Video Project Count: 5

So finally did the Return to the Silent Era assignment. It was fun, and this was the end result:

To make this video, it took a little bit of work. The most important of which was to pick out what I wanted to re-stylize. Of course I’ve already done a lot of work with The Big Lebowski previously in this class, so naturally that was one of the films I considered. I think why I chose to make a portion of this film as a silent movie is that the film itself relies so much on dialogue. Like most Cohen brother films the humor and interest of the film comes from character interactions. Also, as anyone to quote a Cohen brother film and they’ll likely give you a Lebowski quote.

With that in mind I decided to take on one of the most commonly quoted films, in either jest or anger: Walter berating Smokey over an alleged bowling violation. After I downloaded this original material to work with:

I threw it into Final Cut Pro and began to add film effects. I can’t remember exactly which ones I used exactly–there was a lot of experimentation–but in the end I ended up using about 4-5 different effects to get the look I wanted. Also something I remembered reading was that earlier films had a different frame/second ratio (fps ratio). So to simulate this I sped up the clip really fast and then toyed with making it slower by degrees till I look more old timey.

The hardest part was the title cards. If an image is too small with will come out blurry when inserted into film. So I had to hunt down a good title card and make it bigger. Props to Alan Levine’s blog for the source material here. This also explains why the text is so damn big, I kept coming out blurry since it was pasted over a blurry image (to get the text I just used the text files in Final Cut Pro). It was also while doing this that I noticed that most of the other students were doing moive trailers, example here. At this point I said, “Shit.” but decided I was too much in the hole now to go back, so i just focused on making my video the best I could.

Music was a bit tricky cuz length and timing were off, but I just tried to edit the song at good enough points and elongated it. It got the music form this website, couldn’t have been more perfect.

Anyhoo thats about it. Here’s a screenshot of what all that looked like:

ONWARD!!!!

Animated Music Video

Take a favorite cartoon or anime like show, take some clips, mash them together and add music to it. Try to pick out a specific theme in your clips that follow the theme of the music. Keep an eye out for changes in the music and plan your clips accordingly.
For examples check out youtube and type in “AMV”, or look at this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8vvTQDrPec

This is a 4 star assignment

I chose to do this assignment because I always have loved watching animated movies and TV shows.  Animation has really come a long way since really early animations.  There has been more that go into them, such as much vivid color and more realistic looking people. For this assignment I am using clips from the TV show the Powerpuff Girls.  When I was a kid I loved the Powerpuff Girls.  This was my favorite show on Cartoon Network, when I watched cartoon network.  Looking back on the animation of the Powerpuff Girls has really improved since their very first episode.  The color became more vivid and the animations became clearer.  I really liked watching the Powerpuff Girls because they were the first show I watched where there was a heroine (well in this case 3 heroine’s) than just heroes.  This show really showed that girls can do anything that they can put their mind to.  For my animated music video I am going to be taking clips from the Powerpuff Girl episode called the Rowdy Ruff Boys.  This episode is about a new group of super villains in the Town of Towns-ville that are boy versions of the Power Puff Girls.  They think they’re better and want to destroy the Powerpuff Girls. In the end though they are defeated.  I found a two part episode on YouTube and downloaded to my computer as an MP4 file using PwnYoube.  Here are the links to the episode I found.  For this assignment I used MPEG stream clip to cut out certain clips from the episode.  (I feel really comfortable using MPEG stream clip now ).

For the music part of this assignment I was looking through songs that I thought would go really well for what I want the message in my animated music video to portray.  Originally I wanted to use the song Rolling in the Deep by ADELE , but then I decided that the lyrics didn’t give the message I wanted.  The message I want this video to portray is that all girls can do anything they want, even if boys don’t think they can.  The song I decided to use is called Girls Can Too by Play.  I used to listen to this song a lot when I was younger because my friend gave me a Play CD once.  This song really conveys the message that girls can do anything that boys can do.  And it’s also about following your dreams as well.  For this assignment I didn’t realize how much time it would take to get clips and edit clips to fit the lyrics of the song, but it was worth it in the end.  I’m happy with how this video came out.

2 examples of other students work:  I had fun reviewing two different peoples work on this assignment.  It helped me better focus on what I want my animated music video to look like.  These reviews were taken from my pre production post that I did last week. (I thought since I already reviewed them I can just paste them in here).

1. Old Squirrel Cartoon: I really liked this music video for this cartoon.  I have never watched this old Squirrel Cartoon before but  I have to say the song Promiscuous Girl by Nelly Furtado and Timberland went really well with what was happening in the cartoon.  I like how this person edited some of the clip to include the sound from the cartoon, while most of what you heard was the music playing.

2.  Phineas and Ferb: I picked this one to review because I have heard of the show Phineas and Ferb and watched a few of the episodes when I was younger. I like how in this post the user showed us how they made the video.  This person also included introduction text that told me what the video was called, and this person also included a credit at the end that cited their sources.  I liked how the images went with the lyrics in the song, but I thought the point of this assignment was to make an animated music video with actual clips from the cartoon.  With that said the clips were well put together, and I enjoyed watching this cartoon music video.

Below is my embedded version of my animated music video:

As always feedback is appreciated.  I would love to know what you think and what I can improve on for my next few assignments that I have to do for this week.

Opening Credits Redux

In film, the design of opening credits can be an art unto itself. For this assignment, take an existing movie’s opening credits, and redo it in an alternate style that still honors the plot and style of the movie– or make it radically different.
See examples of the redone credits for The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Hitchock’s Rear Window.
Include in your blog post a clip or screenshots of the original credits to show the difference between that and what you create.

This is a 4 star assignment

I chose to do this assignment because while watching movies watching the opening credits is one of my favorite parts.  It’s fun to see how they are done.  I have noticed that in more recent movies there are no opening credits.  It just shows the title of the movie.  Sometimes at the end they have more of an opening credits scene such as the movie the Avengers.  I think the credits are very important in the movie because there are so many people that help to make the movie go really well.

The movie I decided to redo the credits for it Letters to Juliet.  It is one of my favorite movies that is fairly recent that has opening credits.  I first watched the opening credits of the movie so that I knew the right order and names of who was in the movie as well as who produced it. This movie is a typical love story and for the opening credits I want to change the background images to show more of the title of the movie.  In the original opening credits that you can view here you can see here there are multiple pictures being shown of love that introduce the credits.  I decided to keep the same script font for the words, but the images I added were different.  They are pictures of writing letters and at the very end a picture of Romeo and Juliet.  Writing letters is a story itself because when you write a letter you are telling someone else a story.  For the song in the background I decided to use the song Listen to Your Heart by DHT.  Letters to Juliet really relates to this song because it’s about following your heart to make the right choice in who you really love.  I already had the song in iTunes so it was easy just to upload it to Window’s Movie Maker. When formatting the credits I tried to organize them so they would appear at different places throughout the video.  Listen to Your Heart is a long song and I only included half of it in this video.  I faded out the sound at the end of the video so it would  sound more like an ending.  I also made the color of the font red because it’s the color I associated with love. Such as how Valentine’s Day colors are always red and pink.  At the end of my video I added a credits page saying that I made the video and that it is for ds106 and I credited the song and where I found the images.

The links below are to the pictures I found:

Letter 1, letter 2, letter 3, letter 4, letter 5,  Romeo and Juliet

Review of 2 previously done assignments:  A lot of the already done assignments for this were either deleted by the user or their blog was no longer active and the internet could not open the page.  There were very few to choose from to review but I did find two to review.

1. The Good the Bad and the Ugly credit remake: I have never seen this movie but I thought that this video was really well done.  I really liked how the pictures came up like they were being painted on the screen.  I also really liked the music went well with the timing of the words.  This video was really well done.

2. The Notebook:  I love the movie and book the Notebook.  I thought this credits redux was really good.  I really liked the beach scene and music.  After watching this video I then went to watch the original opening credits.  The credits redux really defines how the original credits opened up.  I also really like the font of the credits redux.  This video was really well done, my once concern is that the title of the movie didn’t appear at the same time as the original opening.  Though I really like how the title appears on the rock at the end of the video.

Below is my embedded YouTube video, as always any comments and feedback is appreciated.

Movies by Numbers

Create a video that artistically presents a single number in artful ways- show how it is represented in the world or nature. Add a relevant musical track, no narration, let the number and the visuals tell the story.  See Darren Kuropatwa’s Number 9

This is a 3 star assignment

When I came across this assignment in the video assignment repository I immediately thought of the song. One by Three Dog Night.  This song made my number choice easy, as I am going to pick number one.  For this assignment I have found many pictures with the number one and it looking lonely.  There are also going to be pictures of just the number one, and the number one written out.

2 Reviews of Previously done work:

1. Number 9 by Darren Kuropatwa:  This is the once that is shown as the example.  I really like the number 9 personally.  When I used to play soccer for fun in elementary school I always wanted to have the shirt with 9 on the back.  I really liked how this video included everything that related to number 9.  I also really liked how at the end of the video there were facts about the number 9.  I also love how in the back ground is someone saying Number 9, number 9.  This video was really well done.

2. Number 1: I decided to review the number that I plan on working with as well.  Though I am not a big fan of the kind of music played in the background the song was relevant to the number 1. I really like how this person found different ways to create the number 1.  Though I have to say that after watching the entire video I think this person could have kept more pictures of the number 1 or items that represent the number 1.  I was starting at a blank video screen at 1 minute and 25 seconds.  The whole video time was 3 minutes and 50 seconds. Over half of the video was a black screen.

The links below are for all the images in this video in order:  I believe that the descriptions that I gave the pictures in order tell a story itself, about different uses of the numebr one.  One is used in a lot of different situations and one stands alone by itself.  These are all images of just one thing.  They all stand alone.

1. Number 2  2. One in Star  3. One Star  4. No  5. One dog  6. Yes   7. One Direction 8. OneRepublic  9. One Apple  10. One Sad Face 11. One Broken Heart 12. One Billiard Ball  13. One Bowling Pin 14. One Golf Ball 15. One Stuffed Animal 16. Number one in Red 17. One Pencil  18. One Sock 19. One Teardrop 20. Number one represented by hand   21. Green Written out One 22.  Beatles 1 Album  23. One with Blue O  24. One Tree Hill  25. One By Image 

The images I chose to be in this video all represent 1 and how it can be lonely  as well as the different uses of the number one in band names or how its represented by people and things.  You’re probably wondering why there is the number 2, and the words yes and no in this video.  I’ll tell you why.  They represent the lyrics in the song.  Watch the video and you will see.  While making this video I gathered many images from google images (as you can see linked above) and uploaded them into Windows movie maker.  I then added the song into this by clicking the add music option in window’s movie maker.  After that I then ordered the images in a way so they fit the song.  This time while using window’s movie maker I added text to give my video a title and at the end I added credits by using the credits option in window’s movie maker.  I’m really happy with how this video came out.  I think this is some of my better video work.  I have definitely been feeling more comfortable using Window’s movie maker.

Below is my embedded YouTube video, again any feedback is appreciated. 

Return to the Silent Era

The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form is the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track, and add title cards for the dialogue. As a prime example, see Silent Star Wars.
One of the best sources for music is Incompetech or the Internet Archive. For the title cards, try a google image search

This is a 5 star assignment

I chose this assignment because it really interested me.  I never have seen a silent film and that’s because they were not around when I was growing up.  I picked the movie Monsters Inc and the song to go with .  I wanted to make this funny Disney Pixar movie to look more scary and suspenseful.  I know the assignment said that the movie  trailer should be 3-5 minutes but it is hard to find a movie trailer that long.

In my pre production work I reviewed two already done silent movie trailers.  One was for the Disney Pixar’s Up and the other was for The Hunger Games Silent Trailer.  I really enjoyed watching both of them.  I will have to say for the Hunger Games silent movie trailer the music didn’t go nearly as well with what was happening in the trailer.  In the Up I thought the movie trailer the music went really well with what was happening in the movie.  From these movie trailer I decided to do was to have a song that went well with the movie as well as make the movie look more like a scary movie than a funny movie for kids.

I first downloaded a clip using PwnYoutube that included the Monsters Inc trailer for the new 3D release of the movie.  I then put the movie into windows movie maker.  I changed the back ground to black and white and eliminated the sound.  Then I added the song, I have already had this song previous bought and downloaded from itunes.  I then uploaded this video to YouTube.

This is the first video assignment that I have completed, and the first real video editing that I have done.  Any comments with feedback will be appreciated on all of my video assignments that I do over these next 2 weeks.

Below is my embedded video for the assignment Return to the Silent Era: