Juggling: Literally and Figuratively

This is my submission for the Animated Classic Reading assignment, a 3-star assignment for DS106. This is the third of the five required video assignments for the two-week period, bringing my total to 13 stars. Here are the instructions for the assignment:

Take a classic piece of literature – something that begs to be read aloud – and have animated characters do a dramatic reading.

Here’s the video. The program I used wouldn’t allow me to upload to YouTube, so I shared it on Twitter and am embedding the tweet. You should be able to view the video in this post that way.

DS106 Work https://t.co/AhvNG5QnAf

— Ben Brady (@BBrady92) November 16, 2015

I chose to have the character read the first couple paragraphs of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. My brother gave me the book for Christmas when I was in the sixth grade and I’ve probably read it at least 15 times since. It’s one of my top-five favorite books. Most people think the book is about government-imposed censorship, despite the fact that Bradbury himself said that was not the point. To me, the point of the book has to do with people voluntarily giving up any intellectual pursuit in favor of constant senseless stimulation. I’ve written about the book in a couple different papers over the years because I think that’s the way a lot of people are headed these days. Anyway, I’m getting off on a tangent. It’s a great book!

When I saw the assignment in the assignment bank, it stuck out because I had no idea how it could be done. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the assignment to see how other people had done it. There were only two submissions and both mentioned a program called Plotagon. I did a quick Google search and found that the program was actually extremely easy to use. So I decided to do the assignment! I downloaded the program and booted it up. I first had to design my character, which I modeled after myself. I started a project and made a couple decisions about how the scene would take place. I chose a classroom, with my character sitting at a desk and another character sitting at the teacher’s desk. I typed in the dialogue, which only included a couple lines other than the selection from Fahrenheit 451, and I was done.

Have a conversation with yourself! Film yourself talking, then change clothes, hair styles, etc and then film the other half of the convo. Edit this in any movie editor program (I used Pinnacle movie maker) To overlap the two scenes so that you are talking to yourself! Play around, to figure out the most efficient way! Also, timing is everything in this! Make sure when talking to leave breaks for your other self to respond!

For this assignment I couldn’t use Windows Movie Maker. I had to find a different video editing software that would work with Windows 10 since Movie Maker has almost no effects. Since this requires an effect that overlap’s the two scenes to make it look like I’m talking to myself, I had to find a software with more effects. So after searching Google for some software, I eventually stumbled upon the VideoPad video editing software. I chose this to use for this assignment since in the description of the program, it had all the effects I need, and seemed trustworthy.

After finding a reliable video editing software, I created my script. I decided to go with the idea of two roommates having a disagreement because one wants to do homework, while the other is being distracting and won’t come to terms with the other person.

Next came the filming which was my absolute least favorite part. To shoot the video, I just used my laptop’s built in webcam. Then I imported the videos into VideoPad and got to work.

I spent a couple hours trying to figure out how to make the clips overlap, but I just couldn’t do it. I only managed to get both the audio’s playing.

bad thing

This is the Highlight Reels assignment, worth five stars. This is my second of the required five video assignments for the two-week period. This brings my total to 10 stars. The directions are below.

Channel your inner ESPN and clip together highlights of your favorite athete, set it to some music, and add an intro.

First, the video!

I chose to do a Kirk Cousins highlight reel because I’ve been a Redskins fan my whole life. I grew up watching them with my dad and older brother. Unfortunately, they’ve sucked pretty much my entire life. They’ve made the playoffs a couple times, but they never manage to get far. The most recent time was back in Robert Griffin III’s rookie season, when they lost the game and he severely injured his knee. He was supposed to be great, but ever since that game, he’s been pretty terrible. The supposed franchise savior turned benchwarmer. So seeing Kirk Cousins put up some great games has been really fun to watch. Maybe I won’t be watching a terrible team my entire life!

As for the music, I wanted something high energy. What’s more high energy than some classic punk rock? “Blitzkrieg Bop” by the Ramones seemed like the perfect choice.

To create the video, I searched on YouTube for a couple of clips. I found two clips of Cousins’ two best games this season. The first, which I was actually able to attend, was a couple weeks ago against the Tampa Bay Bucs. The second was today’s game against the New Orleans Saints. I used http://Savefrom.net to download the clips onto my computer and opened them in Windows Movie Maker. I split the clips to remove any dead space and rearranged them. I added title clips and credits, which include the links to the original clips I downloaded off of YouTube. The final step was to add music. I searched through my collection of music and decided on the Ramones. I just had to select the song to import it into Windows Movie Maker. I added a fade out and I was done.

This is a five-star video assignment for weeks 11/12 of DS106. That brings my total for the two-week period to…five stars so far. I’ve been busy, okay?! Here is the assignment page. I’ll include the instructions below as well.

This challenge can either be completed as an Audio Assignment, or a Visual Assignment. Inspired by a similar challenge, involving the use of American Sign Language, this challenge has you try to spell out words using Morse Code, and seeing who can guess what the word is. Anything goes, as long as the Morse Code standards of dots and dashes are represented in one form or another. Again, the longer the word, the better your chances of stumping someone with it!

I’ll start off with the video, then move onto the story behind it and the process.

The hint for this is – This has to do with my situation as a senior finishing up in December.

The rules of morse code might also be helpful here. Here’s the image I found online that helped me put this together.

The reason I chose this phrase? Because I’m excited to get out of here in a month!! I came into Mary Washington in the fall of 2011. I took off the fall semester of 2014. I don’t regret taking some time to get things straight, but I do wish I was finished with school six months ago. I got an internship with a contractor in June. That’s been going well, and on Friday, they told me they’d like to hire me full-time starting as soon as I graduate in December. So, I don’t think I can adequately express to you how excited I am to graduate and move onto working and not having homework. That’s why I chose this phrase.

Now for the explanation of the process. This was one of the first assignments in the video assignment bank. I completed the Signing Words assignment, and this seemed similar, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I first chose a phrase I wanted to communicate. One too short wouldn’t be the fun, nor would one too long. I chose a three-word phrase that I don’t think is too difficult to guess. I started off in MS Paint. I created an image for a dash, a dot, and a blank space.

Next, I opened Windows Movie Maker. I imported those images as short videos, shortened their length to 0.25 seconds, and then began copying them to spell out my phrase. I thought about using a short white “blink” in between frames to help differentiate between consecutive images, but decided against it once I realized the sound would achieve that. I went onto http://freesound.org and searched for “morse code” audio clips. Below is an image of the one I ended up downloading. I chose this specific audio clip because it was easy to pluck out a “dot” and a “dash” sound.

I uploaded the audio clip to Windows Movie Maker. I used the built-in tools to split the audio clip and isolate “dot” and “dash” sounds, then copied them to match up with the corresponding images. I added title frames and credits (though I forgot to add the credits before I took this screencap).

Overall, this ended up being a decently easy, but fun assignment.

This is the required assignment for weeks 11 & 12 of DS106. I needed to have a conversation with myself. This is a link to the assignment page.

First, the video.

The reason I chose to do bad jokes is because they’re something that my family loves. I have three siblings and every time we get together, we tell the same terrible jokes. The NASA joke is actually a newer one that I saw online, but the bunny rabbit joke is a pretty good representation of the quality of the jokes we tell. What’s that? You want to know some more of them? Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. My dad’s favorite joke is this.

Q: How do you smoke a swordfish?

A: Put the tail in your mouth and light the other end.

My sister told him that joke when she was eight. He’s been telling it for the last 15 years. And he sometimes doesn’t even remember the answer to it. It’s a terribly awful joke. Another one? Okay.

Q: Where does Hitler keep his armies?

A: In his sleevies!!

Get it???!!!! Arm-ies? Sleeve-ies? It’s awful. And we love it. And now for one of my all-time favorites. I found this one on a site filled with terrible kid jokes.

There are three men on a plane. The first man bites into an apple, but he doesn’t like it, so he throws it out the window. The second man bites into a rock.

No, I didn’t forget to tell the end of the joke. That’s it. I love telling it, deadpanning after the last line, and watching peoples’ reactions. The point is, bad jokes are a big part of my personality. I love bad jokes and terrible puns. So if I could actually have a conversation with myself, chances are it would be an exchange of terrible jokes.

Now, the process. I don’t have a webcam, so I propped my iPhone up and tried to keep it in the same place the best I could. I think I did a decent job with that. I wrote down what I wanted each me to say and then practiced a couple times before filming it. I thought about using headphones to record the whole conversation and then incorporating them into the video somehow so I would have cues, but I decided to just try to time it out the best I could. I’ve seen the kind of videos this assignment asks for. Eddie Murphy has made several films using this technique (I never saw Norbert, but I heard that was the right decision). However, when I went to edit the video in Windows Movie Maker, I couldn’t find a way to overlap them. I thought, “I must just be missing it, there has to be a way. This is a common enough technique, right?” WRONG! I built my computer a year ago and the OS shipped with Windows Movie Maker 12. After some online searching, I found out that Windows Movie Maker 12 doesn’t support combining video in the way this assignment required. Supposedly Windows Movie Maker 15 does. But every download was shifty and I am really skeptical of untrustworthy downloads. My work also requires that I keep my home computer secure. So, unfortunately, I had to stick with piecing together the individual pieces of the videos. I know, I know, this does not meet the requirements. But I just don’t have the video editing software to make it happen. So for now, you’ll just have to overlook that and enjoy the really terrible, amazing jokes.

Things are’t what they use to be. For this assignment pick a product, a piece of technology works best but you can use anything, and create a short video timeline of how it looked way back all the way to how it looks today. Be sure to add dates.

For this 3 and a half star assignment I chose to do a timeline of TV’s. All I had to do was Google images of tv’s and their dates and line them up in a video timeline. I used Windows Movie Maker for this assignment as well.

Then once I imported all the clips and dates into Movie Maker, I imported an audio track to make it more interesting to watch.

Here is the final video:

Helium may be in short supply, but a little digital tweaking can still leave your favorite actors sounding like the Chipmunks. Take a clip from a film and either speed up the action or raise the pitch on the audio track for some high-pitched laughs.

This assignment interested me because it reminded me of my sister who used to be obsessed with the Alvin and The Chipmunks movies. So when I saw the word “Chipmunk” in the title I immediately thought of my sister and decided to do this assignment.

I decided to go with the movie The Avengers because it was the first one that popped in my head. I then went on YouTube to find my favorite scene from that movie, which was was Iron Man tells the rest of the Avengers that he’s bringing the party to them, as he leads a giant flying creature towards them. When I found the clip. I used ClipGrab to download it.

Then I opened the clip in Windows Movie Maker and realized I can’t change the pitch within Movie Maker. So the next step was to use ClipGrab again, but this time change the format to mp3 to just get the audio from the clip. This way I could open it up in Audacity and change the pitch that way.

Once I successfully changed the pitch, I saved it and used the “Add Music” button on Windows Movie Maker to add the audio to the clip of the film that I first opened up. Then, on the video options, I clicked “Video Volume” and muted the video so the audio I imported from Audacity was the only one that could be heard.

Here is the final video:

Create a supercut montage of overused dialogue, themes, motifs, filmmaking techniques, etc. for a particular character, tv show, film, and/or public figure. A supercut is a “fast-paced montage of short video clips that obsessively isolates a single element from its source, usually a word, phrase, or cliche from film and TV. Supercut.org collects every known example of the video remix meme.”

Good news for this assignment! I finally figured out a way to make Window’s Movie Maker work on Windows 10. After intense Google searching about video editing alternatives for Windows 10 users, I found out that I can get Windows Movie Maker on Windows 10 by just going to Microsoft’s site and downloading “Windows Essentials 2012” which includes Movie Maker among other things. Now I won’t have to deal with the giant watermark that was in my first assignment anymore.

To do this 5 star assignment I had to think of an overused word in a show I’ve seen. It wasn’t long before I stumbled across a funny picture that included Rick from the walking dead screaming “CARL!” at the top of his lungs, so I decided to go with a supercut of all the times people have said “Carl” in “The Walking Dead.” To do this assignment I finally got to use Windows Movie Maker.

Then all I had to do was search YouTube for clips of the characters in The Walking Dead yelling “Carl” and put them together in Windows Movie Maker.

The final video:

Create a five second video of one archetype from five different movies cutting together one second of each. Examples could include: Prisoners, Thieves, Beauty Queens, Kings, Robin Hoods, James Bonds, Bank Robbers, Assassins, Bad Boys, Kung Fu Masters, Femme Fatales, Sports Heroes, High School Bullies, Rogue Police Officers, Brainiacs, Pregnancies, Principals, Mean Teachers, InspirationalTeachers, Gunslingers, Gangsters, Monsters, Bartenders, Warrior Princesses, Swordsman, Knights, Mad Scientists, Nerd Girls, Obstructive Bureaucrats, Sidekicks, Wise Old Men, Hardboiled Detectives, Tough Coaches, Swooning Ladies.

Since this was my first video assignment, I first had to find good movie editing software. I had one problem though, my laptop’s operating system is Windows 10. There is barely any software that can run on the Windows 10 operating system so far and even Window’s Movie Maker wasn’t compatible so I had to improvise.  I went to the all mighty Google and searched for video editing software that could operate on Windows 10 and stumbled upon iSkysoft:

It is a fairly simple video editing software, easy to use, and it works on Windows 10.

For this 3 and a half star assignment I went with the archetype of a sarcastic cop/detective. Comedy detective films are among my favorite films which is why I chose this archetype. One of my all time favorite shows, Sherlock, is a good example. Since there are many shows and movies to choose from, I knew I could easily complete this assignment. I first started by searching YouTube for five different sarcastic detective/cop film scenes. I decided to go with the films: Sherlock(Benedict Cumberbatch), Sherlock Holmes(Robert Downy Jr.), 21 Jump Street, Men In Black 3, and Psych.

To download them off of YouTube and onto my computer, I used the software called ClipGrab which is a free video downloader and converter for YouTube. It is extremely simple to use. All I had to do was copy and paste the YouTube clip URL into a field in the software and click “Grab this clip!”

Then I opened up the iSkySoft software and imported each video, one at a time to make it easier to edit each individual clip. The first clip I used was from Sherlock Holmes(Robert Downy Jr.). To edit this clip. I dragged the now imported clip to the editing portion of the software and clicked on the clip which highlights it. When I found which line I wanted to use, I had to cut the rest out. I did this by pressing the “Split” button (an image of scissors), which splits the clip into two separate sections at a point of my choosing, and then deleted the half I didn’t want. I repeated this process until I got the desired line for my assignment.

Then I repeated the process for the other four clips: importing them, dragging them down to the edit portion, and splitting and deleting sections of the clip until I got the desired lines.

Lastly I added an audio clip to go in the background of the completed video just to make it more enjoyable and give it an extra element. Unfortunately since I downloaded the free version of iSkySoft’s video editing software, there is a giant watermark covering the whole video and unless I buy the full version, it will not go away. So hopefully I will find a video editing software that works on Windows 10 without a giant watermark covering the video. Here is the final product: