ds106 — Camp Magic MacGuffin

Archive for the ‘ds106’ Category

Friday, June 8th, 2012

This has to stop, but not tonight. I missed the fun of the afternoon shit talking and gif smacking today. With some positive feedback on the last batch, I set out again to see what I could do with GIMP as a tool.

For these next two I went for very original material, stuff you cannot get on the internet- some of the videos from the Storybox as my intended purpose was to keep the raw material on the pirate box but allow remixes to float out on the open web.

This first one was a barbershop pole spotted maybe in British Columbia- I had some shaky hand held video, but found at least one short segment where there was little jarring for one spin:

BUt there was still jiggle. So I made a selection of just the moving pole part, and deleted everything else from 6 of the 7 frames. What I cannot figure in GIMP is how to make a deleted selection transparent; mine got filled with white. I solved the problem by making a copy of the lowest frame, which was a full image. I then used the same selection to fill the same area with white.

I then made a duplicate of this frame and moved it below each of my single frames, set the mode of the layer to “darken”, and merged each layer down. This I ended up with frames where all the movement was within that bit I had saved fro each layer.

This next one was form video I took in Central Park, New York. I heard form afar the loud banging of drums, and came across a protest of people at the boathouse who were protesting the management- their goal was to convince tourists not to go inside, and they were pretty darned successful I recorded some of the audio and spoke a little to the protestors, but I loved most the intensity of these drummers banging on plastic jugs and the metal rails of the barriers. The sound is just exported from the original video clip.

My next GIF hope is to do a movie poster in the caliber of Michael Branson Smith.

A dog can only hope.

UPDATE (June 8, 2011): There is a better way, as pointed out to me by Scottlo, in the masking method that Jim Groom explains in a great screencast. I’m going to be a masking mad daog now in the GIMP.

We do have a success to communicate; I was able to isolate the Strother Martin character’s classic Cool Hand Luke Line, and leave the other dude on the right not moving. I have a little bit of background flutter in the clouds, but now that I know how to do alpha masks on layers….

Posted in Animated Gif, Blog Pile, ds106, magicmacguffin | Comments Off on I Can’t GIF it Out of My System

On Being A Monkey

Friday, June 8th, 2012

This is a preliminary post which will be added to over time. Members of the ds106 digital storytelling group The Monkey House may be interested in some of these resources and hints for use with MineCraft.

1) Monkey Skins are available for your MineCraft dude (while you are waiting to customize your own).

The Skindex currently shows 23 skins when you search for “monkey.”

You can either download the .png skin file for use further editing, or you can upload it directly to your Minecraft profile so that you immediately look like a proper chimp.

2) Monkey House Texture Pack: Following on a question from @BenjaminHarwood, I investigated the Texture Pack feature, and created the beginnings of a Monkey House theme that substitutes a banana for the apple, and introduces some simple monkey artwork. To achieve this end,

a) download the Monkey House Texture Pack: MC_mONkEyhouse_v1.zip to a spot you can locate on your computer. The texture back is in a ZIP file format. Do NOT unzip it.
b) Run Minecraft. If you already have Minecraft running, make sure you save and quit the world: you need to be in the main menu to continue.

c) Click Texture Packs button.

d) Click Open Texture Pack Folder button; this will open the folder where minecraft stores all texture packs. If nothing happens, you need to find the folder manually. Depending on your operating system it is:

Windows XP/Vista/7: %AppData%\.minecraft\texturepacks
Linux: ~/.minecraft/texturepacks (This folder may be hidden in the Home Folder)
Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/minecraft/texturepacks (This folder may be hidden)

e) Do not close Minecraft. Place the texture pack (ZIP file) in the opened texture packs folder, do not unzip.

f) In a few seconds the texture pack will appear in Minecraft. Select it and click Done. The texture pack is now applied, you may load your world and see the difference.

You should now see the world through a Monkey’s eyes.

This texture pack will likely evolve over time. I need to address the object naming, create a golden banana, and turn the regular cake into Banana Cake. Other suggestions?

There is more information about Texture Packs on the Minecraft wiki.

Here is a shot of some of our members of The Monkey House posing in front of one of the monkey pictures, with the pile of “apples” replaced (from my perspective) with bananas.

Members of The Monkey House with bananas and monkey art

3) Building Branches in The Monkey House tree.
While a short video tutorial has been requested (might be a nice little project), the basic process that I’ve used to build branches involves using the following bits.

1) the basic wood block for our tree
2) the dirt block
3) the fourth sapling
4) bone meal
5) the dark green leaves
6) the vines.

By placing a sapling on a dirt block and applying bone meal, a tree can instantly be grown on a branch. (remove the dirt block after and replace it with wood). Then add additional leaves and vines to arrive at your aesthetically pleasing result.

NOTE: For when creepers, zombies, skeletons, and spiders come wandering around, having the bow and arrow handy lets you get rid of the monsters without any explosions or collateral damage to The Monkey Hut.

Here’s an external shot of The Monkey House tree with the original large big branch. The plan will be to add additional large big branches such that each monkey can build a tree house of their own in the upper reaches of the foliage.

"The Monkey House tree" by aforgrave, on Flickr

4) Select and Name Your Temporary Bunk: We have prepared a good number of bunks in the main level of The Monkey House tree. Select an unoccupied bunk, and then update your sign (break, then replace) with your name, your twitter name, and the type of monkey you would like to be.

"One Funky Monkey Bunk(s)" by aforgrave, on Flickr

5) Members of The Monkey House can use our #tag when posting to Twitter:
We are #mONkEyhouse106.

Posted in bunk1, Camp Magic MacGuffin, ds106, imaginages, magicmacguffin, minecraft, MineCraft skin, mixed-up media, openonline, something made, texture pack, The Monkey House | Comments Off on On Being A Monkey

Our Bunkhouse Is a Treehouse

Friday, June 8th, 2012

Just a quick screenshot from #mONkEyhouse106 in Camp Magic MacGuffin. I’m still mostly hopeless in Minecraft but my bunk mates built an entire tree house. Not everyone came to tonight’s social but those who did learned a ton! Led by Andrew Forgrave, we managed to add basic bunks for everyone, and some nice torches for light, and we began adding on more tree branches while dear Shannon forged ahead alone making a spiral staircase that runs up the trunk of our giant tree from the deck level to the top. At some point Kathleen and I learned how to rid pigs (in our tree!). Unfortunately neither of us could get back OFF so we kind of messed up the house for awhile, but it’s all back in order now, and the pork chops were delicious. Shout out to Tim for turning day to night and doing a few teleportations of lost campers. And to camp director Alan who managed to join our social for a few minutes before heading to dinner – come back and visit anytime!

Posted in #mONkEyhouse106, bunk1, counselor, ds106, magicmacguffin, minecraft, openonline | Comments Off on Our Bunkhouse Is a Treehouse

The Art of Shit Talking

Friday, June 8th, 2012

There are far more definitions of shit talking than I ever dreamed of in my philosophy, but the one I am referring to is the act of “saying things to amuse people and playfully mock them.” For me the web has many faces, but one of its most appealing is that it provides a uniquely playful space to banter with people. Spaces like blog comments and twitter provide remarkable opportunities for talking shit. For example, this afternoon I had joked with Tom Woodward (who is awesome at taking such things to the next level) and in turn he created an animated GIF to let me know I was skating on thin ice with my earlier remarks. Here is that GIF:

I wasn’t sure what the hell it was, I just knew it was nutty. Turns out it is a scene from this music video of that crazy South African Zef band Die Antwoord. I had mistaken it for an Alabama house party Funny thing is, this started a bit of a back and forth on Twitter with me talking a little shit about how I could out exercise Tom, how I made ds106, etc., etc., run-of-the-mill stuff for me, getting under people’s skin is too easy on twitter, but it is also kinda fun. Sometimes there is a thin line, but within the right community a little friendly banter and back and forth can lead to great things. For example, after a fun back and forth with Tom he went on to create six more Die Antwoord GIfs that are all both disturbing and amazing. See for yourself.

I would venture if we weren’t going back and forth on Twitter they might not have gotten made. Would that be the end of the world? Maybe not, but he did make them, it was fun, we did connect, they are awesome, and as usual they are generated out of a sense of fun, play and shit talking. One thing is for sure, ds106 as a community is the better for it. Why? Well, two more of ds106′s finest artists, Giulia Forsythe and Michael Branson Smith, started to play along as a way of using the animated GIF to talk shit on me. Giulia oh so subtely suggests I might have had too much coffee with her bava attacks shark GIF:

And then pulls out another GIF to ask the question “what are you really made of?”

And then there was some allusions in the twitter banter about me being the ds106 overlord, kind of “the man with no eyes” prisoner guard in Cool Hand Luke, so Michael Branson Smith provided the visual—a little trigger happy Groom.

And what you start to realize pretty quickly is we are jamming, people are making stuff on the fly, having fun, talking smack through all kinds of media, and then the moment passes. And that’s that. It happens all the time in #ds106, these are the interstitial moments that are impossible to reproduce in your course systems—the hallway spaces that have little to do with the course and everything to do with the people in it. You shouldn’t look too hard for these events because they’re always there balled up in the potentiality that are the awesome people all around you—it just sometimes takes a little shit talking to activate them. As my good friend Todd Conaway knows all too well:

Make some art dammit, and talk some shit.

Posted in bunkx, digital storytelling, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on The Art of Shit Talking

If you’ve got them…

Friday, June 8th, 2012

Okay, true confessions time: I have a celebrity crush on Sam Elliott. Despite the fact he’s more than 30 years my senior AND older than my dad, I find something about him sexy as hell. No Sean Connery for me. Sam Elliott all the way. If I only had him by the balls…! Just kidding. Maybe.

When I came across an assignment that involved using a celebrity (or three), I couldn’t resist my Mr. Elliott fixation. What, or more accurately who, do I think of when I think of him? Well, Sam Elliott is famous for his western movies…and so is John Wayne.

John Wayne starred in 142 movies and said a lot of stuff. I started googling John Wayne quotes to find one I recognized or liked or could work with. Something fun. And sexy. To go with the sexy Sam Elliott.

Now we have a western movie star theme going. And I need one more strong, male, western man to participate in this activity with us. And in walks in none other than the one and only Clint Eastwood.

One picture of Sam, a quote from John, and the use of Clint’s name…tweek a little in Picasa and, yep, I have compiled three rough, gruff, sexy, older western heroes into one hot shot. And I muse…will my boyfriend raise his eyebrows at me when this image becomes my wallpaper? Maybe!

Posted in bunk2, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments24 | Comments Off on If you’ve got them…

Look Ma’, First GIF!

Friday, June 8th, 2012

I did my first GIF today as part of an Visual Assignment for this week. This assignment was worth three stars and it was pretty fun. It was called Say It Like the Peanut Butter and you can find it here.

This is a clip from the movie Contagion, which I saw for the first time last night. Though Gwyneth Paltrow wasn’t in the majority of the movie, I thought the time she was in it was hilarious because I got to see some of the best “sick” faces I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t get over the above clip, where she’s sick and the doctors are trying to examine her and she can’t stop making the most unattractive face ever.

I made this clip by taking three screen shots from the actual DVD, saving them as JPEGs and converting them into a GIF in Photoshop. I’ll add more detail to a GIF I add later once I figure out how I actually did it. Mostly I clicked around and I would have you greyscaling it a few times, inverting, accidentally deleting the file, etc.

Posted in bunk4, ds106, magicmacguffin, umwsum12, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments2 | Comments Off on Look Ma’, First GIF!

My Ship Has Come In

Friday, June 8th, 2012

Visual Assignments 379 – Your Dreams Out the Window

I have been keeping myself busy at the Macguffin Camp - reading about photography, doing my Daily Create assignments (did each and every one so far this week) and thinking about my visual assignments. I have completed two and the third is under way, but nobody knows about them. The reason why nobody knows about how diligent I have been is that I haven’t updated this blog of mine.

I am going to be brief here, since I desperately want to go back to thinking about my visual assignments. I swear, they are addictive. These days I can’t wait to get home so that I can update my Daily Create and play with my photo editors. I have even started carrying my camera with me and today, when my students left the classroom, I took some more photos (of the classroom and out the window). I did this, I reasoned, so that I could catch the light. Most of my Daily Create photos so far have been Nightly Creates, as I usually do them when I get home from work.

Anyway, what’s this story of my ship coming in?

Visual Assignment 379 asks us to photograph our best daydreaming window and alter it to show what we are dreaming of. I am dreaming of the holiday and of the time I am going to spend at the sea-side with my family. It is as simple as that. Though, while I am at the sea-side, I will have to abstain from the Daily Creates and other Camp activities. You can’t have it all.

And here’s how I did this task:

I used PhotoFiltre. It is not in our packing list, but it is free to download and use. I wrote about PhotoFiltre here.

I copy-pasted the ship onto the window as shown in this video:

After that I painted the area around the ship using the brush tool and some dark red paint matching the window.

The result is amateurish, but not too bad.

Technorati Tags: DS106, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments379, VisualTutorials379

Tags: DS106,, VisualAssignments,, VisualAssignments379,, VisualTutorials379
Posted in bunk4, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, VisualAssignments, VisualAssignments379, VisualTutorials379 | Comments Off on My Ship Has Come In

The Shape of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet

Friday, June 8th, 2012

In the last couple of days I have been wrapping up a Shakespeare experience of Romeo & Juliet with my ninth grade students. In an effort to keep things light and entertaining when introducing students to Shakespeare, I use a … Continue reading →

Posted in bunk4, Camp Magic MacGuffin, digital storytelling, ds106, ds106 - Week 2, Kurt Vonnegut, magicmacguffin, openonline, Romeo & Juliet, shakespeare, VonnegutStory | Comments Off on The Shape of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet

The new audience for stories

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

The best storytelling on the web won’t come from the author.

That’s the lesson for me coming out of Bryan Alexander’s fascinating book and post on the subject of digital storytelling.

When a book is published, it grows little angel wings and flies out into the world. It might have 4999 little brothers and sisters flying with it; it might, if it’s Harry Potter, have millions, or it might, if a vanity project, have just 4, one for each member of the author’s family. When the book comes off the press, we know that the audience is out there, and how the book will reach them through bookshops and Amazon and Oxfam, but we don’t know who those readers are. Most importantly, we don’t in a million years expect to ever hear from them.

That’s a big example of publishing to a delayed anonymous reader, but in my opinion we all do that every day. If you’re short on time, do you open first your mail, or your email? I go for the email – I can get through a few of them in the time it takes to open a letter. It’s not just about the (truncated) content and easy click, though, there’s also an expectation in an email that my friend will get a reply quicker than they might if they write. So I feel that I need to meet that expectation by replying promptly.

Whether tweeting the trenches, live tweeting Samuel Pepys’ diary or microblogging the sinking of the Titanic, the instant medium of Twitter assumes an importance that seems to relate to life now. The audience is approached immediately, within seconds of publication, and that immediacy evokes a similarly unhindered response. It’s not like sitting down to write a considered letter to your favourite author, it’s as fast as a quick retweet.

I work in PR, so social media for me has been largely about broadcasting successes, listening to the response, responding to concerns.

But what happens when you stop broadcasting and listening and start instead to light a fire, tend that fire, and go with the flow? You get more. You learn more. And your story grows.

So in light of this, I’m interested to go back to Kurt Vonnegut’s storytelling arcs. It seems to me less easy to trace the flow of the story when you’re prepared to let the other participants in your story take control a little. When, for example, you can even let go of Dracula (blogged by Bryan over several years) and run a blog a bit like a book club. Even where there is a single storyteller, digital storytelling allows us to present multiple narrators – as in Project 1968 - so that a single curve doesn’t really fit the brief any more.

Perhaps I’ll find, over the coming weeks, that all stories really are all the same. Or perhaps this hypothesis, that the digital story is a bit different, will hold true. Either way, this is all new to me, and I’m learning that my English degree was just one side of the coin….

Posted in AlexanderStory, bunk3, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, storytelling | Comments Off on The new audience for stories

Master of the Flying Guillotine Animated Movie Poster

Thursday, June 7th, 2012

When I saw the Master of the Flying Guillotine movie poster, I knew I had to animate it for this ds106 design assignment. This is a very rough first draft, and I only got this far thanks to Tim Owens’ seemingly boundless patience with my idiotic Photoshop questions (it was a good refresher of the details I learned for the animated Hulk comic book cover I did). Like I said, it is a very rough first draft, but I have a sense of what I need to do to fix it up now. The difficulty with this one was getting the elliptical movement of the guillotine to be convincing and somewhat centered, on my next run through on this work-in-progress I’m gonna see if I can’t master that. Any and all future versions of this draft will added as an update to this post.