My second assignment bank was my first step into iMovie. I’ve messed around with it a little, but I was completely dumb founded. I had to google the easiest of things, but eventually got everything to work out. For this one I had to choose 3 movie scenes that changed my life. I had to think long and hard about this one, as I have not watched a movie under this category in a while. I started browsing through Netflix to rejog my memory, but this did not do much.
I remembered that my favorite movie is The Butterfly Effect due to its message. It conveys how you can’t change the past, and even if you were able to, you may still not like the outcome.
I found The Theory of Everything on Netflix and was going to use this, but then when I looked it up I found The Danish Girl. This movie is absolutely amazing and has beautiful cinematography. I chose to use this movie instead because I felt like it had a clear message. This movie is the epitome of never apologizing for who you are, and the people that really love you will love you for who you are, and for no matter what.
The last movie I saw on Netflix, and it is called The Lovely Bones. This movie is suspenseful, gruesome, and sends shivers down your spine. The story is beautifully executed. I chose this movie because it dissects how not everyone is who you really think they are. Some of the most innocent of people can be monsters, and we will never know. Quite a scary concept to think about.
After I found all of my movies and clips, I converted them in clip grabber and put the into iMovie. Then I recorded a voice over and uploaded it to youtube.
I chose to keep the audio in it under my voice, as then you get the full effect of the movie scenes.
The following are my tutorials for the Movie Music Comparison assignment and the Movie Scenes That Changed Our Lives assignment, respectively. I’m trying out Vimeo because at this point YouTube can kiss my frustrated not-read-only downtime-hating tush, and you can quote me on that. I used the 30-day free trial of Camtasia to create both tutorials, which I would highly recommend for anyone creating screencast tutorials. That does come with a small caveat: it’s a hefty program, and it’ll run slowly if your computer isn’t especially powerful. I also couldn’t get the “Upload to YouTube” function to work, but I figure that’s a combination of my craptop’s age and my own incompetence. Anyway, on to the tutorials!’
The first tutorial isn’t perfect, but my intention there wasn’t really to showcase how to complete the assignment, and rather to familiarize viewers with a program I’ve found incredibly useful all semester. While YTD Video Downloader is quite user-friendly, it can be helpful to have a tutorial showing exactly how the program works to get new users comfortable enough to try it out. One thing I probably should have realized earlier (and did change for the second video) was that my wallpaper, while clever, isn’t exactly safe for work. Oops! At least it’s clever. : )
The second tutorial is more traditional and perhaps more detailed, but that is in part because I’m only doing a walkthrough involving one program. Because of that it was a little easier to include more details about how to complete the project as a whole, rather than just talking about the “Add Narration” function, which was my initial goal.
I’m pretty pleased with how both of these tutorials came out, little errors and all, mostly because of the way Camtasia allows you to zoom in on different parts of your screen during post-production. That one tiny detail is extremely important to me when viewing screencasts, because when watching screencast tutorials I most often get lost when I can’t find the specific menu or tool that I’m supposed to be using. By zooming in to the exact spot on the screen where the icons are located, it’s much easier to direct your viewer’s attention to what they’re supposed to be doing, and I hope that at the very least I achieved that with my tutorials.
For my fourth and final Remix project I decided to select the assignment Movie Scenes That Changed Your Life. We were to select 3-5 Movie scenes that had a significant impact on your life. I decided to select a scene from Antwone Fisher, a scene from Love and Basketball and finally a scene from the movie Save the Last Dance. These three scenes have changed my life in their own personal way and I discussed them in the short film. At first I thought that this project was going to be very simple; however, I was sadly mistaken. This fourth project was by far the hardest Remix assignment for me to complete and I am very satisfied with the way in which it turned out.
This project could have been pretty simple for me had I taken the easy way out. I could have easily popped in the DVD’s that I had and filmed my TV from my phone, uploaded those films and put them into my iMovie application in my MacBook, but I really wanted to try to use the technology to the best of my ability. I wanted to be able to get the scenes from the computer. I first tried to find my favorite, and probably one of the most poignant scenes in Antone Fisher, but I could not find it online anywhere. After talking to many coworkers and friends I decided to download the app, iSkysoft DVD Ripper. I had all the DVD’s that I needed but I needed to find a way to get clips from these films. When I first uploaded the movie in the system it took 94 minutes and I was very frustrated. I put it away and came back to it later. I opened it in a chapter format, found the chapter I needed, declined to upload the rest of the film and put the chapters into iMovie. I then trimmed two of the films in iMovie before I finally discovered how to trim them in iSkysoft. I trimmed them in iSkysoft, converted them into my computer and was able to take the exact parts I needed from the movie and import them into iMovie. Once they were in iMovie I put them all together. Next I selected the microphone, this allows you to implement a voiceover into your movie. After I tweeked and fine tuned the voiceover to be exactly how I wanted it, I finalized the movie and it was complete!
I really enjoyed doing this Remix project. It helped me to learn more about software and tools that I can use to get movie clips for presentations. I also learned how to implement a voiceover into my iMovie projects, something that I had never been able to do before!
As a teacher, I realize the value of a well-crafted video. Taking the written word and making the themes, images, and ideas explode in a cacophony of color for the learner. What many of those learners do not realize is the sheer amount of time it takes to make each minute of those short videos come to life.
This project was the same. Days were spent going through all of the different options for this video remix project. Finally, I settled on looking at movie that influenced or left a lasting impact on my life.
The task for this assignment was to find three to five movie clips and discuss through my narration how the movies changed me, influenced me into the person that I am today. On the surface, this seems easy. But in reality, I had a difficult time deciding which movies to include and why. Limiting the choices to just 5 made this assignment even more challenging. Should I have a theme (best firsts, best teachers, most memorable)? Should I just say I “like” this film? I struggled with narrowing down a focused theme so that what I was creating had a specific intention that would be obvious to a viewer. I finally decided to look at notable films – my firsts, my favorite, and my influencers. Now I was ready to begin the creation of the video.
Step One – Collection
I located specific clips for each of the five films that I wanted to use. In order to accomplish this, I used Youtube.com and a Download program to capture the exact clips that I wanted. I convert the videos to .wmv for use in the video creation program. The five clips that I chose were:
It’s a Wonderful Life (my first movie memory);
Star Wars: A New Hope (my first drive-in movie – influenced me to learn to play the trumpet);
Elf (the movie I watch at least twice a year);
and of course the teacher movies that have influenced me to be the teacher that I am – I leave those choices a mystery for you to discover!
Step Two – The Script
I wrote a script to explain how each of the clips have left a lasting impact on my life. Then, I recorded the script using Audacity. This free program is easy to use and save the files into the extension that I needed. I split the narration into parts so that each file would be small. In part, this makes it easier to insert the narration after. However, the true reason I split the narration into chunks is that it takes me forever to get the text correct and I often have to re-record the section over and over and over. Eventually I have the script recorded just the way I want, and then I export them as .wav files for the video.
Step Three – Create the Introduction
Any good video has a great introduction that captures the eye of the viewer. I wanted mine to include elements of a visual, music, and text. After several attempts, I decided to go with a typewriting-esque entry of letters. This effect looks cool but is actually a lot of work. Using PowerPoint, I typed out the way I wanted the final text slide to look. I then duplicated each slide, removing one letter on each new slide until I started with only the visual image without any letters. Twenty-eight slides later, I saved the PowerPoint slides as individual .jpg files.
Step Four – Choose the Background Music
Music is one the most essential parts of a well-crafted video. I wanted something that was fitting as a movie score, upbeat, and majestic. I decided on a song from Pirates of the Caribbean Sound track. This song would support the title entry, the credits, and the narration between the music clips.
Step Five – Assemble the Video & Publish
The program I like to use for my video creations is Adobe Premiere Elements. Yes, there are free programs available, but I like the options that this program offers. When I get to this step, I find it easier to intentionally complete each section, perfecting it’s appearance before moving on to the next scene. I began with the introduction and the individual .jpg files. Then I add the music. Finally, I time each slide so that the .jpg files move swiftly as if the letters are rolling onto the screen, timed to the music. With the intro done, I quickly begin to add the rest of the narration, movie clips, and background music. The final touches included adding a Works Cited page and transitions (cross-dissolve) between each slide. With the video assembled, I save the creation as a .wmv file and upload it to my Youtube.com channel.
The one wrinkle that I encountered during the project occurred after I uploaded the file to Youtube.com. The video was blocked and flagged for violating copyright law. The file admittedly contains copyrighted creations of others. However, I protested the flagging by stating that the project was a remix project, one that adds values and changes the components from their original structure.
Overall, I am pleased with how the video bloomed. I enjoyed sharing it with my family and students. This is an activity that I would like to add to the beginning of the school year lessons next year. I often have the students do some sort of creative telling that introduces who they are. By adding this movie remix project, students could explore their sense of identity through movies.
Assignment: For this assignment, select scenes from 3-5 movies. These scenes should represent scenes that changed your life or made some sort of dramatic, traumatic, lasting, or emotional impact on you. When you have selected those scenes, create a video that shows the scenes and includes audio/video of you describing what it is about the scene that made a significant impact on you, what you are fond of about the scenes, what scares you, what you remember thinking when you were a child, etc. Feel free to be liberal in your interpretation of the instructions. Keep in mind, however, that the primary point is to recall 3-5 movie scenes that have made a lasting impact on you (whatever the reason for that impact may be.)
Process: Due to the fact that my (90s) computer does not have audio output, i decided to utilize YouTube to extract three scenes from my all time favorite movies. I then proceeded to write up a brief summary for each clip, describing how it changed my life. It also doesn’t help that i lack the video editing skills to make a mashup video with all the clips together. Please excuse the variation!
Ladies and gentlemen, without further adieu….
3. The Lion King
My favorite childhood movie…The Lion King! As a child, this movie taught me the importance of family. Simba’s relationship with his father made me appreciate my father and everything he has done for me. In the scene provided, Simba’s father dies and he is heart broken. This scene definitely stuck to me throughout my teenage years.
2. The Bucket List
The Bucket List…lord have mercy! I’m not the type to cry when watching movies, but this one really hit me hard with allergies. This movie really taught me the importance of living life to the fullest. It also portrayed the beauty of human companionship. This scene in particular was the nail in the coffin for me. The speech Edward gave at Carter’s funeral made me shed a tear (don’t tell anyone). Just three months ago, they were strangers…
“I hope it doesn’t sound selfish of me but the last months of his life were the best months of mine”
1. Shawshank Redemption
This is a scene from my favorite movie of all time; The Shawshank Redemption. It was the first movie that really opened my eyes in terms of having a positive outlook on life. In this particular scene, Andy persuades one of the guards to buy his entire “crew” beer in exchange for doing some paperwork for the IRS. This scene changed the tone of the entire movie in the best way possible. It shed a glimmer of light in a seemingly hopeless situation. Yes, these men are prisoners behind bars, but at that particular moment in time, they were FREE MEN! The best part is, Andy doesn’t even drink! He apparently “gave up drinking”. He took one for the team, and the team knew it.
Friends, cold beer, and a prison rooftop. Really, does it get much better than that?
For this assignment, select scenes from 3-5 movies. These scenes should represent scenes that changed your life or made some sort of dramatic, traumatic, lasting, or emotional impact on you. When you have selected those scenes, create a video that shows the scenes and includes audio/video of you describing what it is about the scene that made a significant impact on you, what you are fond of about the scenes, what scares you, what you remember thinking when you were a child, etc. Feel free to be liberal in your interpretation of the instructions. Keep in mind, however, that the primary point is to recall 3-5 movie scenes that have made a lasting impact on you (whatever the reason for that impact may be.) When you are finished, upload the video to your blog, and, If you are inspired, expand on the reasons why you connect with the specific scenes in your video. Check out an example here: http://blog.rossannamarie.me/movie-scenes/
