Young, Wild and Free

I think we’ve all heard of YOLO before, right? If not, it means Live Your Own Life. It’s also the name of the next video assignment I made.

Y.O.L.O Is the Motto is a 2 star assignment where you take videos, pictures, music and put it all together to show different ways people express YOLO. Some people love the word, others loathe it or you could care less about the term at all. I fall into the latter category. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word(!!) but I know when I’ve read things or seen the word, it does make me laugh.

For this video, I pulled pictures that represented each of these categories. I also took a video from Youtube to add in the video as well. After putting some music to it, I called it a day. But I’m going to share all the specifics after you watch the video, enjoy!

Normally I use Google Images to find my pictures, but this time around I went to Pinterest to find some inspiration. I am basically a Pinterest addict and I’d seen pictures on the website before with “YOLO” written on them, so I figured it was worth a shot. Also, I saw Kelsie’s video (which is amazing!) before choosing to do this assignment, so I tried to pick pictures that she had not already used. Once I found all my pictures, I then went in search of a video to add.

I orginially had two videos (one and two) and I clipped them in MPEG StreamClip, but when I went to put in the video with the girl, her lips and words wouldn’t match up and I couldn’t fix it :( So I decided to leave it out. Anyone know how to solve this issue? Thankfully, video two was good to go and I was able to use part of the video in my video.

After adding everything to iMovie I think had to edit each picture to make sure you could see the words. I ended up having to adjust the clip times as well. I added in a few transitions at places where I went into still frame pictures.

Working on the movie, still needs music and end credits.
YOLOFor the song, I chose Young, Wild, and Free by Snoop Dog and Wiz Khalifa. I’d heard the song before, but I ended up googling “YOLO themed songs” and this is one of several that came up. I thought it was a good fit for the video and as an added bonus, there were “bleeps” every five seconds ;)

I uploaded the video to audacity. I need 1:16 of music, I ended up taking 1:20 because 1:16 cuts off in the middle of the main course. So I faded out the last 4 seconds. It overlaps with the video just a little and I actually think it sounds good that way. After the Youtube Clip ends, I created another 8 second sound bite to finish off the video. Here’s my work in Audacity:

LWF 1

YWF 2

Here is the finished video in iMovie.

Finish YOLO vidI hope you enjoyed the video, let me know what you think!

 

Wise Old Men***

This was a nice startup assignment to get me going for the week.  I got to experiment with iMovie a bit more and figure out things like transitions and credits and such.  I did lots of different things for this.  When considering this assignment, the first thing I thought of was Gandalf and the Wise Old Man Archetype.  Then I thought of several characters that related to the Wise Old Man throughout film and things like that.  I came up with Dumbledore and Obi-Wan Kenobi immediately.  I had a bit of trouble with the other two and just wandered through the internet aimlessly until I came up with the guy from Ghost Rider and Alfred, who is more of a moral guideline for Batman, but it was fitting in some senses.

The second step was finding clips of all the characters that had a good quote of action to use for the characters.  I ended up going to youtube to find these and searching for each character’s name and quotes.  After I found quotes within the videos that were useable, I included downloaded them using iLivid, an app that allows you to download youtube clips onto your Mac.  Here are the videos I used:

I think the pieces I chose demonstrate wisdom that the characters portray.  Obviously, the Wise Old Man is a prevalent character and exists heavily in the movie film genre.  Gandalf is the original old wise man, and, in my opinion, none of these other films would have existed without The Lord of the Rings except for maybe Gandalf.  It really is incredible how so many characters really are the same, exact thing, and it goes much farther back than to Gandalf.  I’m talking Ancient Greek times.  Anyway, here’s my final video.

I put the whole thing together with iMovie.  It was pretty easy to figure out which quote I wanted after I heard it.  The only regret I have is that some of them are quite long and, consequently, made the video longer.  Not the end of the world, but I wish I could have made it shorter.  I also added clips of the names and the names of the movies the characters are from between each character.  Hopefully this does not backfire on me with some random youtube law thing.  It was really just about selecting the right area of quote, dragging it around, and then putting it together.  Then I inserted the character name transitions in between each clip and the ending credits.  After that, I finalized the clips, which took like an hour to put together, loaded it into Youtube, and now we here…

Here’s some of my workspace:

5 Archetype Screenshot

Troll Beauty

I like watching fantastical movies mainly for the imagination they show. What I’ve never understood, why trolls? And why do they always fall on their back with a big thud? See here Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001) and Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring (2001). I thought they are just big and boring.

I started looking for troll scenes for this assignment, which is to use five 1 second clips from 5 movies to create a 5 second video.  First I hoped I will find more clips with trolls falling on their bags, but then I got a new idea. It looked like many of the videos I watched were caring for showing me the reason why so often trolls are so intensively occupied in fantasy movies. I observed movie makers of recent fantasy films has gone beyond trolls being just stupid and hideous, but often let their heroes discover beauty where audience like me can not see any. The effect with me was in fact that I also were able to see it. Yet, what is the King in Merlin doing?

After choosing five seconds of my gathered clips I arranged them from “normal dump troll” to “passionate love for a troll”. When I watched the result, nothing of my intention was noticeable, but I wanted it to be noticed and like this I again ignored the demands of an assignment and just slowed the movie down about two thirds, but I’ve just learned today there is nothing wrong with being creative.

  
 
This is how I did arrange the clips in premiere elements to start the editing [after realizing that having the movies assembled at 0, you have all the audio at once and you can just see the topmost clip (: ]
 
 
 
 
Clips I’ve used for this video are:?
 
Hansel and Gretel Behind the Scenes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoqD_9O-YUM

Merlin King and the Troll

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1dGeyIPaU4

Snow White & the Huntsman – Troll Attack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6uSLUnfna8

The Hobbit – Troll Battle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iENuf2muUaI

Troll Hunter – Bridge Armour Scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwuHhlD5dO0

 
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A day at the Beach

The second assignment I planned out last week was the A Word…A Picture…A Story… You can read about my pre production plans here.

I was at the beach while I wrote up the assignment so I went with a beach themed story. I picked out pictures that I wanted to use and uploaded them to Flickr. However, when I put this story together I realized I needed some more pictures. So I went to Google Images and got a few more.

From there I uploaded them into iMovie and added a Title Screen and Credit Screen. I went with the “underwater” design to match the beach theme. I absolutely LOVE the beach and have since I was just a little girl. So my inspiration for this story was from my own experiences.

Beach1

In the video the little girl builds sandcastles, boogie boards, catches sand crabs, gets ice cream from an ice cream truck, chases seagulls, and flies a kite. The day ends with a rainbow over the ocean, which I saw about 4 times this past summer. Life at the beach can’t be much better can it?

For the music, I wanted something instrumental so as not to be so overwhelming to the story, especially so people could concentrate on reading the words. I felt it was perfect to go with the song “Carolina Girl“. I good an instrumental part of the song and had to make it longer, so I tried to line the song up evenly. Unfortunately there’s a minor hiccup, but I don’t think it’s too noticeable. I worked on it for a while and it just didn’t happen. I also tried to make the end fade out a bit, but once again I had issues and I still feel like it ends a little too abrupt for my taste. I did all of the music work in Audacity and then added it into the video.

beach 2

beach 3

I’m really happy with how it turned out. I think it’s pretty adorable! Let me know what you think!

Nobody puts Baby in the Corner

You may remember this post from last week, where I shared my plans for two video assignments. Well here is the first one: Where are they now??

For this 2-star video assignment I chose the cast of the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing. I think we all finish that movie thinking “I wonder what happened to Baby and Johnny?” Well here is your opportunity to find out!

Originially, I was going to just put a picture of the actors from their movie days and then a current photo and say what they were really up to in real life. But the CogDog left a comment on my post saying that I should play around with it and bend the truth a bit. Well clearly that would be much more fun and interesting to watch then my boring idea! Thanks CogDog! So that’s exactly what I did.

Here’s the video. I’ll explain how I made it below!

Let me know what you think!

Video Production

First think I did was open iMovie put in the pictures I wanted to use. I then added all the captions on the post. I used the same script (Lucida Handwriting) throughout. Adding text onto the pictures was actually pretty annoying. I could really get it to the position I wanted it to and it was just being a pain in general. I had almost all the pictures done with iMovie decided to “unexpectedly quit.” That was a VERY said moment :( So I had to start from the beginning. I added a title and credits page as well.

I knew I was going to put in the Houseman family (Marjorie, Dr. Houseman, Lisa, Baby), Penny and Johnny. I thought these characters were the most important and most of the movie focused around these 6 people. Deciding how to order the characters was the hardest part.  I wasn’t sure if I should put baby with her family or next to Johnny. In the end I decided to put her with her family and then I added another picture at the very end with Johnny and Baby together.

DD movie production

 

Next I needed to add some music to the video. I decided on the classic “I’ve had the time of my life” but I just wanted the instrumental parts. I looked up the sound track without words and they all sounded bizarre. So I downloaded this video (with singers) and opened it up in Audacity. I cut this huge section of instrumental out and it was about 6 seconds short of the time I needed (36 seconds). So I pieced together another instrumental part and it ended up equaling 35 seconds. BOO! So I adjusted the time on the title and credit screens so the video became 35 seconds.

DD audacity

I then added it to my movie in iMovie. Originally I had no idea how to add music. But I watched part of CogDog’s open lab video yesterday (I was studying when during the lab period) and saw how he did it. It’s very simple, you just drag the music into the video and it pops up as a green line! Easy!

DD with MusicOnce the music layered in, I played the video and I really like the way it turned out. Here is how I decided the futures on each of my characters:

  • Marjorie- My grandmother’s sister’s daughter (did you get that?), she’s a part of some older women’s tap dance group. I think its so random and I could totally see Marjorie (Kelly Bishop) doing something like this in her “Empty Nest” days.
  • Dr. Houseman- Jerry Orbach, the actor who plays this character, went on to star in Law and Order from 1991-2004, playing a detective. Jerry died in 2004.
  • Lisa- I’m sure we all remember (Jane Brucker) Lisa’s singing in the movie, pretty painful! So I just made this up randomly. But I can totally see it happening.
  • Baby- Once again, made up. Though Jennifer Grey (the actress) did study dance and music in school.
  • Penny-The actress Cynthia Rhodes is married and she has three sons. But I decided on this future simply because of Penny’s storyline in the movie.
  • Johnny- It seemed obvious to make Johnny open a studio. But Patrick Swayze (the actor) did develop Pancreatic cancer in 2008 and passed away in 2009.
  • Baby and Johnny- I figured everyone expects that they’d live happily ever after, and I’m definitely a fan of that storyline. But I figured this was more realistic. Patrick and Jennifer did remain close friends after the movie.

I hope you all enjoy!

Harmonium Love

Why turning parts of a modern movie into a silent movie? I wondered while reading about this ds106  video assignment. I had no idea but was just intrigued by the idea to do so.

I did some research on how to change a movie into a silent film and found that mostly the advice was to imitate the style completely, including original music for silent movies and taking care that in the clip you can’t see any modern props, like modern cars.
I thought about this and decided to just use the elements but not to try imitating an entire film from the silent era. This way I changed the color into black and white and made it run faster, I added some noise and rustling to audio and video and I added a music track.
Which I did not is choosing clips, that don’t contain modern issues like modern cars, and I don’t choose any old music but modern compositions.

Some time ago I got introduced to the movie Punch-Drunk Love (2002), which tells a story about a growing couple, in particular about the male part. He is depicted as passionate and even violent and it is not for certain if the reason is that he lives under the pressure of keeping up his business. Another reason may be that he is controlled by his sisters and feels helpless towards their interferences in his life. However, my clip doesn’t contain any of this, but I concentrated on a little story within the story, where a harmonium is found by the protagonist and finally carried to his girl friend.

 

The clips doesn’t contain much dialogue and speak for themselves, so I thought this might be great for the silent style. In addition, although the film is in color, the tones are rich in contrast which I thought important concerning the change to black and white. Finally the running scenes of the movie remind me on running scenes of silent movies, which always appear funny, for the silent movies are running faster. I wanted them appear funny or at least emphasize them to show that it is a kind of crazy in a lovely way to carry a harmonium around. I myself wouldn’t be able to do so, for “stupid” embarrassment, which is why I like watching it in a film. I also felt the faster move of the scene associates tension within the story, which is desired.
For the choice of the audio I myself wonder about it. It is true that the title “Music For a Found Harmonium” was great to match my little clip composition, but does also not really emphasize the visual part, but is rather treated on an equal bases with the video, which might be OK anyway. It also is very different from any silent movie music. I even added to the start of the clip some digital music. Together with the visual style of the very first films it appears surreal and adds to the surreality of someone throws a harmonium out of a car and then it is carried around like a new found treasure.

I edited the clips with premiere elements, which is a bit complicated, compared to more expensive editing software, but it is possible to get good results, especially because the effects come out very nicely, they are not just numerous but well thought through concerning aesthetic and quality. This way I add a filter who makes the film look old (in German “Alter Film”). That it was, except from making adjustments to the filter and speeding the clip up.
It is difficult with sound, when you want to reduce its quality, because almost any effect is designed to improve the audio. I had to edit the sound in audacity to add noise and rustling, mostly by hand using the pencil tool.
To put in the title cards I had to create a black area, which I did not manage in premiere elements. I had to design it in gimp and to import this as media. Then I added the title with the text tool. I could have cut the clips and add text between the clips, still, I needed to have the possibility to change the position of the cards for the right moment of appearance.
All the same with the opening title sequence and closing credits.

I like the result very much, but I already have received a message by Youtube about using material which may be copyrighted. I hope they’ll not remove this nice piece of art, which I did not produce to harm any rights but to enrich the world of art, movie, music.
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Got a Little Crazy

I was browsing through the video assignments in the DS assignment bank and came across Watching Movies with the Stereo On {***}. I always feel like certain songs go with certain clips in movies – this assignment was perfect for me! I knew just what I was going to do.

The Hangover. Oh yeah. And for the song……..{drumroll}…….. Got a Little Crazy – Kenny Chesney. So perfect.

This was going to be good.

I started by converting this YouTube clip into an MP4 file with KeepVid. That website is a lifesaver! I uploaded that clip into my Windows Movie Maker. I already had the song on my iTunes, so I was ready to get clipping, trimming, and going! Here is my clip:

I first took out the sound of the original video clip. Then, I trimmed the clip to get exactly what I wanted. I made sure that the song and the clip went together in the best way! The song is so perfect for the clip that I chose. It almost fits too well. I’m surprised this clip wasn’t on the movie, or the second movie….maybe it will be on the third! :) Next, I uploaded the audio file into my Windows Movie Maker and changed the settings to fade out. So when my video is close to being done, the song is fading out. And viola, my clip was done.

I was laughing so hard at my video once it was all done. It went together so well with the song that it was just comical. I’m going to go watch that movie when I am done writing this blog post. And if you have never seen this movie….well, tsk tsk.

I love experimenting with the different effects that Windows Movie Maker has to offer. It is super easy to navigate this program. And you can upload it straight to YouTube {which is what I have been doing}. I am kind of sad that I am already at 11 stars :( I guess I will have to keep this kind of stroytelling in mind!!!

The Funeral

For my next video assignment, I chose to create a Music Video {****}. For this assignment, I had to pick a couple of scenes from a movie and add a song that complements the scenes.

I chose the movie 127 Hours for my music video. If you have not seen this movie yet, go rent/get it right now. This movie is based off of a true story! It is incredible!!!!

I wanted to tell a story in my music video so I chose clips that, when put together, told the story by themself. The song would just add to the story. I followed the basic outline of the movie: he falls down a cliff, he tries to get water, he cuts his arm off {don’t worry, I didn’t include the gross parts}, he gets rescued. I converted the clips from YouTube into MP4 files via KeepVid.

The song I chose to complement these clips was The Funeral – Band of Horses {also my blog post song title}. This song reminds me of this movie everytime I hear it.

I opened up Windows Movie Maker and opened up all of the clips. I ordered and trimmed them in a way that told a story. I added a title page and credits before adding the song. I always make sure the audio clip is the last thing I add. If you don’t wait, and trim or clip something, the audio file will get messed up as well. It’s better to have everything perfected and then add the audio clip {in my opinion}.

Here is my finished product:

I chose to make all of the clips black and white because they had different color saturations and when I put them together, you could tell they were very separate. Since this is a music video, it is supposed to all flow. I also added smooth transitions to each video clip because I didn’t want it being too choppy. I am very proud with the way everything turned out. I didn’t even plan this, but sometimes the song and what is going on in the clip match up so perfectly. I think this is a powerful story by itself but adding this song made it even more powerful.

YOLO

The other assignment that I planned during week 9 was YOLO is the Motto {**}. Oh man. This was fun. First watch my video, then I will explain everything to you. ENJOY :)

YOLO. You Only Live Once. This is something we hear all the time. Does anyone know what it even means?? I don’t think so. My friend and I were running today and she said “we’re running four miles today, YOLO.” The thing is, everyone has a different interpretation of what “You Only Live Once” means. This was my inspiration.

The phrase ‘YOLO’ could actually mean something, if people used it properly. It’s kind of like ‘lol’. When people text you ‘lol’, do you think they actually just laughed out loud??

I thought it would be funny to gather up all of the bad or misused examples of YOLO from Google and compile them into this video assignment. I got the videos from YouTube and converted them into MP4 files via KeepVid. This let me put them into my video on Windows Movie Maker. I also wanted to “interview” people and ask them what YOLO means to them because I wanted to put “my touch” on this movie too. I filmed my interviews on my phone and uploaded them straight into my movie. I had the song on my iTunes and converted it through the online convert website found in the DS 106 handbook.

This video is supposed to show how no one really knows what YOLO means. Everyone has a different interpretation of it because everyone interprets things differently. Because of the ambiguity in when to use YOLO, the phrase is used way too often and in the wrong context. This video sheds some light on this and it supposed to be funny.

I had a lot of fun exploring the different effects on Windows Movie Maker! My first assignment was just putting pictures and audio together. This one involved pictures, videos, and audio – oh my! Interestingly enough, that is every topic we have covered in DS 106 so far… *lightbulb goes off*. I can see why the topics are placed the way they are now.

I can’t wait to keep working with Windows Movie Maker this week!!!!!!!

Blog post title: YOLO – The Lonely Island

Everybody’s Changing

For the first video assignment, I chose Where Are They Now? {**}. During week 9, I planned this assignment out so all I had to do was create it! I based this assignment from the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Here is the finished product:

I created this with Windows Movie Maker. I had never used this before, but it was very simple. You can click to uploaded pictures, audio, and even videos. You can even add the text to the picture right from this program. I downloaded the audio from YouTube and got the pictures from searching on Google. I uploaded it to YouTube through Windows Movie Maker.

I wanted to do this assignment because I hate how movies kind of just end and the directors don’t tell you what ever happened to the character(s) that you fell in love with. Some movies have sequels and some have triologies, quadrilogies, and so on. {I feel like if you don’t know what a movie sequence is called because the number is so high up, you shouldn’t make the movie.}

At first, I just google searched the actresses’ names. I tried to look for funny pictures maybe from the paparazzi. I found some good ones and even some that looked photoshopped. I wanted the pictures to be funny so that my update on the girls could be funny. After all, this class is based upon imagination and creativity. It would have been boring if I told the truth. I credited the website in which I found the photos on the credits section of my movie.

Blog post title: Everybody’s Changing – Keane