Breaking Bad to me might just be the greatest TV show in the history of television. I watched the entire series when it was airing live on AMC. I also bought the almost $200 dollar box set of the entire series plus extra content. So naturally for this assignment, I decided to use Breaking Bad.
The Process:
Nothing complicated here. I used my iPhone 6 to record the video on my laptop to get the shot. The using the iPhone’s video edit mode, I trimmed the video using the yellow bar to get the part I wanted to upload.
I was searching through the assignment bank looking for ways to incorporate my character, Merrill Shale. When I found this one, I considered how I might make a video of an animal talking go along with an old Western gambler, and the answer came straight to me… If you aren’t with me yet, we are not on the same wavelength: dogs playing poker. Or in this case, dog losing poker and complaining about it. So… I went in search. I aimed to find a dog barking video that looked had a dog that looked like one in one of those paintings, and I found a St Bernard. I recorded some audio, muted the dog track, and put them together. Then, I put Kenny Rogers in the background because it fits.
During my semester in ds106, I found this assignment to be the best assignment all year. This was the best assignment in my opinion because it was easy and fun. It was easy because you didn’t have to do a lot; all you had to do was follow the directions of drawing 4 lines, 5 dots, and a curve to make any sort of design. If you were able to do those three things, then you could easily complete this assignment. For this tutorial, I will show everyone what I did to make this assignment as easy as possible to complete.
I was able to make this video by figuring out how to take footage of my screen by researching how on Google. It turns out the Quicktime Player on Mac can record what you are doing on your screen and you can talk in the background. After I found this out, it was quite easy to make a tutorial for everyone.
For this mashup assignment, I had to use my favorite movie trailer and mash it up with a different trailer to completely change the meaning of the trailer. So I thought that it would be fun to make a normally happy trailer into a more mature or horror version. I decided that this assignment should be related my character because I had a movie in mind.
I thought of the happiest movie that I thought that I could make into a scarier version and thought of the animated 1995 movie “Toy Story”. This relates to my created character of Buck, because the character in Toy Story of “Woody” is a cowboy sheriff that shows leadership and bravery around the people in the area. Woody is basically the inspiration of me creating Buck Smith.
I searched on Youtube for the original trailer and found 2 very good trailers that I could use scenes from. I then converted the trailers into MP4s for iMovie and imported it into the software. From that point, I wanted to use scenes that would either show anger; or would look creepier with a different tone of background music. I decided that the best way to show anger was show some of the scenes of Toy rivalry between Buzz and Woody. After I had mashed the trailer together, I still needed to put the background music into the trailer.
This part was the hardest part to think of because I couldn’t think of any particular music that would make it creepier. Until I thought of the Walking Dead Theme Song, which in my opinion portrays intimidation, eeriness, and is dramatically creepy. So I downloaded the MP3 from a Youtube video and imported the audio into the iMovie trailer with Toy Story. I actually had to put 2 Walking Dead theme audio clips because each were only 48 seconds, but I was able to make it work.
Then the last thing that I did to complete the assignment was place the darkest filter I could find on iMovie. Surprisingly it was the scifi filter which made it the darkest, so I went with it.
Overall, this was a very fun assignment that I wouldn’t mind doing with other movies. All I would need are some more instrumental songs to use for the trailers.
So, for this assignment, I made a montage of Benicio del Toro clips from various movies. I tried to include something from all my favorites, although somehow Way of the Gun was left out. Past that, I tried to isolate the a few intense moment from the scene; the whole thing is supposed to be between 30-60 seconds. It was actually harder to cut it that short than it would have been to leave it long. The last thing I tried to do was make the clips sort of flow together and create the sense of a really abstract story. Intro at the beginning, confusion ensues, the action reaches a crescendo, and then it all falls with him going down at the end.
For this assignment, I did more voice acting for Merrell Shale. The instructions were to make a public service announcement, so I just thought of someplace that Merrell’s voice might be useful and decided to make a video about gambling addiction. I added a slide with some stats, but I could not find enough useful stats to fill it out as well as I would have liked. At the end, I switch from the information slides to a few images I thought fit what was being said better. I recorded the voice with audacity, then added it to movie maker. I added the pictures and captions to the audio. Then, I found a song that fit the mood, and I made sure to add credits again to give credit to freeplay for the music.
For this assignment, I created a video using old fashioned playing cards to create some Morse code. I used a few different playing cards to distinguish consecutive dots and dashed, and I used transitions to split things apart so it could be deciphered. Highlight the section between here (The right side up cards are dots, the sideways cards are dashes, and the transitions indicate new letters) and here if you want to know how the cipher works. After I arranged the images, cut them to the times that I liked, I found some appropriate music. Then, I added some credits to include my twitter handle and attribution for the song that I used. If you don’t want the take the time to figure it out, highlight between here (the answer is Merrill, my characters first name) and here. Likewise, you can click the link in that invisible section of test my mousing over it for a hint that really spoils the answer. I wanted to keep it short, just one word, so that it doesn’t take long to decipher for anyone so inclined.
So, for this assignment, I made a video of a few really powerful and influential scenes. The one from Band of Brothers and Pay it Forward instantly came to mind when I saw this assignment, but I had to put a bit of thought into coming up with the third. Accordingly, as I viewed the scenes while making the assignment, the former 2 still, repeatedly, inspired quite a bit of feeling. The scene from Band of Brothers is really a great moment in film and in history, since the event actually took place. The scene in Pay it Forward, however, has a significance all its own. I delve into some of that in the video, but it really made a lasting impact or at least coincided temporally with a period of drastic change in my life. The last scene I included because of the single line that actually made me want to see what was really a sub-par movie in the first place. I waited the whole movie for that scene, and I can’t honestly say I was disappointed when it came. The line, “canceling the apocalypse,” gives me goosebumps when I think about it.
To create the video, I added the three clips together in movie maker and then extracted the full audio with audacity. I used audacity to lay my audio over the audio from the films, then I re imported both the audio and original video into movie maker, and then I added a few transitions and such.
For this assignment, we were required to create a 2 to 3 minute documentary based on someone important. I took this opportunity to expand on my western character, Riza. As someone who loves to create stories, I found it fascinating to create a documentary around a character I created.
To create this video, I first scripted what I wanted to say. I then marked the script where I wanted photos to change. To gather the photos, I searched “Old West” on Google Images and created the documentary. This was the only way for me to do this because 1. I don’t live in the old west so do not have the materials to create the theme and 2. Refer to 1. I then opened iMovie and matched the images to my voice over. Finally, I edited everything and uploaded it to youtube.
FULL TEXT:
This feature presentation is brought to you by Tueros Inc. “Leading the Future in Education.”
This is the story of Riza McHale, an immigrant from Guatemala, who ventured into the United States for a better future and life. When Riza was just 10 years old, her mother had taught and stressed the importance of working hard in life. Riza was taught that through hard work and dedication, anything was possible.
At the young age of 17, Riza lost her mother and siblings in a tragic house fire. This is when her drunk father, apologized for the years of not being there and supported her trip into the United States. When she first arrived to the US, she had nothing but the clothes on her back. A young man known as, Tate McHale, introduced himself at the docking station as a farmer. He told her that he owned a business in winery and came out to the dock every week to deliver fresh boxes of McHale wine.
Shortly after meeting, Riza and Tate fell in love and at the age of 19, Riza was married. By age 20, Tate had convinced Riza into opening a saloon with him. Her handwork, and Tate’s skill at wine making made the perfect combo for two saloon owners. Within two years, their saloon became the town’s hangout spot.
Though Tate and Riza never had children, their hearts were always focused on their nieces and nephews when not at work. They also adopted a dog, and named him Ringo. The McHales were the talk of the town, they were always there for a conversation or a shoulder to cry on.
Sadly, this came to an end when Tate was drafted into the army and was shot in battle. Riza continued to care for the saloon but the work of two built on her, and shortly after she sold it to a close friend. In 1905, Riza died in her home because of cancer.
The legacy of Riza and Tate still continues to live in the town of Tumbleweed and their stories can be heard from every corner.
