The objective of the assignment “Common Every Day Object” was to take a normal, everyday object and manipulate the colors. My roommate Tim is a New York Giants fan so I decided to have a little fun at his expense. The first thing I did was to take a picture of his beloved Giants poster in our room. Next I imported it to the Color Splash Smart app on my computer. Color Splash allows you to take all of the color out of an image, then recolor it back. I used it to first, take all of the color out of the picture, then recolor everything except for the helmet itself. I then saved the image and imported it to the app Colorstrokes. Colorstrokes is similar to Color Splash except that it allows you to change the colors of the picture, kind of like paint. I used color strokes to recolor the normally blue and white helmet to a more suitable red and yellow. It was a pretty simple task but I had a lot of fun at his expense.
For the assignment “Return to the Silent Era“, the object was to take a movie trailer and edit all the words out to make it like a silent movie. I chose the movie Drive, because it did not have a whole lot of dialogue to begin with, but also because I liked the movie a lot. The first thing I did was to use keepvid.com to download the movie trailer from youtube. After it finished downloading, I used Mpeg Streamclip to take the sound out of the clip. All you have to do to take the sound out is import the clip to the program, then go to the edit tab and click delete audio track, then save the new file (with the deleted audio). Next I used iMovie. The first thing in iMovie that I did was create a new project and import the new, silent trailer clip from my files. The next thing I did was to break the clip down into shorter scenes so that I could add the text. I highlighted the part of the clip I wanted, then dragged it to the top left so I could edit it. Once I had the part of the clip I wanted, I clicked the little “T” in the middle right side, to bring up the text options. I then dragged the text I wanted to the piece of clip I had selected, and typed in the text I wanted to have shown. I then repeated these steps, highlighting each bit of clip, dragging to the editing box, selecting text, and adding the text I wanted to show up for the entire clip until I had given text for the whole trailer.
Continuing with my theme of “let’s parody every awesome line from Riddle-Master,” I give you my minimalist poster for the second book in the trilogy, “Heir of Sea and Fire”!
MINIMALISM, AHAHAHAH. Why the heck did I ever think I could attempt minimalism? MY FAVORITE ART STYLE IS ART NOUVEAU, WHICH IS LIKE MINIMALISM’S POLAR OPPOSITE. While settling on an appropriate design and getting to its execution was super frustrating, I am extremely pleased with how this turned out. It isn’t perfect by a long shot but I am GIDDY over those nice clean lines, especially the jewel in the center and the fire in the bottom right corner. Mmmmmm, fire.
All of the images and colors in this poster were carefully chosen to reflect elements from the book. The hand represents Raederle of An, who is the “Heir of Sea and Fire” of the title. Near the beginning of the book another character, Astrin, takes her to the ruined city of the Earth-Masters at a place called King’s Mouth Plain. The plain is scattered with artifacts from before the Earth-Masters destroyed themselves in a massive war, and Astrin finds a small faceted stone there and gives it to her. Later, Raederle uses the same stone to craft an illusion of light so powerful that it blinds several warships, and she and her companions can continue on their journey to find her would-be-husband, Morgon.
The fire factors into the story when Raederle begins to understand the full scope of her powers. Eventually she learns that she is descended from a shape-changer, the same creatures that are trying to kill Morgon, and therefore has power over both fire and the sea. For Raederle, shaping fire with her hands is an admission of her link to the shape-changers, and she spends much of the book struggling with what that power, and her wanting of it, makes her. After she shapes fire for the first time, looks down at her hand and finds that the pattern of the twelve-sided stone from Wind Plain has been etched into her palm:
She sat up abruptly, staring down at her hand, in which the fire had burned like an extension of herself the night before. On her palm, scored white, were the twelve sides and delicate inner lines of the stone Astrin had given her on King’s Mouth Plain.
McKillip has a knack for ending chapters with lines that knock you on your ass, and that’s no exception.
It’s only much later that the connection between the shape-changers and Earth-Masters is, and I won’t spoil it for new readers. Overall, I wanted to convey the sea with the green color of the background, the blue stone in Raederle’s palm, and the flames she’s reaching towards to represent how she does long to claim her intrinsic power, and how that struggle becomes her main point of character development. I also wanted the font to be evocative of a fantasy setting, but subtle enough that it wouldn’t be distracting, and happily the Gabriola font was perfect. It even mirrors the font on the cover of the copy of Riddle-Master that I own, which is kind of neat.
Although this poster isn’t minimalist in the strictest sense, I’m still quite happy with it, and I’d love to try my hand at more minimalist designs in the future.
This is an assignment that I created called Where are They Now? it is Video Assignment 797 and it is worth 3 stars. The assignment reads:
“Don’t you hate how some movies just leave you hanging!! Do you ever wonder what happens to the characters next? Well this is your chance to let the world know where they are today! Choose a movie and then create some type of video update on the characters current life. Use pictures, video clips, drawings; whatever you want and compile them into a video. “
I seriously hate when movies just end. I like to have some type of closure and I always find myself wondering what happened to the characters (yes, even though it is JUST a movie).
I chose to do the characters of Mean Girls for 2 main reasons: First, I wanted to use this video for my final project and second, I knew I could find PLENTY pictures of Lindsay Lohan (Cady) in jail.
I used powerpoint to create the first and last slide. I found funny photos of Cady, Gretchen, Karen, and Regina. Then I dragged them to Windows Movie Maker and added captions to each photo. And viola, a Mean Girls Update!
The idea behind this began when watching a Teen Mom Update….( Yes I do still watch Teen Mom )
The easiest way (I’ve found) is to use pixlr. It has a lot more options and effects than paint.
1. When you go to pixlr.com you open Pixlr Editor (advanced). It then gives you a few options to upload from your computer, create new, etc… You want to choose the open image from your computer.
2. Once you have your pet’s picture opened you can then start editing.
3. The toolbar will be your best friend during this assignment. Be very familiar with it. I’ve circled a few of the tools that I used the most.
4. The object of the assignment is to put makeup on your pet. So I suggest starting off with the basics: eye shadow, eye line, lipstick.
5. For the eye shadow I brought down the opacity so it really looks real. Once you click on the brush button on the tool bar the opacity bar will be brought up at the top.
6. Once you choose your color for the eye shadow sweep it across the top of the eyes.
7. The next step would be eye liner. Just take the brush again and change the color to your color of choice and outline the eyes. You might need to change the size of the brush (see above picture) and the opacity back to 100%. And to have a bit of fun adding big eyelashes would be cute!
8. The lipstick is a bit more difficult to make look natural on a dog. Choose your color and then carefully paint where lips should be.
9. To add some color to the cheeks bring the opacity back down and sweep the color of your choice across the cheek bones.
Above are the basics for the assignment. But below are some fun things you could add!
hat, bow, hair, change the background, bow-tie, jewelry, tie, etc…
Playing around with the effects (filter tab at top) can also add cool effects.
After our video week, I decided that it would be really cool if there was a video assignment that entailed making your own Public service announcement! I created one for my “Hitchcut” assignment about teen pregnancy and thought it would be fun for others to do as well! So I submitted it as a video assignment!
“Do you care about a current issue in our society and want others to be aware of it too?? Well here is your chance! Pick (or make up) some type of issue. Create a video public service announcement to promote the issue you would like to be resolved! You can be as serious as you want or as silly as you want! Just have fun with it!
First I downloaded the video clip I wanted to use from you tube. Then I used Windows movie maker and Powerpoint to edit it and add my own slides to the announcement.
I hope you enjoy this assignment and have fun with it!! Interpret it however you’d like!
Wow, you’ve come a long way if you’re now reaching your Video Assignment week of DS106. Pat yourself on the back, it’s a lot of work and a lot of thinking! Since you’re here, you must be wondering how to create a video that kicks ass or just for the Everyday Modern Marvels Assignment! Well lucky you, I broke the ice(and am currently 12/4/2012 still the only one who has!) and now it’s time for you to top my video! But, I’m not worried about that, this tutorial is for you to see how I made my video. After watching you can go produce your own masterpiece and 1-up me!
So where to start…hmmmm
Step 0.5 – PREPLAN YOUR VIDEO!!!! Know what you want to do, and how you want to do it. This will save a lot of time, effort, and frustration in the long run!
Step 1 – As with any video/movie, you need, well…VIDEO! So go out with your plan, record what you need, then upload to your computer!
Step 2 – Hopefully you have your video uploaded in .wmv files and can load them directly into Windows Movie Maker. If you have multiple clips, this will mash them together so that there is no skipping/waiting on YouTube. (Like the two videos above!)
Step 3 – Go ahead and watch your video! Do you like it? Is it worthy of editing? If so, begin the editing process now! If there are parts you don’t want in the video simply go to Video Tools, and click Split where you don’t want the video. The clip will split and you can then select and delete it.
Step 4 – Next, you probably don’t want the audio that was used(unless that’s how you recorded it to make it easier on yourself) and cut out other people talking/background noise. For this, stay in the Video Tools, select Video Volume and then drag the bar all the way to the left.
Step 5 – Great, now I have a video without audio. Now what? Well you can snag music from the Internet, create your own audio, or BOTH! Let’s do both! Remember Audacity from earlier in the semester? Open it up! Now hit the Record button in Audacity and time it with what you want to say in the movie. (Scripting before talking usually works pretty well!) You can tile the windows side by side so that you can start the audio and then start the movie.
Step 6 – Edit your audio! You may have long pauses where you aren’t talking, you can get rid of those by highlighting the selected piece and hitting delete.
Step 7 – Cool, now you have a narration of your video. But wait, there is a lot of quiet moments during my video…what should I do? Simple, you can download sound effects off the internet(see websites from Audio Week) or you can just use music. How do you get the music? Fastest YouTube Downloader. If you didn’t download that earlier in the semester, do it. It’s awesome. So go to YouTube, find a video with the audio you want, paste the URL in FYTD, and then upload the MP3 into Audacity!
Step 8 – You probably don’t want your narration to get overpowered, so let’s lower the levels by using the Gain Slider. Export your new audio as a MP3.
Step 9 – Back in Windows Movie Maker, go to the Home tab. Click Add Music, and find the clip you just created! Once it loads into Movie Maker, you can move the audio around to start on whichever clip you want.
Step 10 – Your movie should now be nearing completion. Final edits are in store, such as a Title and Credits screen. These can be found on the Home tab to the right of Add Music. Click Title and it will place a text holder and slide effect at the beginning of the movie. Click Credits and it will place a text holder and slide effect at the end of the movie.
Congrats on receiving your 3 stars! Now go blog about your creation and don’t forget to mention me! Get creative with your videos, and take what you learned from my tutorial and implement it to other assignments, Good Luck!
Welcome to my DS106 Tutorial on how to create a drawing! If you’re unfortunate, like myself, and don’t have Photoshop, don’t sweat it. This quick tutorial is going to make using GIMP as easy as possible for all you new DS106ers! Now most of you may have clicked this by going through the “Draw it.” assignment and seeing the tutorials…So you must be aiming to get the 2 stars for the assignment, woohoo!
I also did this assignment, A Man and His Dog, and understand the frustrations of using GIMP and other new programs. The Internet is a big help with answers/tutorials, which also helped me with my own assignment. So relax, take a deep breath and get ready to draw!
(If you can’t wait to read and just want to follow pictures, here is a slideshow of the tutorial)
Step 1 – Start with a picture. It can be a picture of ANYTHING! That’s the best part about art, you make what YOU want! Open the picture up in GIMP.
Step 2 – Duplicate your layer. You can do this by right clicking on the layer in the layers window and then clicking Duplicate Layer. This is a good practice because you will always have your original photo and won’t edit over it by accident. I learned my lesson in my old Photoshop/high-school days!
Step 3 – Make sure that you have your new copied layer selected in the Layers window, and then proceed to go to Colors on the toolbar. After the dropdown, select Hue/Saturation. A new window will open and you will want to drag the Hue/Lightness/Saturation bars all to the left. This will result in a seemingly black/gray image.
Step 4 – Just like in Step 2, we are going to Duplicate the black/gray layer from Step 3.
Step 5 & 6- Making sure you have your newest copy(should be the top black/gray layer) selected in the Layers window, go to Filters, down to Blur, and then select Gaussian Blur. This is just a generic blur that I used. (If you wish to play around with GIMP or your drawing assignment, select another blur and see what you get!) A box will appear and you will want to select how much of a blur you would like to apply. I chose 5, but once again, you can get creative!
Step 7 – Continuing to use the same layer, go to Colors. Then choose Invert.
Step 8 – After you invert, you need to change the Opacity of that layer to 50%. This is located near the top of where your layers are located. Once you change the Opacity, you will then right click the layer in the Layers window and choose Merge Down.
Step 9 – Great, now you have a gray blob. What do you do with a gray blob?? Duplicate that layer as you have done with previous layers.
Step 10 – Lastly, go to the top of your Layers window. With the newest copied layer selected, change the Mode to Dodge.
This should result in a “drawn” looking image! Congrats on receiving your 2 stars! Now go blog about your creation and don’t forget to mention me! On my final image, I wanted it to have sharper edges and more “drawn” looking qualities, so I played around in GIMP until I was satisfied. Have fun creating!
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.
