Making Movies

I’m working with Windows Movie Maker. It took me a while to figure out the editing tool because stupidly I was reading it as if what I clipped was removed and of course its what is between the in and out points that remains. Because of that I have to reload the video each time I want to add a shot, but thats not too much trouble. My first thought in trying to remake the Chaplin video was that my favorite part of the video was Chaplin himself – his face and his actions. The only other thing in the shots with him at that time was the iron bars, which obviously reminded me of prison. So I figured it would be funny to give him something -else- to react to while behind bars and that made me think of interspersing film clips with the Chaplin video. I downloaded several prison scenes from famous movies including Silence of the Lambs, Grand Budapest Hotel, Stir Crazy, Ghostbusters and Shawshank Redemption. I didn’t do a ton of searching and scrapping stuff – I kind of let the scenes that I found dictate how I would create the movie.  It took me a few hours to get comfortable with the tools (as explained above), but once I did, it was really no problem at all. I learned how to bring in music where I want it and how to select the point in the track where I want to begin by using in and out points. The only downside (which isnt much) about interspersing scenes with the Chaplin video is that every time you want to more more Chaplin in you have to download the whole video again because once you trim it just one piece, the rest is gone. I used the free music from incompetech- three songs, the first is the elevator music track called Local Forecast, then a funk thing called Your Call and I ended with a classical song called Danse Macabre. I thought about leaving some of the music track under the movie clips, but I liked the stark cuts better – thought it had more punch.  YouTube was the source for all of the film clips – I simply looked up prison scenes (remembering the ones from Silence of the Lambs and Shawshank Redemption). The Movie Maker’s tool to add a title page and captions are very very simple and self-explanatory. Adding the music took a little while to figure out, because its actually a two-fold process – identifying where you want the music to come in and identifying what part of the music you want played.  Once I figured that out, I was essentially done. I actually had to go back and reopen the finished project when I realized I hadn’t added any of the Chaplin sound. I figured out that only some tracks are downloadable from Soundcloud but luckily one of the tracks where the woman speaks was downloadable. I used that tiny piece of sound and stuck it in.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LClMlULUKf0“>HERE’S MY PROJECT – I THINK IT CAME OUT WELL.

Assignments

For one five star project, I decided to do a mystery story. I got my entire family involved and my kids were particularly into it, getting dressed up and helping me name the characters. I sketched out a shot list that helped me determine what order I ended up shooting in.  I tried to shoot by staying on one side of the 180 degree line (also realized that by moving behind the actors that it gave me some easy points to use in editing – like when I was right behind someone and then wanted to cut to them speaking). One thing I realized was that I should have used by phone side to side instead of up and down and it would have given me a wider picture but oh well.  Look for the cameo from my cat.

It’s called https://www.youtube.com/embed/lAxrEdizqeU“>”Inspector Biscuits and the Mystery of the Missing Ring”.

I also did a five star assignment called Highlight Reel – I used my favorite athlete, Mariano Rivera. Tehre were plenty of highlight reels already built on YouTube but I built me own – only using them for sources, not entire consequences. I enjoyed this and it wasn’t difficult. I am getting used to being able to download and move clips around easily, along with trying to manipulate sound by figuring out where I want it to start and end and also using fades.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9bC6RVmF4gQ“>Here it is.

My last assignment was a two star assignment called Capture the Beauty.  The idea was to shoot a 6 second video with Vine which I did – showing the beautiful white tree in my front yard. The hardest part of this assignment was trying to figure out Vine. I signed up and shot multiple videos but couldnt figure out how to post or share them. Finally I ended up shooting it on my camera and then allowing Vine to take a video from the camera and I uploaded it and =then= was able to share it.

Here it is. 

Summary

This has been my favorite unit so far and the skills I’m learning here I am already thinking about using for future projects once this class is over. The editing is so simple and so flexible and looks so clean, I can see a lot of possibilities. The process has made me more comfortable with the process of downloading and using files and trying different tools to see what works and what doesn’t.  My wife (who is by training an Avid editor) wants me to teach the tools to her.

POSSIBLE DS106 PROJECT!!!!!!

A thought for a possible DS106 video assignment is called Car Chase!  The assignment is to use existing movie footage and reconstruct a car chase from beginning to end – for example, start with Frank Drebin telling the driver to follow that car, then build your car chase until it comes to some sort of an end.  Bonus points for unusual music – make sure to add a title page that sets up the chase.