Character/Genre Song Mashup***

I can only review the example given on the website linked to the assignment. I’m not sure why people haven’t chosen to do this assignment. I watch the example and I really liked the idea of this assignment. To match music to video, is a great Idea. Actually, I didn’t realize how many witch movies there were!!

I chose to do this assignment 1) because for some reason people have been shying away from it.. and I wanted to figure out why! 2) because it looked a little more challenge then the previous assignments I did because it uses video rather than pictures.

I used the song “Cowboys and Angels” by Dustin Lynch because it is currently my favorite song. It also gave me the opportunity to expand my movie bases to cowboy movies and angel movies; which if you can’t think of any trust me there are a million! My story here is that cowboys and angels are an ingrained into our society! It seems that often, like in the song, boys are cowboys and girls and angels. In this video, I challenge that a little because there are numerous video where boy angels dominate. Furthermore  I challenge the that love is only between man and women, which is why I open the video with Brokeback Mountain.

Other sources of video include: Angel in America, Cowboys and Aliens, Blackthorn,  Rage At Dawn, Toy Story, Gabriel, City of Angels, Michael, Annie Oakley, Angels in the Outfield

The process might have been the cause of why so many people shied away from this assignment. While it was the same technique I’ve used in all my assignments, it was more labor intensive. Firstly,finding all YouTube videos was extremely time consuming. However, once I found them I use PWNYouTube booklet and saved them as video. I upload all of them to Movie Maker. Then, I had to mute the video (each lip individually). Last, I upload music. Once all that was done it was a matter of organizing my videos to make a story. I like the pattern of cowboy/angel/cowboy/angel. Hopefully, the clips bring back some memories, inspires some thought on what is a cowboy/angel (no so stereotypical), and you enjoy just a wonderful song.

#DS106 Our world is full of cowboys and angels kasmoore.com/blog/2012/11/1…

— Kasey Moore (@KaseyMoore6) November 17, 2012

Movies By Numbers ***

I watched Andrew‘s Movies by Numbers (the number 2). I liked the music from Mad Man, I was really excited to hear it.  It felt like a slow video to watch.. Although, I do really want to commend him on finding a variety of pictures with the number 2 in them. I have seen other videos were there wasn’t a lot of boring. I was really impressed by the change in music. It was beautifully overlapped and edited. I wonder if that was done in an audio program or in the video program. Toward the end, I was confused on where the number two was in the picture. However, I trust there is two there somewhere and I’m just missing it.

I watched ” 9 of all Glory“.  I found the video a little creepy and eerie, has a lot to do with the music and the images. The effects of the image in particular had an eerie effect. I know she used VideoPad Video Editor and I wonder if it is more sophisticated than my Window Movie Maker, because I have yet to discover how to edit effects like that. I really like how she started the video off with a math equation that added up to 9. That was clever. I, also, was impressed that she used other version on the number 9, such as 99.

I had look at this assignment, and thought.. mmm I could do this. It looks relatively low editing of video. I thought to myself what number…there is no limit to the numbers in the world. I remember, then , growing-up my father always said he was a mathematician. However, being the naive little girl I was, I thought he meant a math-a-magician. I always had just assumed that he did magic with numbers. This story reminded me of School House Rock, in particular – “Three is a Magic Number“. I listen to the video and was inspired to collect some photographs. Then, I was thinking well this is lame. So I thought what is a cooler “3″ song, and The Hangover came into my head. “ Three Best Friends” song would be perfect for some of the addition photographs I have of groups of three. Thus, the concept was born.

The story here is that many things in life comes in “3″: two is a couple but three is a family; three wheels makes a tricycle; laundry detergent, soften, and dryer sheet makes the most convenient laundry day, etc. It a story of the wonders of “3″. I gets the audience thinking about the world around them, putting numbers to the world around them.

In order to do this I put all the pictures in Windows Movie Maker. I added by audacity edited music clips to the pictures. This time I went a big further to adjust the amount of time spent on each picture so some of the picture were timed to the lyrics. Once that was done, I did some fade out/in of the music. Saving and uploading, and the process was complete. Don’t get me wrong… it was time consuming, but the bulk of my time was spent on conceptualizing the video.

Picture are below: 3-in-1 Purex,3M, 3 Crosses on the Hill, Toy Story 3 ,Faith Hope Love, Girl Scout Sign, Tricycle, Triangle Sunset, 3 mph, Life has changed, 3rd street,  3 little pigs, triplets, 3 is a magic number.

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Return to the Silent Era *****

Other Good Examples:

Marcey’s Mean Girls: I thought it was good, but I really wish the music was a little faster. It felt like the pictures were at hyper-speed. The antiquing of the screen in the brown, the film strip shots were very cool. There was no word cards which may have helped tie the story together.

Ben’s Back to the Future:  I was glad to see word cards. It seemed like the music didn’t match very well. I did like the change in the music, that made the scene have a definite beginning  climax, and end. He choice to do black and white over the “browning” and I think they look equally old.

*I honestly have not clue how they did all of this because I haven’t looked a Windows Movie Maker yet… but I look forward to learning.

This assignment looked really interesting. It appealed to me 1) because I didn’t have to write a script and 2) I never thought about making a modern movie into a older movie. I thought the idea of the regression was spectacular. By looking at the examples, I thought that this would give me some good opportunity to mess around with Windows Movie Maker, not just editing but effects!

If you have been following my blog more closely, you might have noticed this is my second assignment where I use Finding Nemo. This movie is one of my hands down favorites! However, I original started to look through music. I found this song I really liked, so then, I thought what video can I match this with… Nemo was the first thing to pop into my head.

What is interesting is because there is only music and the occasion title card, the story is a lot harder to convey. It become crucial to find music that suits the clip, and pair down the dialogue to the most important message. I know that my case is different than others because I chose to do a trailer of a film and not a film clip, however this meant that I cant to tell the whole story of Finding Nemo in a few brief title cards and music. In hindsight I think it is easy to do a trailer versus doing a clip of the video because I can emphasis the theme through music and normally trailer are minimal words. My favorite part of my trailer is when the title card says “when all you can do is let go” and you see Marlin letting go of the tongue of a whale. This is my favorite part because “Letting Go” is one of the most important themes throughout the movie. When is it okay as a parent to let your children go off and make their own mistakes? But, it also has a very literal meaning in that scene.

The process to create this video assignment wasn’t too strenuous. I used the PWNYoutube bookmarklet (note this is used in every video assignment-link can be found here)    Once I saved that I could upload it into my Windows Movie Maker (also used in every assignment). Then, I muted the video sound. Upload the song “gagool”. What I love about Windows Movie Maker, is that it automatically stops the music with your clip. You can go in a fade in/out the music, which I did, but Its not necessary unless it starts or ends at an awkward point. Once I did that, it was super easy to make the video black-and-white. Simply go under visual effects.. and surprise! So easy! Then, I created all my title cards. To do this I found a title card off of google image search, saved it as a picture, and uploaded into the Movie Maker. Then, I added a title; entered my words, moved the words from the title to the picture I had uploaded. The harder part is next, placing the title card within my movie. In order to do this, I watch the movie until I got to the point where I wanted to add the card, and then I hit split under the video editing menu.  Once it was split, I could just drag my card over to the split and it was done. The music automatically extended to fit my longer movie (it will keep doing so as long as the song doesn’t run out). Then I did some fade in/out of the music. Once I saved, Movie Maker has a upload to YouTube button… life was good!

A movie trailer

This was by far my favorite assignment i created! The assignment itself was to make a movie trailer for something you would want everyone to get excited about. Of course i took this opportunity to make a surf film!

I texted my friend Jessy and asked for any footage she had of us this past summer. We spend a lot of time in the water surfing together. But, we very seldom do we have someone take pictures or movies… The life of girl surfers -_-. haha Jessy and I always joke that our moms are our sponsors. They feed us and every now and then come watch us surf. So, that’s as good as we’ve got sponsor wise. Long story short, we don’t have a ton of shots from our surf sessions.

But, she helped me find what we did have. And i went to work to create our first film. I used a actual theme from imovie to create this cool movie trailer.

The project in Imovie actually guided me through the makings of this movie trailer. I plugged in the things i wanted the film to say. I added our names to the credits. Then, I started searching through pictures and videos from our surf trip to Wrightsville and random days in Vabeach.

I had a problem with adding the pictures as .mpeg files to the film. So, i created a new project for each photo and saved it as a video. Then, i uploaded the video to imovie and added it into my trailer

I didn’t like the music placed on the trailer so i saved the project. Then, opened it back up in Imovie as a film. Starting a new project, i dragged the film to the project and added my own music.

The waves may be the smallest ever seen in a surf film . However, I am pretty proud of this film!

Super Cut it!

This assignment was to find a phrase or themes overused in a specific movie or tv show.

The hardest part of these assignments for me is thinking of what movie to use. So, i racked my brain for something. I don’t watch too much tv these days. But, I did in my childhood. I used to love ScoobyDoo. But, at the same time it always scared me.

So I used ScoobyDoo for this assignment and focused on my favorite characters. Scooby and Shaggy! As i searched youtube and watched old episodes i payed attention to stuff they said over and over. At first I wanted to use “ZOINKS”. Which is a made up phrase i guess. But, Shaggy says it all the time.

However, After a while I realized I would not have enough shots for that. Then, it hit me. In every episode there is ALWAYS a scream scene. Some monster pops out from somewhere and everyone makes a ridiculous face as they scream.

I selected several clips from YouTube and used “PwnYouTube” which i’ve previous downloaded into my bookmarks. This tool allowed my to download each as a MP4.

Once all the clips were on my computer I started to clip and cut the scenes. Many of the clips had several scream scenes in them. So, I opened them up one by one in MPEG. Here, I was able to use the “input”/ “output” process to clip the scene.

After going through this process with each clip several times, I had myself a good amount of screaming people from scooby Doo. I  collaborated them in MPEG then exported the file into my Imovie. In imovie, I added music and a title/end slide.

And uploaded the finished product to Youtube:

Framed is an assignment that involves taking a 2 minute video and and going through the frames until you find one that represents the overall story of the video. I wasn’t exactly sure what this idea meant so I looked at Amelia’s example with the Pursuit of Happyness. She perfectly showed the main theme of the movie.

I chose to do this with The Fox and the Hound. I seem to be going on a Disney kick lately so I decided to keep it up. I really like the theme behind the movie, Friendship. It is about a very unlikely friendship between a hound dog and a fox. In the movie, they are technically supposed to be mortal enemies. However, like in most Disney movies the good overcomes the evil and they are friends for life. It has some sad parts, but I like to ignore those.

I chose the beginning clip where Todd and Copper first meet. It is obviously vital to the whole story. Without this clip, there would be no movie.

The frame I chose within the clip was where Todd and Copper interact for the first time by touching noses. Copper realizes that Todd is what he has been trailing. It is kind of ironic because they both have no idea that they are not meant to be friends.

To get this clip I downloaded it using keepvid. I then converted it to a .wmv file using Real Player. The clip was about 3 minutes long so I cut it down to a little over two minutes. I also thought it was a bit dark so I added an effect that lightened the clip.