House of Leaves Reflection
The creating of objects affected my reading of House of Leaves because it forced me to look for things that could be elaborated on in the novel. Rather than focusing on how the novel all pieced together I looked for bits and pieces that stood out to me and used them for the assignment. Though all of the novel was connected there were definitely parts that stood out and were easy to incorporate into the project by adding a new or additional spin on them. Usually the incorporated piece was likely influenced by the author to begin with, but not spelled out as specifically in the novel as it is in the objects created from the idea.
The platforms I used for creating my objects included Word, iMoviemaker, Garageband and Photoshop. I was surprised that I was able to incorporate Microsoft Word into my object creation, but it worked out very well in getting across the point I was trying to make in the object I used it for. I had used Photoshop for the first time with creating objects and gained a small, but beginner’s understanding which will likely help me in the future if I ever have to edit photographs. It was my first time using the iMoviemaker as well and as I figured out how to use two different programs for the first time I believe it will help me to be able to better navigate other programs that I will be using for the first time in possibly my final project or any instance that I am using a program I have not used in the past.
The most interesting and successful object I made I think was my footnote. It was fun to pretend to be Johnny Truant and attempt to think as he would think. I also attempted to embody Zampono as I described his actions through the voice of Johnny Truant and made up a story trying to incorporate the many themes I thought that the novel was trying to bring forward at that point in the novel. One object I had made was playing the piece of music on my piano and making a video of it. Before posting it I looked on the Million Blue Pages website and saw that someone had already made a video just as I had. I still liked the idea, but did not want to copy them so I decided to add another element to the video and recreated the page in Garageband. Using Garageband and creating a video the viewer was now able to associate each sound with each note as it played the page note for note in the video. It started out as an uninteresting recreation of an already made object, but it turned out well in the end after I made it my own with new visual elements added.