timing/Pacing Storytelling Voice Skillful employment of technology (video, 3D, interactive, animation, game engine)
YOUR PROGRESS SHOULD BE POSTED ON YOUR PROCESS BLOGS (even with group projects, each member should post something on their blog)
ALL FILES SHOULD BE COPIED INTO YOUR STUDENT FOLDER ON THE CLASS GOOGLE DRIVE HERE.
ASSIGNMENT 05
VRL (1) READ: “Artificial Intelligence Can Now Craft Original Jokes—And That’s No Laughing Matter” https://time.com/6132544/artificial-intelligence-humor/ (2) WRITE & POST on your✍ Process Blog your responses to the VRL (3) WORK on your MICROASSIGNMENT 03: "iComedy". Evidence of this work should be posted on your ✍ Process Blog.
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