I am a terrible chef.

I can use a blender okay though, sometimes.

So I made a good smoothie, and filmed the process. At least I saved my smoke detectors from an untimely fate by staying away from the stove.

To be fair, I loved this assignment when I did it, so this isn’t so much a revision as it is a part 2. I wanted to make a completely new second cooking video, but honestly, there is not much I can make in my dorm room that isn’t just like cheese on crackers. The peanut butter apples were basic enough. And this was supposed to be a remix. So I used the same footage.

In the first assignment write-up, I explained that I had originally wanted to do a backward but played forewards video so that it was extra weird, but I had to scrap the idea cause it was too confusing (obviously). But this time I could do it! This could be like a monster’s rebuttal to the original where they de-create the snack. And so this was born. Hats off to iMovie and google doc image options.

Fun tidbit, if the music sounds strange, it is because I took the same music from the last video and played it backward. Thought it would fit well and also tie into the original. 

Video Assignment #1

So I might have gone a little of the beaten path with this assignment, but blame Bob Ross. As things began to move away from the source material, my only thought was “Let’s get a little crazy,” which is something a very smart man said. That really is what this assignment turned out to be. I leaned into the story as it happened and let it unfold as it wanted to.

“We all know those cooking shows where the TV chef is usually making something that sounds delicious, but by the time we get all the ingredients and actually make the thing they made, it’s not as good as we thought it would be? Or how about those times that you have grand plans for a recipe or meal, but it turns south quickly? What if cooking shows were realistic, and showed how not everything goes as planned, or is fantastic as we want it to be? For this assignment, make a cooking show or highlight a recipe that you can make that is not TV chef worthy, but good enough to eat, and if you’re lucky, enjoy.” 

https://assignments.ds106.us/assignments/cooking-show-but-sassy/ 

Well, to start this assignment, I was slightly confined by what foods I could make in my dorm room, and also what foods I could make while low on ingredients. Peanut butter apples were kinda my best (and only) option, and perfect because I wanted a snack! I actually ate it while I edited the video. (insert chef’s kiss here, delicious) I first wanted to try and make the snack backward, then play the video forewards so it would look very strange. Sort of like the red room in Twin Peaks where the characters talk backward, but then the video is played backward so it sounds correct.

If that sounds confusing, that’s because it is and I could not find a way to make it work with this cooking video. So I thought I would have to settle for normalcy. It wasn’t until after I filmed the footage that I thought about making it look old, like an early film reel. Then, I thought about the first scene of Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail. If you haven’t seen it, watch it, there is a moose involved and it is very funny.

So I started channeling that and once I wrote the subtitle for ‘spending the day in the countryside’, I thought “What strange thing could you do with this food in Ye Olden Days?” Then the monsters popped in. It was a risk, I’ll admit. Trying to be funny in video format is not something I excel at, but then I thought of the wise words of the Patron Saint of Ds106: “What the heck, let’s get crazy.” So I got crazy and went with it. It was kind of scary doing something so new, and I almost scrapped it, but I tried to take Bob Ross’s words to heart and just keep going. I guess you can be the judge of how successful it was. I had fun making it, so I am happy. 

I filmed the video on my phone using a state-of-the-art tripod made out of an old Ikea box. Then I used iMovie to edit the video. I wasn’t super happy with the subtitle options that the program had, so I made my own. I found the background image of old-timey subtitles and put it on a google doc.

Then I just put the words on top of it and took a screenshot for every subtitle card. I had to redo them a lot cause I made some formatting and spelling mistakes, but it worked.

I then used the ‘Silent Era’ clip filter on everything. I sped up the video clips because frankly they were kind of slow and it worked with the black-and-white vibe. For the finishing touch, I googled “Upbeat Orchestral Music” and picked something that I thought fit.

Strive to be like the cat above, very cool and also asleep.