The second and final video project I chose to do this week is the 4-and-a-half (?!) star Narrative Ambiance assignment. I chose it because I thought it would be easy. I was dead. wrong.

I like to film the weather – if it’s raining, windy, snowing, you know I’ve got a few minutes of video of it. I make videos of the trees in my neighborhood in fall, too. There’s always that one specific day when all the trees are at their most brilliant colors: yellows, oranges, and those amazing, beautiful REDS! All cast against a cloudy, gray autumn sky. But for this project, I wanted to use some of my videos of snowfall, because I’d come across a poem that hit me in the heart.

Carl Phillips’ White Dog, to me, is about knowing when it’s time to let something go. This past October, we had to make the decision to let our beloved cat go. He was only 14, but he knew it was his time. We couldn’t make him stay for us. To let him go that autumn was to really, finally, totally let him go. He was an indoor/outdoor cat, but this was the one time he wouldn’t be slinking back through our door. We wanted to let him go because we loved him, and that was that.

The snowfall as a visual was more than a “poem about snow -> snow video” thing, too. Snow and winter is usually used to represent death, or at least a long slumber. I think that’s partly why the poem itself reminded me of the critters we’ve had to say goodbye to – imagining them bouncing off through the snow, disappearing into it!!

This project was HARD, not just like “I had computer trouble” but I had to take a few breaks now and then to love on our living pets. There was a lot of stuff with Windows Movie Maker that I got frustrated with – I feel like I must have a crappy version, like the one they give you to try and convince you to buy the full version. I had the worst time trying to tack on the opening and closing credits without them being “white text on black screen” blech. Anyway, the music I used for the background is Snowfall (final) by ShadyDave on Freesound.org.

The first video assignment I chose to do for the week is the 4-star Six Second Art project. I’ll say right now that I’m no artist – I can’t draw for beans, I can’t paint, I can’t dance, and I can’t sing. I have shaky hands so anything that requires a gentle touch is out the window. Woosh. Bye bye, art that isn’t of the abstract performance variety!

What I am kinda good at is origami. For this video I decided I wanted to make a paper crane. When I was younger I used to make them all the time – I really wanted to make 1,000 cranes. As the legend goes, if you have the patience to make 1,000 paper cranes, you’ll get to ask the gods for a wish. I always went by the “you have to make them all in one year” rule, so I never made it to 1,000.

Instead, I’d try to challenge myself in other ways – what was the smallest crane I could possibly make? The biggest? I tried using all different kinds of paper too. Newspaper, construction paper, tissue paper… I think once I actually tried to make one using just plain old tissues. Pretty sure it didn’t go well.

Learning how to fold the crane was a really tough process for me, especially since it was a few years before everyone started posting How-To videos on Youtube. I had to go by crazy diagrams that were hard to figure out. But in the end I was able to do it, and even though I needed a “refresher course” to make the ones for this video, being able to fold them is something that I’m proud of. I realize that posting a video where my process is sped up 160% is exactly the opposite of what I would have wanted to find 10 years ago, but… that’s the way the cookie crumbles.

The worst part about doing this assignment had nothing to do with the editing process – it was positioning my freaking camera. I didn’t have anyone on hand to help me out with this in the way of filming… I was hoping someone would hold my phone over my shoulder, but nope. Instead, I had a setup that ended up looking like this. Behold, my terrible art skills!

I had a BOX in my face the whole time. ARGH. It was a bit of a struggle getting the video from my phone to the computer (I use Google photos and have my camera roll sync to that when I open the app, but the video was nearly 3 minutes so it took a while to upload). But after getting it into Windows Movie Maker, it was pretty much smooth sailing for me. I chose a shamisen for the music track because it reminded me of Kubo and the Two Strings – a beautiful stop-motion film by Laika that was ROBBED OF AN OSCAR and features origami and the shamisen. Here’s a gallery of my process –

Video #2: Where Do You Want To Go?

Rating: ????

Have you ever wanted to travel, but don’t have the money? Well what if you miraculously did? Where would you go? Who would you see? The Where Do You Want To Go assignment involves making a video of the top place(s) you would love to travel to. Personally, I have always wanted to go to the Czech Republic and Romania. When I was in the fifth grade my class was divded into groups. Each group was assigned different countries and with those countries we were required to research their traditions and customs. My group had the Czech Republic and Romania, and ever since then I have always wanted to go!

I chose this assignment because I love looking at pictures of the Czech Republic and Romania. It’s mesmerizing to me! I also wanted to refresh my memory of the material I learned when I was younger. The Romanian section of my video included, Bucharest (capital of Romania, the Tunnel of Love, and Bran Castle (aka Dracula’s Castle). The video I included displays the Romanian landscape (for the full/original video click here). During the images and video the Romanian National Anthem was being played. The Czech Republic section of my video includes, Prague Castle, the little town of Karlovy Vary, and Moravian Kart. I also included a video that displays an aerial view of Prague (for the full/original video click here). While all these images are playing the music you were listening to was the Czech Republic’s National Anthem.

All these different places peaked my interest, whether it was because of it’s beauty or it’s history.  I also felt that I needed to see some touristy things. If you want to go on the same virtual journey and plan your own trip follow the procedure below (I apologize in advance for the quality of my procedure photos).

Procedure

Step 1: Go to the Home tab and select the Title icon.

Step 2: Change the background to white and the font color to blue.

Step 3: Remain on the Home tab and select the Credits icon.

Step 4: Once you’ve customized your credits slide, begin to add your images and videos. You can do this by selecting the Add videos and Photos icon.

Step 5: Insert your desired video. Go to the Edit tab and select the Split tool. This will break your video apart into two segments. Next, I deleted the portion of the video I did not want by simply hitting the delete button on my keyboard.

Step 6: Once you have edited your video, go back to the Home tab and select the Add Music icon. Add your music.

Step 8: Once you’ve added your music feel free to add your remaining photos by repeating Step 4.

Step 9: Once you import your first picture go to the Home page and select the Caption icon. A text box will apear on your slide, edit it.

Step 10: Repeat steps 4-9 for your second country.

Step 11: Once you’ve finished with all your countries go to the File tab, select Save Movie, and click the For Computer option.

Congratulations! You’ve completed the assignment!

Link to assignment is tagged above in ‘Video #2: Where Do You Want To Go?

Video: #SixSecondArt

Rating: ????

When I was younger, my family and I would go to El Salvador every summer. While there, my parents would put my siblings and I in art classes. These art classes had kids of all different ages and each week we would have a new project. These projects ranged from painting to ceramics. I remember for one of the classes the teacher made us throw paint onto our canvas, followed by folding the canvas in half. For this video assignment I recreated the lesson they taught us by simply laying paint down and folding my canvas. It doesn’t really sound like art, but I like the plethora of combinations you can create!

I chose this assignment for three reasons. The first reason is because I thought it would be an interesting assignment to complete especially since it had to be speeded up. The second reason is because I’ve never used my phone’s camera recorder, so I wanted to give it a try. And the third reason is because I was in the mood to paint and get my hands dirty, so I thought what better way to do that than this project! Little did I know that this assignment was going to be a lot tougher.

I have used Windows Live Movie Maker previously, but my new computer did not have the program so I had to redownload it. Well it turned out, after I had finished creating my assignment that I couldn’t convert it to a .WMV file because I only had the tutorial version. After many failed solutions I had to recreate my assignment with my sister’s computer, which wasn’t too bad but I was not much of a happy camper. The second time I did the assignment I had trouble limiting to six seconds because if i hyperlapsed it too much, it would skip sections, and I didn’t want that. There were two tutorials that assisted me through my struggles. The first one helped me with fast fowarding the video and the second one helped me save the video to a .WMV file.

If you would like to try this assignment follow the procedure below.

Procedure

Step 1: Open Windows Movie Maker, select the File tab, and click on Open Project. Import your recorded video first!

Step 2: Once you import your video, highlight it. A video editing tool should appear, select the speed option. Since this assignment requires you to speed up your video I recommend doing the 8x option.

Step 3: Go to the Home tab and select the Title option.

Step 4: Once you have a title name you can adjust the font and background color.

Step 5: To add music to your video, go to the Home tab and select the Add Music icon.

Step 6: Highlight your video to receive the Music Tools tab. Under this tab you will find the Music Volume, lower it a tad.

Step 7: When you are satisfied with your video, go to the File tab and select Save Project.

Link to assignment is tagged above in ‘Video #1: #SixSecondArt?