Music Mash 
3 Stars
Mashup Assignment

For one of Brooke’s final steps of preparation for her big day was creating a playlist for her part of the fashion show. I decided to create a music mash up clip of what the music would be like at the show. I didn’t want to make it an hour long mashup mix because that would bore anyone who was reviewing this, and I know it would not get listened to. Therefore, I made it short enough to get the idea of what types of songs will be played. The few songs I did choose, I didn’t want there to be a lot of words if any played, because I was more focused on the beats instead of the songs having words to keep the attention focused on her clothes and the models at the runway show.

I went to YouTube, and searched for runway instrumental music and listened to a variety of clips before deciding which to use in the mashup. I then downloaded the music clips I wanted to use, for this assignment I used 4 just to give everyone an idea of what the music would be like. After downloading each music clip to my computer.

I opened up Audacity and opened each clip individually, under the file tab and then clicked on “open”. After opening each one of the four clips, I cut and pasted each one to have them play one after the other. I then used the effect option at the top of the toolbar and chose fade in and fade out option to create a smooth transition between songs. After editing it completely I saved it and uploaded it to soundcloud.

Required Assignment

First off, Mozilla Popcorn is a tool that I would not recommend. After many times (and I do mean many times) of starting over from the beginning, I started to get the hang of it and was finally able to complete this damn assignment. I could have remixed this assignment in iMovie, but I’m not a quitter, and I was determined to learn Popcorn and give it a shot.

Finding the images and video to incorporate into this remix was the best part. I added a mixture of images, gif, and video to give it a nice balance. Some of the images I used had to be edited in photoshop. For example, the items in his drawer and suitcase needed some tweaking (cut out separate from the original image) to make it look more realistic. As for the item in the suitcase, I hope I did not offend anyone. Mr. Levine reminds me of a stoner from the 70’s, so I decided to have some fun with it and add a bag of weed.

For Alan’s vacation, I did not chose an over the top location. I sent him to the “Big City Of Dreams” (New York). He would experience “The Big Apple” in a whole new light. I found this video on youtube where they do helicopter rides through the city and classic landmarks. The footage was amazing, and I thought it would be a good twist to add than the normal NY experience (Times Square, Central Park, etc.).

For my video, I kept each transition clip flowing into the next one, without the flash of white that was there originally. The pausing between the newly added media was minimal, just enough to view and make out each individual media type. One thing I forgot add to my video was the text bubbles. I ended up deleting all of them, and forgot that I needed to keep them and add my own text. I was just relieved to finally finish the assignment. The amount of time I put into it, just trying to get it right almost gave me a migraine. But I’m glad I was able to pull through and check it off my list. Check out my contribution below.

Alan’s Vacation

Vine It Then Combine It!

I created a new assignment this week and was definitely more on the excited side to complete it. My assignment was a Mashup Assignment in favor of our main topics of these past two weeks assignments (remixes and mash ups). The goal of the assignment was to create 2 or more Vine videos using the Vine App, on your phone, tablet (or whatever you choose) and after those videos are made, combine them using any editing software to create one complete video of them all. I thought this would be kind of interesting considering Vine videos can only be 6 seconds or less and have videos of no longer than 6 seconds all combined into one video would be very interesting to say the least.

For starters, I used the Vine app on my phone to make the videos, and I chose to take multiple videos of what all went on during my day today! It was a very hectic day considering I walked outside this morning and it was raining, then continued my morning to go and tan. After tanning and going to my house the rain turned into snow, so as the first snowfall of the season, I couldn’t pass up the chance to get it on camera! That concluded my first video, as I created my second video it was of me arriving at work, then taking a break and going back into work (where it was nothing shy of a hectic day at the pharmacy). Finally my last video was of me finally getting home around 8 tonight, and going straight into doing my ds106 homework before I go out of town tomorrow night!

After my three videos were created, I sent them to my email and saved them onto my computer. I opened them up using the Freemake Video Converter application and started combining the videos into one solid video. I first clicked on add videos, and clicked on the 3 Vine videos I previously recorded and opened them up into the application. I then made sure the “join files” option was on, which makes them all into one video and not just three separate videos as they were before. Another option I made sure was on was the “fade transition” because I wanted the three videos to flow nicely within the one solid video instead of just video, after video, after video. Then I clicked the edit buttons just to make sure everything was set up and placed where I wanted it to be and clicked ok. Finally to save it, I clicked on the “convert” tab on the top toolbar and chose convert to Mp4 which allows the video to be opened in any software, website, etc.

I wasn’t originally going to create a Mashup Assignment, I was going to stay safe and create a photo assignment, but I wanted to come out of my comfort zone. This class has taught me a lot of that actually, I have done many more things than I am actually comfortable with and I am glad I was given the opportunity to do so. Anywho, one of the assignments I had done prior had inspired me to use Vine as part of this new assignment, and then I added the extra part of adding them all together as one video to give it the “Mashup” title.

For this assignment (3.5 stars), I used a scene from season 4 where Omar is taking a trip to the store to buy Cheerios (and some drugs). I used Windows Live Movie Maker to create this video.

Here are the 4 laughter clips I used from freesound.org

By adding these sounds I created a comedic effect to the scene. Here is my final video!

For this mashup assignment (4.5 stars) I chose 11 movies that starred Robin Williams to show the evolution of his career.

I found the movie clips on YouTube and used Clip Converter to download them.

I uploaded the clips in Window Live Movie Maker and trimmed them down. I added a title slide, fades for the changing scene and captions to show the title of the movie and the year.

The whole process is very simple just time consuming.

I uploaded the final movie to Vimeo, and here’s what I have!

10 Second Song Mashup – 3 Stars

For my final mashup assignment, I chose to create a mashup of 5 songs which all lasted between 2-3 seconds. I chose this assignment because music is a huge part of my life. I am one of those people that music motivates, not only to get things done at that point in time, but also throughout life and my goals and dreams. I can relate to the music I listen to, which is one reason I love country music so much.

To start this assignment, I thought about what songs I wanted to use, and I came up with the list of songs I wanted to use. For some reason I wanted to change out the male and female artists every other song, not too sure if there was rhyme or reason for it, but I definitely just felt it would sound better, or more different and hopefully people can figure the songs out easier!

I used two different applications for my creation, YouTube and Audacity. I opened up Audacity which is the software I used to record each 2-3 second clip of the different songs and I used YouTube to stream them while recording. I opened up each YouTube video in a separate window so I each song ready to go when I needed to add it to my mashup of songs. To start the recording I would hit the red record button on the toolbar at the top, and to stop recording after the certain time (2-3 seconds) I hit the square stop button.

After doing so for the first song, I repeated those steps for the following four songs. The recordings just added to the end of the previous recording, so there was not any editing needed after the clips were recorded. To save it to my computer, I had to export it which converted the file to a Mp4 which is capable with any program/software.

Now, its your chance to guess which songs I used to create this Mashup Sound! :)

3 Stars

For my second Mashup Assignment, I chose to complete Your Favorite Teams Mashup. I am a huge sports fan and have been pretty much since I was born. I grew up with my whole family being into all different sports, but some are my favorite to watch are football and hockey, but I love playing softball. Well for this assignment, I chose my 3 favorite teams, two in football and one in hockey. I chose to mash up the Washington Capitals Logo, the Washington Redskins logo as well as the South Carolina Gamecocks mascot.

           To mix these all together in one “flowing” picture or logo was pretty simple. I found each logo and mascot picture on google and made sure each picture had a transparent background in order to make the overlapping of each a little easier on me.

            After I found the perfect pictures, I opened up MS Paint, and first opened up the Gamecocks mascot picture to start as the bottom layer of the picture. I then inserted the Redskins Indian into the picture to lie on top of the mascot as the head, except I rotated it to face the other way so the head was in the same direction as the body was. After adding the head to my creation, I added the Capitals Eagle to top it all off as if it were carrying the mascot.

            It may not be the most pretty logo/icon, but I definitely thought it was cute and worked well for what I was aiming for (never said I was Picasso ;)). I think a cool way to make this assignment even more “remixed” would be making it as a GIF or making it come alive in some sort of way. If I had the time this week, I would’ve done so to give my creation a little more pizazz, but unfortunately I had a lot going on so I stuck to what the assignments goals were and that was it.

A Changing Character – 4.5 Stars

For my first mashup assignment, I decided to give A Changing Character a shot. 9 seasons of One Tree Hill came and went, in which I watched every single episode of each season, and now it is all over with. My favorite character through the entire show was Brooke Davis (Sophia Bush). Over the entire series, she transformed from a young, didn’t care a whole lot, spoiled, flirtatious, cheerleader, into a business owner, independent, mother and wife, as well as a genuinely kind woman. Another reason I chose to show how she changed throughout the series is because I thought she had grown the most from a totally different person as she was in season 1, episode 1.

In order to get the video clips of Brooke Davis throughout the One Tree Hill series, I used YouTube to search for good slips which I thought represented her. I got a clip from each one of the seasons to give it the bit more oomph I thought it needed to show her stages of growth through it all. To download and save each clip from YouTube to my computer, I used a website called SaveFrom which takes each YouTube videos and converts them into a Mp4 and saves it to my computer.

After having all the videos I wanted to use, I found on picture of Brooke Davis that was memorable for me because it was during the season where she was beginning to realize that she needed to change and get her life going in the right directed, so it is a picture of her standing in front of an overhead projector of words that people use to destroy others. That is when she realized she couldn’t be the person to knock people down, nor not care about them.

To convert all the videos to my own video of Brooke Davis, I used FreeMake Video Converter and uploaded each video to the template as well as the picture I set as the beginning of my video which brought me to where all the editing can be done.

I went through the videos, and cut only the selections of each video that I wanted because I didn’t want my final product be an entire movie that bored you to death for an hour. I cut the clips down to where it was mostly just showing Brooke Davis and her ways, which ultimately brought the time of the video down to roughly 7 minutes (which I felt was reasonable considering the overall time span of growth I was showing with the changing of Brooke Davis).

After I was happy with the length and transitioning of the videos and picture, I clicked on the convert button on the top toolbar, and converted it to a Mp4 and saved it to my computer.

This assignment was a lot of fun, time consuming, but still a lot of fun. I got to re-watch shows and parts of One Tree Hill I absolutely loved, which makes me want to watch the series all over again (if only I had the time for 9 seasons, ha!).

Where Should Alan Go On Vacation?

…Not anywhere with popcorn, that is for certain!

When I think of popcorn, I think of a delicious snack, especially one of which is extremely tasty during a movie. Well, my thoughts of popcorn right now have gone completely downhill. Mozilla Popcorn Maker is one of the worst tools I have had to use, and I don’t use the term “worst” in a lightly manner. I spent 3 hours just remixing this 3 minute video. I ended up exiting out of it and redoing about 10 times, and that is an accurate count of attempts.

Finding the pictures and videos were the fun aspect of this assignment, hey at least some part of it was fun, right?! For the first picture of a ds106 assignment Alan was looking at, I decided to use a GIF of SpongeBob acting crazy, because that is exactly how I felt doing this assignment. For the music, I chose the song “Toes” by the Zac Brown Band since the destination was going to be Myrtle Beach, I felt that song would fit just perfectly with the beach theme.

As I was instructed, I included a map and a Wikipedia article of Myrtle Beach for the next clips. The twitter search I used was about Myrtle Beach attractions, because if you are planning a vacation, why not find some fun things to do?! And while he was opening his drawer, I placed a camera at the bottom because while on a vacation of any kind, there is always pictures that need to be taken. Then came the page where I entered my name and the grade I received in the class, which was an “A” (hoping that is what comes out of this class at the end!). I also added a little side note saying what an excellent job I had done. (Being a little big-headed? Maybe, but I needed to add something considering I don’t think I did a swell job on this assignment). After the grades were put up, the last thing was packing the suitcase, and I made sure he didn’t forget his Ipad, which I am sure he can’t go anywhere without!

The final video I posted was a 30 second YouTube video of actually being in a hotel room looking up and down the beach of Myrtle Beach itself, with families coming together and the sounds of kids playing together.

I would love to give myself the full credit for trying my absolute hardest on this assignment, but as an over-achiever and a perfectionist, I definitely found myself getting beyond frustrated that I couldn’t get this video lined up, matching the seconds to a T. I may end up coming back to try and edit this remixed video sometime before the next two weeks is over, but as of now, I am frustrated with how hard this seems to me. So until then, my final product can be seen below; and I give everyone THE UPMOST RESPECT who found this application easy to use and remix Alan’s Vacation with!

https://ashleighengels.makes.org/popcorn/2h8v_