A conversation with myself

View Assignment Details

This was the required assignment this week. I think it had a really funny background but to actually do it was impossible.

I was a little too time cramped this week to do it during the week. Plus I also saw how hellish it was for other people to complete.

Instead of putting myself through that agony I chose to do something more simple for my conversation with myself.

The background to my video was that I always am hungry before bed. It causes some issues. Sometimes I cannot go to bed unless I eat something. Science tells us how bad this is. It makes you gain weight and have gas… all the things that uncomfortable.

So I have to ask which is the lesser of two evils? This is the background to my video. I chose like “Devil” figure and an “Angel” monologue.

We all have those little voices in out heads that tell us what to do. For my video, the bad influence won and I ended up eating the crackers.

*****

View Assignment Details

A Happy Conversation With Me

View Assignment Details

The last video assignment I have completed for the week is Have A Conversation With Yourself! The goal of this assignment is to make a video where it appears you are having a conversation with yourself. To do this assignment, I need to film my videos that would include the dialogue of me talking to myself. This was not too simple though, this being because I needed to plan my timing out well on when to say things so that it would appear that I was contributing to the conversation on time and appropriately. To do this, I counted the time in-between lines so that the lines would match up and appear as though it was an actual conversation.

After I had recorded all my video for this, I decided to use iMovie to edit my video. To do this, wasn’t too difficult, this being because iMovie has a simple effect that allows this clone effect to be created, and there are plenty of tutorials and videos online explaining how to do this. The way I did this was, I dragged the first clip of one side of the conversation that I would like to use. After that, I highlighted the second part of the conversation and dragged it on top of the first clip, at the spot I wanted it to start. After I dropped it there, a pop-up toolbar popped up, giving me a multitude of options for what to do with this clip. Some of these options being “blue screen”, “green screen“, “insert”, “replace”, etc. The effect that I needed to choose from here was green screen, not necessarily because I am using a green screen, but because this is what makes the effect work. From here, I click the crop button and change the boundaries so that the half of the screen that one of my characters stands on is highlighted. Now, two me’s are sitting next to each other, having a conversation.

The next step of this editing process was to make sure the lines in the dialogue fit together well. And they did for the most part, the only thing I really needed to do was remove about 0.2 seconds from one of the clips. After this, due to the fact that I had some curse words in my video, I needed to add my expletive bleep sound effect to my video. To do this, I simply downloaded it from freesound.org and simply added it to the area I saw fit in the video. From here, the only thing I needed to do was add my opening and ending credit slides, and boom! It’s all finished.

Overall, I really liked this assignment. It definitely stretched my video editing skills. It also helped me plan out a script and my planning really well. I’m glad I did this assignment, because I learned a lot more about how to accomplish this really useful and neat effect within iMovie. So finally, here’s my video:

I hope everyone enjoyed, til next time my peeps!

View Assignment Details

Conversation with Myself

View Assignment Details

Original Assignment (5 Stars)

Out of every single assignment I had to do for this class, this annoyed, pissed, and irritated me the most because of how much I had to do just for this assignment. I am so glad I got this over with because editing the clips I recorded on iMovie was an absolute nightmare.

With the difficulties of editing the videos itself, the timing between each line for each of me had to be spot on and it took me several tries to match it up. Recording the video and audio itself wasn’t that difficult, it was just the compilation process to make it look like a real conversation that was the hard part. There were some discrepancies when I was cropping the videos, so to hide them, I simply made the video a purple’ish color, although it’s still kind of noticeable if you look closely.

I used iMovie once again for this assignment, and even with my familiarity with it doing previous assignments, I still had lots of trouble when I was this doing this particular assignment.

For my dialogue, I just simply talked to myself about the Colts and how we thought the team was doing and if we wanted to grab lunch soon somewhere around campus. To make sure we didn’t look exactly alike, my second self had a hoodie on to separate ourselves.

Here is my final product (try not to judge please):

View Assignment Details

Having a (really exciting) Conversation with Myself

View Assignment Details

So this weeks mandatory assignment was to film a conversation with myself (5 stars). And it was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to talk about, so I figured I’d just talk about how I generally feel about ds106 and address the awkwardness of this assignment. The story is just two acquaintances discussing how happy they are about the weekend, and then one of them is still a bit bummed since they have a lot of work for their online class (ds106)–which is me most weeks. The other person asks a few questions about the class and reacts accordingly, and then they go in for a painfully awkward high-five.

While I was filming, my roommates kept walking by my room and I cringed a little bit each time. The most difficult part was timing. I had a little notebook and timer right next to me, and when I first read through my script I timed it and marked the time it was when each new line started, so I had that reference while I was filming and unsure how long to pause/start talking again. I tried to memorize the seconds between which version of myself spoke and also my lines, but it was a bit too difficult. Here’s a picture of my “script” I had written down, with the seconds that each line ended on:

After I had it all planned, I had to awkwardly balance my camera on a bunch of books, and it was hard to get it in the exact same spot every time I finished filming and stood up to make sure the seconds were all on point. Once I filmed both Sara on the Left and Sara on the Right, I imported the videos onto iMovie and watched this tutorial on “How to Clone Yourself” the process wasn’t all too difficult. It drove my insane that the left side of the clip is a bit ghostly, and I tried really hard to fix it, but it seems like there’s no hope. Thankfully it’s not too extreme and you can still see me.

Hope you enjoy!!

View Assignment Details

Me, Myself and I

View Assignment Details

The required video assignment for this week was Have a conversation with yourself. This assignment was just about Impossible for me. Since I use Windows I could not figure out a way to edit the video’s that way. I tried downloading the latest version of MovieMaker, it didn’t help, I tried to download a plug-in that was supposed to allow me to clone myself, it wouldn’t download.

Eventually I gave up and used my friends mac. Even using that it would still incredibly difficult. Timing when to speak in each video was an absolute challenge and then once I had both videos I could not get myself to show up clearly no matter how I fooled around with the colors. Combining the videos was no problem since you just have to drag them over each other but the real challenge was to just make it look real. I decided to just make the video in black in white-ish color instead to hide some of the mistakes that were made but it didn’t help.

For the dialogue of the clip I just decided to talk to myself a little bit about stuff that I am usually doing on the weekend. I thought it would be fun to wear different outfits, so I took off my hat and put on a different one and also wore a paper mustache for comic relief.

This was absolutely the hardest assignment I have had to do in digital storytelling. I have to say this assignment shook my confidence a little bit and hopefully on future videos I will do a lot better. You can watch it down below but try not to judge me too hard.

View Assignment Details

Myself and Myself

View Assignment Details

For this required assignment worth five stars, you were supposed to talk to yourself. Two videos of you having a conversation and both of you have to wear different clothing for the illusion. I tried to download different software for the assignment but my computer would not allow it to open once it was downloaded so I did an attempted version on Movie Maker. It is not exactly right or how I wanted it but it was the best I could do with the software. I pretty much recording me talking and left gaps where I could reply to myself. After that I videotaped my answers to my questions and pieced them together. I did have to split some scenes in the middle or in thirds based on how many questions I was asking myself. And after everything was done I went to save movie, instead of save project and then uploaded my video to youtube.

I hated this assignment with every fiber of my being. I will not miss it, and I never want to do it again. My computer hated it as well which is why I am assuming it did not want to me use different software. All in all I am happy it’s done, it could have been better but since I remembered at the very last second it was all I could do.

View Assignment Details

Have a Conversation With Yourself: How’s the Weather?

View Assignment Details

A required video assignment this week was the Have a Conversation With Yourself assignment. On a whim, I decided that I would talk to myself about the recent cold weather. To make this video, I used the trial version of Adobe Premiere Elements 13 (hence the watermark across my video). This assignment was rather tricky at first, as I had no real experience with this program before. I watched this tutorial, however, which was a great help.

To begin, I recorded myself using my laptop’s webcam. The reason I used to my laptop instead of having someone else film me is because to create the best effect, the camera needs to be held as still as possible. Unfortunately, the video quality suffered somewhat because of this. When recording myself, I was very careful to leave in pauses where my “twin” would be talking. This proved to be a good idea, as it made editing much simpler, and eliminated any overlap of the speaking parts.

Here are the clips imported into Premiere Elements:

Recording the clips was the easy part. The difficult part was matching them up as closely as possible. Overall, it took me about 45 minutes to get the clips as closely matched as possible. Here are the clips after they were edited together:

With the clips in place, all that was necessary now was to make it so that both versions of me were visible at the same time. This was done using the “Four-Point Garbage Matte” effect. This effect allows you layer clips on top of each other, and then remove part of the top layer so that the bottom layer can be seen below. This was the effect that needed to be used to create this video.

With all the editing complete, I exported the video to Youtube.

This video assignment was worth

View Assignment Details

TALKING TO MYSELF IS HARD…

View Assignment Details

…In iMovie, that is.

Seriously, though–this was definitely the hardest assignment for me this whole two weeks, and it’s because I made a simple mistake. Worse yet, the simple mistake is quite visible in the final product. Ugh. My perfectionist self is dismayed (but my kinder side is insisting that this is a “learning experience, Kailey–grow from your mistakes!”)

The two required video assignments for this week were either have a conversation with yourself or sing with myself, and I didn’t feel like warming up my vocal chords or picking a song to duet. Due to this lack-of-motivation and/or slight shyness because I haven’t sung in too long (seriously, once I have time over winter break, I’m going to go all out belting every moment that I can), I chose to talk with myself.

I decided to film at night in my room, because again, even though I’m used to explaining odd art projects at this point, I still would like to avoid questioning and very confused neighbors as much as possible.

Next, I had to find a relatively clear, uncluttered area of my room to use as a backdrop. My closets have quotes on them (I’m all about that morning inspiration when I’m half asleep and grumbling about why early classes are totally unfair), so that would be distracting. One of my dressers has little trinkets and cards to remind me of my family, and my desk carries my computer. My last dresser, however, has items that can be temporarily relocated (and, actually, viewing the video, it looks like I forgot to move a necklace on the surface–whoops. My friend and I had just spent two days–not even kidding–untangling the multilayered accessory from the depths of tangled-necklace-hell, and I was hesitant to touch the thing let alone move it).

After picking my filming spot, I grabbed my laptop and situated it on a conveniently placed piece of furniture right across from my impromptu set and fiddled with the display until the camera had a decent angle that captured the neutral wall and dresser. I then planned out my basic movements and script.

Even though I took improv class in high school and hated it (I was much more socially anxious back then), I’d watched enough Whose Line Is It Anyway? to get the general gist of making up lines as you go along (I highly recommend you put reading this post on pause and take time to watch that video, because it will make your afternoon that much more amazing). As long as I had a general plot premise, I could work from there. I pondered on the fact that I often have two dueling parts of my personality: the hard working, criticizing perfectionist that is often mentioned in these blog posts and the lazy-but-well-meaning half of me.

I also thought back to an assignment in my Digital Approaches to Fine Art class where we had to create a picture with different selves. One of my classmates, Alison, created a particularly humorous piece and described how the poses reflected the multiple elements of herself. The one entering the room was disappointed that the other two were slacking or goofing around.

I borrowed from this idea and decided the more disciplined side of me would walk in after a long day, mirroring the exhaustion I personally felt while filming this at 11:30 at night after waffles at the Underground (yes, they were absolutely worth the tiredness, if you’re wondering), and see her doppelgänger lounging around. She would question why the other wasn’t doing work considering she just worked her butt off all day, and a tiny argument would ensue but thankfully end in reconciliation and Cupcake Wars.

I first filmed the more responsible me walking in my door and tossing down my backpack to represent having just returned to the room. I inserted a couple of tired sighs for effect. Then, remembering that I set the camera on a lower angle to crop out a lot of the wall, I made the artistic decision that my selves would totally plop on the floor together and watch Netflix or chat. I took a seat next to my other self and began my sort-of-planned-out-lines. I questioned why my other self was still in her pajamas (the assignment required we change our hair and/or clothing), why she wasn’t working on her assigned two projects, lamented the thought of our GPA dropping due to her irresponsibility, and then refused a peace offering of chocolate (rare and blasphemous, I know, but it happens when I’m frustrated).

I played the silences by ear, imagining myself speaking out the matching lines. I kept my eye line straight ahead where I knew I would sit, and I was thankful I chose such a simple background. The general positioning and space wasn’t huge, and it wasn’t hard to make mental blocking marks. I didn’t have too much movement, thankfully, with the exception of my exasperated hand gestures and head movements, so staying in frame was no issue.

Then, I stood up and turned off the camera. I later edited this part out so that the video consisted only of my acting.

Now came the tricky part: how to film and time my matching scene. I knew that if I played any audio in the background, it would be picked up by the computer speakers and throw the whole project off, so I decided on this: I exported the iMovie file’s audio as an .aif file and added it to my iPhone! This way, I could have one headphone in and hear my other self say her lines and respond with appropriate timing while still appearing like I was listening.

But here’s when I made my simple mistake that made this project hell:

I moved the computer without marking where it originally was.

To plug in my phone, move around files, and other such activities, I moved my laptop and messed up the whole setting. I tried to eyeball the scenes and match the camera angle as best as possible, but as you can see in the finished product, the difference in height/focus was enough to cause major issue and even cut off my limbs at certain unintentionally funny moments. I was so frustrated, but it was 1am by that point, and I was so happy with the material I had recorded that I decided I would make the content work without having to re-film.

The second scene’s filming, to backtrack, went smoothly. I pulled on a pajama top and pants and tied my hair up to look like I hadn’t gotten dressed/cleaned up all day–which the character hadn’t–and sat down on the other side of the dresser from the first scene.

The audio-file-on-my-phone trick worked, and my timing matched up perfectly. My second self was much more laid back, apathetic at times, and far less worried than the first self. She didn’t understand the other’s anxiety (she has a few exasperatedly-look-into-the-camera/The Office moments) and offered sweets to calm her down, and her offer was snappily rejected. A bit exasperated, she finally realizes she didn’t make the wisest or fairest choices and promises she’ll work on her projects if her other self promises to relax and watch Cupcake Wars for a bit. The other, despite her frustration, is intrigued and agrees. The story ends happily.

I sat down to edit my videos thanks to this YouTube tutorial on how to use the Advanced Tools and Greenscreen option that I had no idea about in iMovie. Quickly, however, I realized something was off. The camera angles, as previously discussed, didn’t match up. I was so frustrated. For at least two more hours (the actual filming only took me roughly 30-40 minutes all together), I tinkered with coloring, saturating, levels, contrast, filters, anything to help ease the mismatch and pain my perfectionist self felt.

Nothing worked.

Insanely frustrated, I went to bed and vowed to work on the project in the morning, and in the middle of the night, I awoke and had an idea–why not try to edit separate frames? I then promptly fell back asleep–as one does after getting a great idea, of course.

In between classes, I tried to create transparent/edited frames in GIMP to edit out the mismatching background and just keep myself/character in the scene. It didn’t work.

The next night (this project had taken me three days so far, and I was beside myself with frustration), I discovered that cropping and zooming in on my selves cut out more of the background and made the uneven plane slightly less noticeable. Then, I fully decreased the saturation on both videos, heightened some contrast, and decided that this was the best it was going to get.

In hindsight, I probably could have saved myself a lot of grief and just re-filmed the thing, but I was too proud of what I originally had to toss it all. Ugh.

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the conversation between two Kaileys and have learned a little something about NOT MOVING THE DANG CAMERA AND/OR INVESTING IN A TRIPOD WHEN SHOOTING.

View Assignment Details

Talking with myself

View Assignment Details

5 stars

Wow, this assignment was the absolute worst. I played around in iMovie for forever, but I couldn’t find a way to merge my two videos realistically at all. I saw on a classmate’s post that they used something called “Camtasia” so I checked it out. It isn’t a free product, but they do have a free trial, so I decided to give it a go. I really like the program, and it is a lot more intuitive that iMovie, but it still wasn’t letting me do what I needed. I watched a ton of youtube tutorials, but none of them really helped me, so I decided to go it alone.

I had the great idea to play with the opacity to see if I could get both of them to appear on the screen at once, and it worked….sort of. Playing with the opacity unfortunately meant that both versions of me were pretty pale and transparent looking…which just wasn’t going to work for the scene I had planned.

At this point I had hit my breaking point with the assignment, so I decided to work with what I had, and made the entire conversation revolve around being ghosts. I looked like a ghost, so I I figured I should just roll with my mistakes and make the best out of them.

I was pretty happy with how it came out, and I even showed it off to my boyfriend….who then showed me the proper way to do it. Apparently all I needed to do was crop the screens. I hate my life.

But I had already uploaded my beautiful ghost video to youtube, and I was kind of proud of my problem solving skills, so I decided to keep it the way it was. It is by far NOT my best work of this semester, but I find it strangely endearing.

View Assignment Details

Who likes talking to themselves?

View Assignment Details

Have A Conversation With Yourself – 5 stars

Can I just say, out of all the assignments I have done this semester for ds106, I came super close to HATING this assignment. I worked on this the entire day today, not knowing how to convert the video into one whole video with the overlaying of me talking. I searched Google and YouTube for hours to figure how to do this. I tried overlaying the two videos I recorded of myself in Windows Movie Maker, that was a fail beyond belief. I then noticed Justin Hempe’s creation. I took his advice, or at least downloaded the video editing software he used, Camtasia. After playing around with the software I finally figured out how to overlay the two videos….still was not easy and took me about an hour to make it even close to being presentable.

I imported both videos of me talking into the software and then added them as separate tracks. After doing so, I selected both videos and right clicked and chose the option group together so they would overlap. After overlapping the videos, I used the cropping tool in the top right hand corner of the software to crop each one of the two videos in half so that the one part of me was visible on the left and the other part of me on the right. After completing all the necessary cropping and overlapping, I hit file on the toolbar and clicked on produce and save in order for the video to be compatible with other applications as well as Vimeo, where I uploaded my video to.

For my conversation, I chose to talk about the Capitals game that I went to on Tuesday night. It was actually my first every hockey game, and in all honesty, that is not even how close to how excited I was when I found out I was going. I chose to record it outside because I haven’t really done any videos outside and didn’t think many others would record their conversations outside considering the cold weather, so I wanted to be a little different.