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I’ve had 3 snow days so far this week. That means I’ve had plenty of time to answer lots of emails, work on non mission-critical projects that have been piling up, have a bunch of fun with some media and digital storytelling, and catch up on some good old fashioned TV watching. Which would bring us to Adventure Time, a comically strange yet hypnotically hilarious cartoon that airs on Cartoon Network here in the United States. It’s quite a nostalgic romp through a fantasy world inhabited by magical dogs, fire princesses, and evil wizards. My family doesn’t have cable, so sadly we can’t watch the show regularly, but enjoy small snippets here and there, or more recently through video memes that manage to get stuck in your brain on endless loop like any good “mind-worm“ videos should. Take for example, the Bacon Pancake viral video meme (I’m sure that’s not actually a term, but I’m using it anyway), in which Jake the Dog is making some delicious bacon pancakes in an endless loop.
I happened across this video last week, and it’s been stuck in both my head and at least a couple of my other family members’ short term memory. I can’t vouch for the 3 year old, as the only thing he’s been expressing lately is his adamant desire for a “talking Diesel 10“. We found ourselves all humming the tune 2 nights ago, and decided that maybe actually making some bacon pancakes might help us get over the tune. Turns out, making the pancakes only made us want to sing the song more, so we created a lip dub of the bacon pancake clip starring the entire family. Thanks to the copious amounts of lake effect snow, I was able to spend a good portion of yesterday with a pot of coffee, some warm slippers, and Adobe Premiere Pro assembling the footage. You can watch below if you’re a fan of the show, or just want to see how cute my kids can be when I’m forcing them to star in a family video 
If you’ve suffered through my brief diversion long enough, or were scanning this post for the actual “how to” video, you can check out my amateurish video editing skills below or watch on Youtube if you prefer. I’m tossing this post out to all the DS106 people in the form of a new Video Assignment I created for re-enacting viral videos, as well as the #ETMOOC people as there’s talk of creating lip dubs, and a few participants might be interested in creating some videos with multiple layers. Keep in mind, I’m not a professional, so there may be better ways to do this.
It’s official, the ds106 GIF Fest is upon us! Just in time for the coming Mayan apocalypse no less, huzzah! I thought I’d set the bar really low, to see if I can anger the GIF gods to come and make something better. That, and I thought it might be nice to create a GIF that many of my educational technology brothers and sisters could use in a pinch to illustrate the frustrating nature that is the 21st century work place; we seem like we’re all in a hurry to get somewhere (usually collaboratively, reflectively, and in a standards-based fashion), but we just can’t seem to get there.
It’s like we’re all in a hurry to wait for the next thing, which of course how I felt when I saw that pulsating blue progress bar today as I copied over a bunch of videos from around campus to turn into some teacher introductions. Our teachers and school board members don’t often get a chance to meet with one another (typically our principals present to the school board about what’s happening in their buildings), so last year I helped craft a few videos to present some of our “tech leaders” to the school board. It’s been awhile since I’ve done any, and I thought it might be time to pick it back up as we have some new school board members after the election last Fall.
For this section, I chose to do tutorials for the assignments I’ve created. The first tutorial is a video, getting the through the software (website) PhotoFunia. I explain everything in the video below. Enjoy!
Creating this video was fun but very time consuming. If you were thinking about doing this video, I would give yourself at least an hour to productively finish the assignment. I’m not as quick or technologically savvy when it comes to some software’s so I just went with my safe bet.
I used…
YouTube to get the videos I wanted
Keepvid to download youtube videos into MP4
MPEG streamclip à to trim the videos I uploaded from YouTube
IMovie to put the videos together
Google Image for some pictures I used in this project
Step 1: Finding material to use!
If you are thinking about using other videos on YouTube already created then mashing it up to whatever you want your project to be I would first go through videos that relate to what ever way you want to show what Y.O.L.O means to you.
i.e. I chose to use about five videos so I can upload it to MPEG stream clip and trim just the parts I wanted.
Step 2: Downloading and MPEG streamclip (Trimming the clips)
After downloading the videos through http://www.keepvid.com/ , I used MPEG Streamclip to trim just the scenes I wanted from the YouTube videos.
I.e. Save the trimmed copies as new files so that you can upload them into iMovie however you want it.
Step 3: iMovie
After trimming the clips and saving it as a new file, I uploaded my new files onto iMovie and started rearranging it. I wanted to start my video with a couple of images of Y.O.L.O therefore; I uploaded the images onto iMovie by dragging the images from my desktop and dropping it in there.
I then imported all the videos in the order I wanted and kept adding the images after every other video.
Step 4: Adding Music
After I finished assembling my project into what I wanted it to look like, I wanted to give it a sound track. I then uploaded music my clicking the music note icon on iMovie and getting the music from my iTunes.
I.e. make sure the music follows the scenes (strips of film you just want the music to play on) and not the whole project. (If that’s what you want to do)
Step 5: EXPORTING and downloading it on YouTube
After you’ve completed the assignment, go to the share button on the top on your iMovie and export your file into whatever mode you want it to be. (I saved mine as HD) Then after that’s complete, you can then upload your project on YouTube.
Here is the final product….
Hope my tutorial helped! Enjoy doing the assignment.
In continuation of my final project, I have put together a few of my favorite scenes (some of the best scenes) from the first half of the first season of Archer. I think this will be a really effective way of recruiting a trainer for the ISIS space voyage, especially in combination with the posters I created. WARNING: This video contains a lot of crude and lewd behavior. If you don’t find this sense of humor funny, I suggest you not watch it.
To create this highlight reel, I combed through the first half of season one of Archer. This was time consuming, but totally worth it. It was hard deciding which scenes to pick, but I ended up going with the ones that I LOLed at. That seemed to be the most reliable way. I watched them in MPEG, and every time I stumbled upon a scene that I laughed at, I trimmed the video down, saved the clip, and then re-opened the entire thing. I tried to pick clips that related to each other from scene-to-scene (for the most part, since obviously not every episode relates to the last). Once I had picked out a selection of clips, I opened them all at once (in the reverse order) and then saved it all together. And voila–recruitment video and highlight reel all in one. This puts me at a whooping total of 12 stars for my final project.
At my house we are currently in the middle of a move, so this means going through all the millions of boxes of your family’s stuff and deciding what stays and what goes. While rummaging through these boxes I came across my sisters old cell phone… a brick of a phone if I ever saw one and it made me think about how this thing come to be the slim things we have today. Thus we have Product Evolution, an assignment where you make a YouTube video showing the progression of technology through the ages.
There where already these types of videos out there, and plenty on computers and cell phones. So I had to think of something different, I’m a math major so a calculator is a daily companion to most everywhere I go so why not Calculators through history? Now I made a tutorial on how to make one such video already so this is mostly on inspiration and implementation. It’s hard to get much story out of this type of video but it was interesting enough to see how calculators started as these hulking devices and ended as something which can fit into your hand. My favorite was probably the Curta, 1948 as the size difference between the ones before it was so fast it was amazing to see this one pop up. Though I’m sure the picture I was able to find is not of one from 1948 they were able to fit into your palm like a manual counter.
I really liked how the transitions had this sense of fighting and tension between each picture, like the next one pushed the previous one out of the way so it could shine. The music was mostly chosen just cause of the math reverences but it was humorous that the line “we made our own computer” came up just as the “Comptometer” was shown. Happened completely by accident but I’ll take it.
“get footage of something you do on your computer that tells a story.”
This is part 3 to my final story. Part 2 Eliza has shown her parents the Newsweek and they bought it! They are buying her tickets to her Italian adventure as a graduation present.
I made this video by downloading CaptureMe and taking a series of 10 second screen recordings. Then I combined the recordings with iMovie.
Make a vlog or a flog [fake vlog]!
I did this as part of my final project. The idea behind it is that it’s something relatively fun to do and gives the person freedom to explore accents and voices and just really have fun!
I describe it as:
Yes! Make a vlog to explain anything! Vlog about your day, confide in your vlog, love your vlog. Use an accent to make it more interesting and fun! Be a youtube sensation like Jenna Marbles or Nicole 337!
Here’s my fake vlog:
I used my webcam and then edited it together in premiere (there’s a reason it still looks unedited, but that will be revealed in the final project). I thought it was a lot of fun and something that could present challenges in terms of character building and accents!
The new assignment I created is called, I am me. I wanted to do a video assignment that shows a bit of our personality and who we are. With ds106 being mostly an online course, sometimes it’s nice to know a little bit about whose blog you are commenting on. I felt that it was necessary in this assignment to show a little bit of personality and what we are about. This assignment can be expressed in many different ways using videos. It doesn’t necessarily have to be multiples pictures of you, but perhaps have different things that you enjoy doing, or even talk about who you are.
I’m the kind of person that makes a million faces all the time! You know those people who you see randomly, and kind of think why is she making that silly face? Well I’m probably the one making the faces. I decided that a big part of my personality was just kind of being goofy, more down to earth, silly. I wanted to portray this in the I am me video to show my fellow ds106er’s who I am. I also decided to add music to this for people to get a sense of the kind of things I listened too. I picked the song Video Killed the Radio Star by Buggles. Who doesn’t love the Buggles, plus the song is a little ironic. :P
This assignment is meant to be fun, and it’s suppose to express who you are and maybe some things that you like. Allow your creativity to flow, and most importantly, HAVE FUN 
p.s. excuse the hair, it’s finals week
In case you wanted to see the video for Video Killed the Radio Star:
For this assignment, it helps to begin with an overarching story in mind. I chose to do this assignment in a way that it would contribute to the story I’m telling in my Final Project for ds106 – Spongebob’s Best Day Ever.
So, I went digging through my kids’ toys for inspiration. 
What kind of inanimate thing can I bring to life with a bunch of pictures? What kind of story could I tell?
Somehow, I found inspiration in the Queen Rubber Duckie in my daughter’s room, and the McDonald’s Happy Meal Spongebob toys in my son’s room – the happy dancer and the karate master. I won’t try to explain how those things inspired me. This is not a tutorial for finding inspiration. It’s a tutorial for making this assignment. I don’t have time nor space to try to teach inspiration (it’s a monster I don’t even really understand myself, anyway). So sorry. Moving on now.
So, I grabbed the rubber duckie queen, the Spongebob toys, and my daughter’s mermaid/ocean beach towel and laid them out on a card table. I quickly noticed, in positioning my iPhone to take pictures, that I could create the appearance of different scenes, or camera angles, based on the positioning of my phone.
I learned simultaneously that this meant that for each scene, I would have to keep the camera rather still. My husband came over to help me reposition the toys for each camera shot so that I could move the camera less between shots. I purposefully included some shots showing the hands involved in the process to add to the corniness, and the obviousness that we’re propelling this inanimate thing ourselves. I’m going for cheesy here.
So, I took several successive shots for each progressive scene. I kept the pictures in order of what I wanted. This made it super easy when it came time to upload. I went into Windows Movie Maker, and clicked the gigantic box that says ‘Click here to browse for photos and videos.’
You can also click and drag photos into this window, but this was the easiest method for what I was trying to accomplish. I went into the location of my photos (after importing them to my laptop from my phone using an iPhone cord), and used shift to select all of the photos for the project. They uploaded in perfect order for the project.
In a few places, I wanted to copy photos to duplicate an action, such as Spongebob chopping the Queen Rubber Duckie, or the up and down positions of his bouncey victory dance. For these, I right-clicked on the appropriate frame and selected copy, then left-clicked in the spot I wanted the copied photo and right clicked again and selected paste.
Then I clicked on the Edit tab under Video Tools. Once there, I used Ctrl + Shift to select each of the frames that I wanted to change and went up to the Duration window. I edited the majority of the scenes to 0.50 seconds. I allowed for longer for the dramatic scene of the initial encounter with the Queen, as well as the transition to karate master Spongebob and the final dancing Spongebob scene to help draw out the fade-out.
Next, I went into the Visual Effects tab under Video Tools. I selected the single frame where Karate Master Spongebob appears, and selected the Fade in from White feature for it. You know. To help make it extra dramatic.
I also went to the final scene and selected the Spin 360 degrees Visual Effect to help make a definitive end to the scene.
I then recorded a few clips of some songs on YouTube using the Voice Memo Recorder on my phone. I emailed those to myself (because iTunes wouldn’t work right for me at the moment) and then uploaded them into Audacity and trimmed them down to the selections I wanted and for the correct lengths. Then, I uploaded them into the Movie Maker project in order by selecting Add Music under the Home tab in Video Tools, and selecting ‘Add Music from PC’. It matched just fine when done this way, since the appropriate editing of the audio was done in Audacity.
I saved my work in a number of ways. I saved the project using the floppy disk button on the top left of the screen. Once all of the editing was completed, I clicked Save Movie, and For Computer.
Once finished, I uploaded the completed video to YouTube for easy posting, and Voila! Spongebob’s Epic Battle via Inanimate Motion is completed!