VideoAssignments, VideoAssignments439 (5 stars) In this Video, Omar and I worked on putting together a video essay that could help everyone develop a love for him. He truly is an amazing character that I grew to love over the semester.
Omar and I worked on extracting videos from Youtube to show his many faces. There are videos selected to show him from a child living and sticking to a strict code. The website clipconverter.cc was used to extract the videos from Youtube. I then used Audacity to add the narration to the video. I watched the video and had Audacity running on the screen as well to record my comments.
I hope by watching this video you will start to love Omar as much as I do. Omar, Loved working on this project with you.
For five stars Cutty Wise chose “Public Service Announcement” video assignment. With exemplifying a portrayal of growth in a destructive and deteriorating environment, Cutty Wise showed a progressive and magnificent stride towards internal evaluation of the character he is fit to become. His journey is summed up in this short five-minute PSA and advertisement of another option to the hoppers and corner slangers in The Wire.
It is set to theme music which serve a renewed faith and hope to the innocent caught in the web of corruption. Let it serve as a motivator and driving force, saving the youth from falling victim to the crime ridden streets of East Baltimore!
It’s not quite the Princess Diaries, but there’s still the same reaction! Frank Sobotka just found out Ziggy’s soccer coach quit right before the big tournament! What is he going to do??
The object of this assignment is to create a GIF that shows feelings! Frank relates to this moment from The Wire when he finds out he is the new coach of Ziggy’s soccer team. To create this masterpiece, I downloaded season 2 episode 11 from The Wire off of UMW Media Hub. I then used MPEG Streamclip and GIMP. Here’s a tutorial.
The GIF is made from a short black and white film called Lowland Village (Daniel Catling, 1943). It was one of the many films made for the British Council in the 1940s to project an image of Britishness abroad. It is neither a favourite nor a least favourite film. So I cheated there. I have just become interested in the British Council Film Archive because it has made an archive of 112 films available online under a Creative Commons licence so that they can be downloaded, played with and remixed. This is a great opportunity to engage in a creative way with an important archive and moment in British history and question it from our own perspectives today.
According to the catalogue, Lowland Village is:
‘The description of a typical lowland village, Lavenham in Suffolk, once a centre of the wool industry. The Guildhall stands in the market place, surrounded by the fifteenth-century houses. Lavenham is both mediaeval and up to date. It lies in the heart of fertile arable lowlands, and on farming its life depends.’
(Films of Britain – British Council Film Department Catalogue – 1944-45)
According to the British Council website, Lavenham village square has been a popular filming location for many years including Witchfinder General (1968), John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Apotheosis (1970), and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) and Part 2(2011). Maybe that is where the popular film resonance lies. My particular obsession with this film is the villager who retires to the pub after work to drink one perhaps of many beers in a large boot-shaped glass.
Lowland Villager at the Waterhole
The film was downloaded from the web in MP4 format and converted to AVI so that I could import it into Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0. I tried several shots and lengths before settling for this. It is slightly speeded up and consists of two shots with one reversed to get the backward and forward motion. It was then exported as an animated GIF file. I love loops.
For another one of my video assignments I decided to Letter to the 16 year old me (4 stars). This was a very interesting assignment for me and it brought up so many old emotions. I had a really fun time putting together what I would say. A lot of times people always say they think back on what they did in the past but it’s different when you actually do it write it down and say it out loud. The majority of the time I was recording I had the chills. I really enjoyed this assignment and I hope you do too.
Over a two week period, we were required to do a plethora of video assignments totaling at least 16 stars worth! We also were required to do at least two daily creates each.
Introductions:
The introductions which I had done this week included my two posts for a video assignment on
This daily create caused me to be more aware of my surroundings and it was interesting to see the sounds I detailed on paper.
Assignments:
*The four assignments I did included the Return to the Silent Films Era Assignment worth 4 1/2 stars.
Which I detailed in my Child’s Play blog. I used a horror film for this choice because it allowed me to respond better with more emotion being evoked from seeing something that is frightening by minus the sound. I always say that one’s imagination could be your worst enemy in these cases.
*The Second assignment was the Movie Trailer Mash-Up. For this assignment I wanted it to be comedic. I choose the old 80’s footloose dance compilation trailer and a dance scene with Terry Crews from the movie White Chicks.
I choose to play off of the concept of dance, and I choose one of the funniest scenes from the movie where actor Terry Crews has a dance monologue in the movie White Chicks.
*The Third assignment was the Video Essay – for this Assignment I choose some of the earlier most impressions I got from The Wire.
Last but now least, I was instructed to do a Swede of the Wire which I took video from the Season 3, Episode 11, Death of Stringer Bell.
Overall Feelings for this week I felt as if I was overwhelmed, I still had a lot of technical difficulties with video editing especially when it came to using my own video in which I had uploaded.
I think that basis was to start early as I did not have any issues with any of my other videos except this last one. I realize that one needs to be patient in addition, I look forward to using all of my skills and attributes that I have acquired over these weeks for audio, visual, and video to add this to the creation of my final project for The Wire.
For one of the two other video assignments that I did other than the video essay and the swede episode I decided to do a video survival guide (3 stars). The original star point is higher but I just didn’t feel that I had to work hard enough for anything higher than a 3.
When I first saw the description I immediately had an idea to do a survival video for finals week. It came so quick and it’s something that I have been successful doing so far in my college career so I decided that it would work. Here it is let me know what you think.
The scene that I decided to swede from The Wire was from Season 2. I’ve talked about this scene during my group’s radio show and am including it again because I love the dialogue in it so much. The scene involves Ziggy and his infamous Italian leather jacket.
Because of the cold treacherous weather, me and my roommates, who volunteered as actors decided to film our apartment. We included the wonderful leather jacket as a prop. To recreate the scene, I filmed some of the dialogue on focused/up-close shots. I did this so my roommates wouldn’t have to memorize all the lines and could recite them bit by bit. For the background noise I included dock sounds which I found on Free Sound. The footsteps on gravel are also from Free Sound, and give an outdoorsy/authentic feel to the scene.
Filming this was very fun, as some of my roommates tried to imitate Nick and Ziggy’s accents. Watch our recreated scene below!
For my first video assignment, I chose the Special Person Montage because it immediately made me think of how much I miss my niece. My niece, whom my brother and sister-in-law named Cassryn Jane, was my brother’s first child and the light of me and my family’s life. She’s the cutest, most energetic little 1 year old ever. My brother, an amateur photographer takes photos of her often and posts them to Flickr. The following photos are a compilation of memorable events in her life during her first years.
I chose to include an instrumental version of the song “Ain’t It Fun” by Paramore. Although Cassryn is only 1, she’s pretty advanced for her age. In fact, it scares me that she knows how to operate an iPad/iPhone to watch her kid’s songs. Every time Paramore comes on, she sings along. So excited to celebrate her 2nd birthday this coming January!
