Swede a Scene (4.5/5 stars) (Plus Extra Credit please? :))

Old Biddy Productions decided to get together and swede a few scenes from Season 4.  We sweded scenes from Episode 5 and Episode 6.  We first chatted a few times and tossed ideas around on google docs.  We decided that the scenes that we did were going to be the most entertaining and challenging.  Kisha extracted the video scenes from the episodes and sent them to Desa and I.  Desa and I worked on finding the scripts and printing them out so that we could learn our lines.  We also incorporated plastic Army men and Gizmo in gremlin form to help us. (they all willingly agreed.)

We met up early in the morning at the Fredericksburg bus station. Everyone of course stared at us as if we were insane I might add.  We filmed the camera scene outside with the wall that they have there.  There were so many things to be aware of such as the sunlight, shadows, the scene details, as well as wind.  When you are working with Army men, they can get blown over.

Our next scene was the courtyard scene.  We filmed this scene with special awareness of the background noises and the background itself.  We decided to use the courtyard in the bus station with walls behind the scene and we loved the “sprinkler room” door. lol.  Kisha found a jacket exactly like Marlo’s and she dressed like Chris.  After this scene, we filmed in my Expedition.  We wanted to use the same angles that were used in the original scene as the woman is reading Marlo’s lips.  It also helped eliminate background street noise by being in the car.

The final scene involved patience.  We filmed this inside the bus station so we had to wait until it was empty and quiet.  The Greyhound person didn’t care that we filmed there as long as he didn’t have to be in it.  Kisha borrowed a dashiki from her mother to wear while we filmed the scene in which Marlo gets arrested.  Part of the scene when I talk to “Herc” which was played by Gremlin Gizmo, we had to film outside again.  There was to much noise inside the station to film.  We moved back inside after most of the people had left.  All of the filming we did ourselves using either an iPhone or an iPad.  This made is easy to mesh all of the scenes together and to add titles, credits, etc. in iMovie.  Desa worked on pulling it all together and meshing our scenes with the filmed scenes.  She did an excellent job.  She even designed “Old Biddy Productions” label while we ate lunch.  It was a long day filming but it is incredible how well the three of us work together as a team to get projects done.  Old Biddies know how to knock it out of the park.   I hope you enjoy our swede.  We’ve been waiting for HBO to call.  Still no call yet…

Old Biddy Productions:

Kisha Mahone,  Desa Stone,  and  Melinda Albrycht.

Here is the video swede (worth 5 stars) that I worked on with Meredith, David, Demi, and Carmela. We decided to work with season 3 episode 11 and we were originally going to all act it out ourselves, but then we decided to use teddy bears from the Dollar Tree. We agreed on which scenes were important to the plot of the show, and then watched them all so we could know the lines. When recording we read all the lines for the different characters using lapel microphones, and I worked on moving the teddy bears around. Meredith volunteered to work on the editing for us, so I  actually wasn’t involved in that. This was a really fun project to work on so I hope you enjoy it!

I decided to do my Video Essay on the first episode of Season 4 of The Wire. After watching this episode, I feel like the overall theme of the episode is learning. The street kids are learning who Marlo is and what the game is about. Prez is learning how to be an effective teacher. Carcetti learns that maybe he’s not cut out to be mayor. Herc learns that the mayor is mixing too much pleasure with business. The episode is one big learning-fest.

Hear a more in depth commentary about specific scenes I found interesting in the video below:

Having my son is one of the greatest things to ever happen to my life and no words can express how much I love him. This video is for you my little man.

As I told my friend, Charbel. “We did it.” What I meant was that since we worked hard on making this swede episode and finding people who can help us, the result we got was one of my friend Leanna Epps who helped us big time on the Swede assignment (4.5/5 stars). After finishing this assignment, Charbel and I were like:

Anyways, I thought earlier I would be working with other people but it turned out it wouldn’t lead that way so I had to be myself. I asked my good friend Charbel if he can help me out and he didn’t mind. I asked Leanna if she could help, and she didn’t mind. It was a lot of work and cutting scenes etc. Oh the intro is Leanna’s drawing on the board in the video. I’m pretty sure you can guess who it is. I wanted to show it because I couldn’t be thankful of Leanna helping me out. Especially Charbel for this assignment. It really meant a lot to me. Charbel and Leanna, you two deserve something:

We did Season 2 Episode 3 of The Wire. This is my favorite episode especially the yaba daba doo scene. I used the dun dun sound from Law and Order in here because I like it how it is when it shows the scene they’re doing. I wanted to do it so I did it. We did the yaba daba doo scene, Omar back scene, the scene where McNulty, Bunk, Russell, and Lester talk, the scene where Stringer and his boys are in the car with him, what they need is a union scene, and the scene where D’Angelo is in prison and something happens. We worked hard on that mostly. I was proud with what we did and accomplished. Although we even admit we’re bad actors and kept looking down so much that we love the floor, we just can’t remember the lines. We did this at the convergence center today on November 15th, 2014.  Anyways without further ado, here is my swede for Season 2 Episode 3 of The Wire:

Hope you guys enjoyed it! Would love to hear some of your thoughts about it!

He’s a man of the people.  He’s also a man of few words.  Really.  VERY few words.  Here they are: Ha ha, loads of fun on this video assignment.  I hadn’t seen a supercut video before stumbling across this assignment and it was a lot of fun picking out scenes and trimming them down in order […]

For this assignment, we had to create a swede video of a scene from The Wire. This was actually so much fun! Luckily, some of my LLC members enjoy acting, so they volunteered to be in the video! We all sat together and I showed them some of my favorite scenes from The Wire. They picked Bubbles stealing drugs, which I loved.

Here is the original video.

We decided to be creative, instead of stealing drugs, we decided to steal sweet tea (which they do among the floor). We found a good place on campus to do this scene, by the gym directly behind Alvey. Instead of the drug dealer rapping, one of them had the idea to use a song from Frozen, which was hilarious. Once we got all our prompts ready, the wire and so on, it was time to shoot.

This part was extremely funny, we all just couldn’t stop laughing. We attempted to get different angles, but it is kind of hard with just one iPhone.

Process:

After recording, I uploaded the videos into iMovie and arranged them appropriately. I did edit some of the sound to reduce the background noise.

I picked the newscast theme and did the title and credits in that format.

For this assignment we had to do a video essay, commentary. I picked the scene before the incident that happened in the classroom. Here is the original video without any commentary. I decided to focus on the camera angles, this was actually a little more difficult assignment.

I mentioned how the camera angles can tell the story and show who is important in that second. The angels focused on whoever was talking symbolizing their importance/control.

Process:

This was a tad more difficult, so after I selected the scene I used audacity to record my voice. While I was recording my voice, I was watching the video so they could match up.

Once I finished recording I exported the audacity file and downloaded the youtube video with the clip using savefromnet.com. I then uploaded both into iMovie and played them. Turns how it did not match up so I added a title scene so I could place some audio during it therefore the scenes would somewhat match up to my commentary.

Just like how I had a previous assignment where you had to guess a song played backwards, this time you have to guess the title of a book! As for clues, I used a Vine clip that illustrates the main components. I’ll also give one last hint: it’s a popular fantasy series. Inspired by the Name That Book assignment. This was my first time using Vine, and it was a lot simpler to use than expected.

Difficulty Rating: 3 stars