This week is video week and we have to do an assignment that showcases our host character. My host character, Esmerelda, was created as a cartoon fortune teller so for this assignment I created a documentary of what Esmerelda sees in her crystal ball when a man come in. The documentary was to tell a story delivered using only visual elements (no audio) and lasting only 30 seconds. So I used bitstrip.com to create several scenes and then pieced it together in a video using Microsoft Live Movie Maker. The story is not a happy one, but it is in keeping with the horror story theme. It tells of the worries parents have for their children – – it is a little over dramatic and ends with a graveyard tombstone. A true horror story to say the least. I was able to add an effect to the video which put some gray transparent areas along the edge of the shot, my intent was that this gave the appearance of the image being seen through the crystal ball. I hope you like it.
This week we are doing assignments from the Video Assignment category. I chose this one which was to create a video highlight reel for your favorite sports player. I like baseball and the Washington Nationals player, Bryce Harper is certainly interesting to watch. I took some clips I found online on Google Images and using Microsoft Live Movie Maker I pieced together a highlight reel of Bryce in all his glory. I added music from incompetech.com where you can get free music downloads. I chose Motherlode by Kevin MacLeod because it provided a sound that emulates confidence and conviction. I love how this turned out the music and images are a perfect combination and made a great little highlight reel. Finally, I then titled my movie “Natitude” since this is the slogan adopted by the team ever since the confident teenage Bryce Harper stepped up to the Washington Nationals plate!
Do you like to talk to zombies? Do you have trouble not getting eaten when talking to them? Well wait no more because the Zombie Board is the Product for you! It’s what Sally Slaughterhouse used to avoid getting eaten when she learned to speak zombie and it can save your life too! Here is a commercial for the zombie board:
This is a 5 star video assignment for Ds 106 titled DIY Product Commercial. I did this by recording the video on my laptop and adding in the outro in imovie. My roommates agreed to be zombies and they followed the script pretty good.
With all the death that the smooth and spooky variety hour team has went through I felt it was only right to make a video in their memory. They created so much enjoyment but met their demise. So here’s to you Grade A Gruesome and all of your great moments on air.
This is a 5 star assignment done for Ds106 named Sweet Message. Created this video in imovie and found some pictures of my radio show group members and then put them in. I then recorded Dennis talking about his feelings about the loss of the radio team. It was all then put on top of the instrumental with hook track of Wiz Khalifa’s See you again.
Here is my radio bumper audio assignment for #ds106. For this project I used Garageband. I recorded my speech of the dialogue using the “vocals” instrument. The voice over music is an instrumental bass which I copied and pasted from YouTube. After my song was done, I converted it to an MP3 file and uploaded it to SoundCloud. I also tweeted this assignment on my twitter. Here it is on my soundcloud. Enjoy!
This is a short clip called “My Rock Movie”. It didn’t take that long to do and was kind of fun. I used a coin pen, 10 Stick notes, and two sheets of paper.
Boobie Miles is the star running back of the Permian Panthers football team. This is the first game of the season and the panthers are crushing their opponent. Coach Gaines puts Boobie in with 2 minutes left, because the reserve running back lost his helmet. The playcall is 28 sweep. As you can see in the GIF, Boobie is injured on the play. He tears his acl and his out for the season. Right then and there everyone is Odessa, Texas believes Permian’s season is over. However the season must continue and it is up to the rest of the team to step up and compete for a state championship.
The process, Narrated
This is one of very favorite movies, so my decision to take a clip from friday night lights was an easy one. To make this GIF I found a website called makeagif.com. Once I found the clip I wanted I uploaded it from YouTube to makeagif.com. I chose for the GIF to be 3 seconds long, beginning at 00:58 and ending at 1:01. This site gives presents many options for creating a GIF. The options are from picture to GIF, YouTube to GIF, video to GIF, webcam to GIF, or to upload a GIF already created.
A rather odd week it seems. Several independent things all together just making it odd. Or maybe it is settling into balance #4life by remembering to look up and see what else is going on and other creation possibilities not necessarily tied to No. 6 or tales of fairies.
Video – a time for definite skill building.
I am starting to enjoy watching the Prisoner episodes – but in no way am I putting it together or carrying story lines from one episode to another. I was not diligent in watching them in order or making sure I finished one before the next either. I did find some episodes uploaded that are in 15 min segments. That has helped in watching. Don’t ask me why – maybe the shrink on the couch can tell me – but watching 4 – 15 minute episodes seems doable when I can’t commit to one 50 min clip. Same amount of time – but different. But it did seem that I am wearing down and becoming okay with being a resident. I think finding the tele-porter and getting back to Bovine might be necessary to stay free.
Which leads to trying to do a video without an idea. I did look through the assignment bank and probably should have stuck to a more direct route. I ended up combing several different strands of assignments and it became one project instead of several smaller ones.
What did inspire me was the music by Iron Maiden. I really like the song and the guitar sequences. It lead me to listening to more of the band’s music this week. During their height of fame I was a country girl listening to Steve Earle, Alan Jackson, the Judds and others. I seemed to miss the heavy metal era.
The project started with the song. I wanted to expand past the assignment of just creating a music video. So I used Mac Downloader and captured the song from YouTube.
I imported into Audacity
Found dialog clips from the Prisoner series at Http://www.moviesoundclips.com and imported them into layers in Audacity
I loved @iamTalkyTina ‘s interpretive reading of the opening dialog of the series and downloaded it from the prisoner106 archive.
I then worked on the sound file to blend with the music and somewhat tell a story (of a story I can’t figure out)
Sound complete
Then it was time to move to video. I want to get back to FinalCutPro because of the ability to really put your own stamp on it. As discussed in the visual week in creating book covers – wanting to start from scratch not edit.
I assembled my “bins” and imported into sequences – all the first organizing for FCP was set. As I started finding the razor blade for cutting etc came back quickly. THEN IT HIT ME! UGH! Rendering is necessary when working in FCP Every time something is added or moved. So using several different clips turned into a 40 minute rendering wait with the first clip. I had no patience for it on that day.
I kept it in the background, but opened iMovie.
Choose NO theme
imported into library clips, GIFS, stills and audio.
The next wall – iMoive accepted the GIFS, but creates them as a still image of one. To use the GIFs as video or animated, I would need to covert them all from GIF to video in another program and then re-import. If someone knows the secret to making GIFs run in iMovie please let me know!
I wasn’t really sure which GIFs would actually fit where I might be going with the audio (remember – I said writing and storyboarding first is a lesson learned!) so spending a good chunk of time on converting hit the floor real fast.
I focused on using the clips I found, some stills I had – and now realize I had more that I could have/should have used. It was becoming the project that just needed to get done. Too much invested to leave it unfinished, but not quite compelling enough to turn into losing track of time into wee hours of the night without realizing.
iMovie was working for the most part. As with making art – lots of futzing. moving things and lining things up that most viewers will never even realize. I went back in and added Ken Burns effects to change some focus in hopes it wouldn’t be as noticiable that the video was not the dialog you were hearing. Towards the end I did clip the video and No. 6 seems to have a little tic or jerk as he says he is still himself – I actually liked that and had it repeated a few times as part of the story – so yes it was intended.
Towards the completion it still needed more since I didn’t have much original art included- so I added title segments in some portions to focus on the dialog. It was like an aha – titles don’t just have to be at the beginning- and I didn’t have to go into a photo editor and make stills with text. The one slip was not having the Village font available in iMovie- and by this time I just could not think of figuring out how to get it installed and available to the program. Not for fear of doing a font install – but the uncertainty of iMovie in the way it saves automatically. After so many hours to get to this point I didn’t want it all to be lost of messed up and have to re-establish it all again. So yes – took the easy way out on this one.
So – still need to work on video skills and more practice to get comfortable and to use features that make sense. I will take this for the units this week.
I am glad I finished it and am okay with the result. I did learn while working on it. I am ready to do video again – but with a story that I may have more internalized.
As the war began many died, both sides took heavy losses, no other kingdom dared interfere or make a move. All feared the might of these two great kingdoms, but no one could foresee the outcome. Throughout the years many battles took place, but none of those compared to that which took place at The Valley of Kurgosthan. Days and days of just soldiers colliding, until a peasant turned soldier tool command of his troops and for two straight days waded through the forest on the outskirts of the battle. On the third day the exhausted troops arrived behind the enemy lines, all of them were dressed as the enemy, armor and swords were picked up from the corpses of the enemy’s scouts. In groups of three they split up to look for the enemy commander. Their orders… to kill, after a three year war,the enemy was destroyed from within, a lone company of soldiers disguised as the enemy infiltrated the commanders tent and won the battle for their kingdom. Only four people made it back alive, those four were awarded the highest honor of knighthood and to this day have their names and their troops names carved in the pages of time.
I found a bunch of different army charging, clips from various movies, then clipped them together and added a bit of music all using VideoPad. Once that was done I brainstormed what I wanted the intro to sound like. After practicing to make sure I wouldn’t mess it up when recording I recorded the real thing. It went perfectly, I added the track to the clip I had made before. I then deleted the sound from the movies, replaced it with the battle music and lowered the sound of it so my narration could be heard and understood. At which point I added the narration I had just done and put into the video so that it ended right before the clips finished. Now because the song wasn’t going its full length I didn’t want it to end abruptly so I added a fade out effect which gave the illusion of the song ending.
Gimli, a dwarf with a funny personality, Eragorn and the elf Legolas make up a party with the goal of dethroning the evil king. After months and months of travle the party finally makes its way to the keep of their ally, who are defending against the evil king. Gimli has just finished his afternoon battle and is taking a short rest on one of his fallen enemies. Low and behold the elf comes trotting feigning superiority, probably because he is a prince, saying proudly that he got 42 kills. Well Gimli happily replies that he got 43, ha let the elf… All of a sudden the elf shoots at the dead enemy you are using as a chair. He then says “43” well that little *********** hes trying to tie the great Gimli by cheating… IN MY FACE, that will never happen! The next day came the last of the enemy’s troops, battering against the walls of the castle. Today they have gotten further then ever before, so to keep them at bay. My friend Eragorn and I sneak around the tower to jump the enemies in front of the gate. However there is one sight problem with the plany. Gimli is a little short and cant make it across. Gimli whispers to Eragorn that hes gonna have to toss him across. Eragorn amused, agrees to the request only to get warned by Gimli to not mention this to the the elf. Later that week Gimli and his friend Eragorn and the elf are traveling through the woods, trying to escape the horros of the enemy’s that follow them. Gimli of course boasting constantly along the away, swept up in his success against the elf in battle. However right when he is about to finish one of his claims.. they are ambushed by elves. Who turn out to be friends of Legolas’s. However the relationship between Legolas and Gimli seem in the beginning throughout the journey the bound deepens, through battle, adventure, even some drinking games. By the end of this heart felt adventure Gimli and Legolas are the best of friends. As these friends are about to give up hope, the land gives out before them creating a chasm right before their eyes consuming all the enemies. The king has been defeated!
