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Greetings….fellow agents. Soundcloud still does not like my files this week so I will have to infiltrate their headquarters to force them allowed. it would be a dangerous task. The outline of my detailed plan can be decoded from the audio file below. Agent Smith, signing off.
-Agent Smith
For this assignment the task was to create an animated mosaic about a movie using a single image that then splits up into a grid of 9 different animated GIF images of various scenes in the movie.
My inspiration for this was from the Jaws example on the assignment page and from my last mashup assignment which was Star Wars Rogue One related. Differing to the Jaws example I had thought that the mosaic would be more easily created if it was using a landscape still image for the start as the GIF animations would be landscape orientated shots from the movie. During the thought process for this I also took inspiration from the Jaws example in that the GIF animations would appear momentarily one after another rather than at the same time.
To make this Star Wars Rogue One GIF mosaic I first sourced the starting still image of from this website. I then set about souring the 9 GIF images using the Rogue One Trailer 1 and Trailer 2. I copied this links to these videos and then using GIPHY as seen below specified the start points and duration of the animation which would make the selected part of the video as a GIF image which I could then download.
After I then had all of the images I then set about compiling them together to create the final product. I first attempted to use Adobe Photoshop since this allows the editing of GIFs in Timeline View however this didn’t work out in the end as inserting more than one GIF created quite a few problems since Photoshop works by making each GIF frame a different layer in the project file. This resulted in hundreds of layers for only a couple of GIFs and meant that to position a GIF each every layer would have to be moved manually since only one layer (frame) is made visible at a time. Another issue was that the background still image layer would have to be manually toggled to visible for every frame in the animation. Some of these Photoshop issues can be seen in screenshot below:
I then decided to move to Sony Vegas instead to compile the animated GIF images with the still image. After importing them into a project file the still image was inserted on the first track on the timeline and then the GIF images inserted on the 9 layers above so they would be overlaid on top of the image. Theses were positioned on the timeline at various points after 1 second of still image to create the simultaneous appearing transitions and the crop tool used to position them in a 9×9 grid. After this white rectangles were created using Photoshop and overlaid to create the outline grid which would mask any gaps in the GIF cropping and be present on the screen at all times like in the assignment example.
Below you can see the Sony Vegas project file with some of the tracks visible on the timeline:
To then make this into a GIF animated image this Sony Vegas project was then rendered as an MP4 video (since Vegas does not allow exporting in GIF file format). This video was uploaded to this website which can be used to convert video files to animated GIF images. Using this online tool the options as seen in the image below were selected to make sure the animated image plays smoothly in real time and that it is the highest quality possible. I also did re-render and re-convert the video once during the process to cut down on the still image timing at the start of the animation as originally it took too long before the GIF animations appeared.
The finished animated GIF mosaic can be seen below:
I think the finished animated mosaic is quite an eye-catching way to view scenes of a movie and definitely takes a couple of loops to view all of the different GIFs that make up the grid.
For this assignment the task was to create a mashup of two iconic movie scenes. It was said that we should aim to be as subtle as possible with the mashup image.
When viewing the assignment page I thought that the main given example simply puts the “Wilson” ball from the movie Cast Away as a second moon onto a minor scene from the 5th Star wars movie. So this main example isn’t exactly meeting the assignment brief with using iconic scenes. So on viewing another example of what someone had previously done for the assignment which also wasn’t fully meeting the brief I was given inspiration from their work to create a mashup which also had a different take on the assignment.
Their assignment work which inspired me can be seen here on their blog and as the image below simply took a Range Rover and placed it onto the moon.
When I read the description of their finished mashup on the assignment page before I saw it I had pictured something different in my mind to what they had actually made. This inspired me to use their idea as a starting point to create a better mashup like I’d first imagined upon reading this example where I would place a Range Rover or other 4×4 vehicle into a Moon scene and then possibly add in a couple of other elements around it.
I started by gathering the first two images for the mashup which were a photo of a Brabus 700 Mercedes 6×6 from here and a photo of the Moon’s surface from here. These can be seen below:
I opened both of these images within Adobe Photoshop and began to blend them together using the Magic Wand tool, Quick selection tool and Eraser to remove the background of the 6×6 image. I then used the black and white adjustment layer to remove the sand colour from the shadow and window since the moon is monotone.
I then gathered some more images to put into the background of the mashup image to give it some movie relation for the assignment and to make it more interesting to viewers. I felt that the space theme and menacing looking Brabus 6×6 lent themselves to relation to the evil characters (dark side) in Star Wars. I gathered an image of a star background from here, an image of the Death Star from from here, and image of an ATAT from here and an image of a Death Trooper from here. These can be seen below:
I then inserted these into the Photoshop file to blend into the mashup. The star background was placed over the moon scene and was erased until it just covered the black “sky”. The death star was scaled down, placed in the top left corner and the opacity was reduced to make it blend in with the “sky” more. The background of the ATAT image was then removed using the quick selection tool and then scaled down to be positioned near the horizon.
The death trooper image was then positioned next to the 6×6 and scaled to be appropriately size in comparison to it. To make it look realistic I then created a shadow by selecting the area of the trooper and on a new layer filling in this area with the paint brush tool to get a silhouette. This was then positioned, scale, angled to the same degree as the 6×6 shadow with the perspective transform tool and the opacity reduced which created a realistic shadow effect.
Using the paint brush I then added a white highlight to the right of the trooper and death star to add even more realism by making them fit with the scene lighting and also used dark grey to cover the 6×6 number plate since I wanted the finished image to be as good as possible.
The finished mashup can be seen below:
I’m quite happy with the result of the mashup and while the image is obviously not real or subtle I think that the cleanliness of the Photoshop adds to the effect that it “could be real” as you can’t see where I’ve cut out the images and that they have been blended well. Looking at the finished image it also reminds me of a car advert with the perfectly lit and central car and the other elements engaging viewers into looking at it. (Also slightly somewhat related to the Nissan Star Wars Advert)
I also tweeted the finished assignment to the DS106 participant that inspired me to create this!
@ekatkins19 Your #DS106 mashup assignment inspired me to do this for mine!
https://t.co/EjyRnmMb8X @ds106
— Hugh B (@Hugh_B_) February 6, 2017
Super Smash Bros: Melee (SSBM) was released for Nintendo GameCube in north america on December 3, 2001 just a little over 15 years ago a legendary game was given to us. Many of us have played it, but very few of us were able to master it. What is Melee? Melee is the second installment of the Super Smash brothers video game series with the first being released on N64. It is a crossover fighting game, where players are able to choose their own characters which are from the Nintendo franchise.
Plot
I can tell you that no one plays this game for the plot. Yes, there is a single player and by doing single player challenges you can unlock other characters but it’s pointless. You are able to unlock those characters just by playing more multiplayer matches. There isn’t much plot to it as it’s a compilation of all the Nintendo characters and highlights of their franchise games. The real reason people buy the game is to beat other kids on the block and multishine kids into oblivion.
Gameplay
Nintendo was unique with their SSBM game by not having a health bar like other fighting games. Other games such as Street Fighter had health bars that were depleted when you hit an opponent, and when it’s gone you die. SSBM took a step back and found another way to do it. They instead chose to have a percentage of damage that adds up, and subsequently increases the knockback on attacks and makes it easier to die. This makes matches very interesting as the game becomes very tense when both opponents are at high percentages and are likely to die even when hit with relatively weak attacks.
As a result of the competitve nature of the game, there is a very large competitive scene for SSBM. Melee hosts tournaments throughout EU, US, and Japan which have many thousands of dollars of prize money. Melee also hosted tournaments with MLG (Major League Gaming) and since then has gained a cult following.
Compared to later installments of Smash such as Brawl and Smash 4, Melee has a “pure” gameplay that is very fluid and ever changing. The meta, the current style of gameplay and techniques, is always changing and new players are always rising to the top.
Here is an example of just how hype the competive gameplay can get, and how fast the inputs are on a controller.
Music
The music is pretty basic but yet recognizable. No one plays this game for the music, only for bragging rights.
Graphics
The graphics in this game are perfect. It is the embodiment of function over form. Yes they could be better. But why would they need to be better? The game functions very well. If you want a game with better graphics, go play Smash 4.
Verdict
Easy game to get decent at, very hard to get good at. One thing you learn is that there is always someone better than you.
It’s easy to dehumanize secret agents. Are we pathological liars? Yeah. Are we obsessive? Sure. But we’re all just human beings (until singularity). One of my favorite past times is listening to music, especially when I’m filling out a mission satisfaction survey or mission information file. They tend to be tedious and boring, so I intentionally listen to songs that illicit some sort of emotion (not easy to do for a spy). Today, I decided to choose three songs that made me feel nostalgic, and share them:
Well there you have it. I’m just happy to be finishing up all the paperwork (nobody even knows why we have to fill these things out after every mission…), but it was nice to reminisce on some wonderful memories. It just goes to show, spies love nostalgia, too !
For this assignment you had to create a mashup of 6 video clips (either TV or Movie) no longer than 2 seconds each. See if anyone can guess your favorite films.
The top one was for the assignment, the one below is the same video but with the soundtrack from the hunger games: catching fire. I thought it was cool, so I saved it, then accidently posted it to YouTube while trying to post the one above. I thought since it was now on the internet I might as well share it here as well:
And if you couldn’t guess the movies, they were (in order):
For mashup week this week I decided to create assignments instead of doing ones that were already made up. This was one I created: character evolution.
For this assignment you have to mashup clips of one character from several different remade movies, showing the evolution of the character through films, creating a 2-3 minute video.
I chose to do Snow White because I know there have been many movies made about the princes. I edited the video in premier pro. Cutting and stitching together multiple clips of the same scene throughout the films and placing them together. I took the audio from the movie trailer of Snow White and the Huntsman, and a scene from Once Upon a Time and mashed them together to create the audio for this video.
Movies:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) 
Snow White (1987)
Mirror Mirror (2012)
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Once Upon a Time (2011-present)
It’s not unheard of for our favorite films to be remaid or redone, and characters to evolve and change during each remake (such as every Snow White / Disney princes movie). For this assignment, mashup clips of one character from several different remaid movies, showing the evolution of the character through films, creating a 2-3 minute video.
The Two Movies, One Line Assignment had me mash up two lines from two movies and make them one. I chose one of my all time favorite movies and one of the funniest TV shows to hit the silver screen.
This was nothing too advanced for me. I just downloaded the two clips and cut them to the appropriate time. I used Adobe Premier, so this was relatively easy for me.
This is my response to the Mashing Friends and Emojis assignment, worth 4 stars. I had to put a picture of a person next to an emoji with a similar expression. I found this picture of my dad that I thought was kind of funny that also reminded me of the toothy grin emoji.
As I was placing the images in the layout, “Bat Country” by Avenged Sevenfold started playing in my head and it reminded me of a certain quote by Samuel Johnson: “He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” My adaptation made me giggle so I decided to use it. As usual, I made this in Inkscape.
