WebSpinna - The Wrap Up

The Webspinna battle was an excellent study on the way new material is created in all art forms. In the reading, the author spoke about the plundering of fragments of literature to form new products. This portion of the text particularly struck us because it seemed to describe the essence of the battle itself. While it was incredibly frustrating to try and find individual fragments of sound from such a wide pool of possibilities, the unlimited nature of the project offered us the opportunity to create something new and interesting. Furthermore, these samples in ways that are out of context to give them new meaning.
            We decided to explore the concept of dreams vs. nightmares because of its ability to be interpreted in many different ways. We didn’t want to be limited by something too specific; we wanted to be able to use a wide array of clips. We were able to use sound effects, music, and voice-overs to express our specific vision of what happens to dreams when nightmares creep in. This included our ability to take clips out of context to portray our vision. For instance, the “It’s a Small World” song was created for a children’s ride to convey joy; however, we took the annoyance of hearing it repeatedly and turned its effect from joy into fear.
            We especially liked our battle because we took care to provide a strong narrative. We took common nightmare scenarios such as drowning and falling, and incorporated them into a dream sequence that was continuous. We then used the abrupt ending to snap the audience out of the nightmare and remind them it was only a dream.
            One of our pivotal sound clips (which ended up not playing) was from the movie, I, Robot. Referring to the robots, Dr. Lanning says, “One day they’ll have secrets, one day they’ll have dreams.” This film prompted us to consider what dreams are, and what it means to have dreams. Our dreamer became aware she was fighting a nightmare and recognized that she could manipulate the scenario. This idea came from our consideration of dreams relating to sentience. Another influence was the film Inception and how the dreams become more complicated as the dreamer’s subconscious fights back against the protagonist. This film helps to indicate that while the dreamer fought and lost, it does not mean that the dreamer cannot fight again.
            It was nice to see everyone’s live battles on Thursday because while we chose a specific, narrative path, it was interesting to see the directions that the other battles took. It reinforced our appreciation of the unlimited creative possibilities the project offered. This helped us to see that creativity is such a fluid thing which can be formed into many different things and portray the feels.