About a week ago, I resolved to do some of the Daily-Creates for ds106. In perfect “make a resolution” style, I promptly failed and didn’t complete the first one on July 9! I was able to do the second and then in my Tweetstream I saw:
Now that I had started I surely couldn’t stop… So, for the past 7 days I have completed the Daily Creates. Most have taken me longer than the suggested 15-20 minutes (usually due to some random software issue or life just calling me to do other things…) However, all have been rewarding in some way and I am going to make it my goal to complete each day’s throughout the rest of my summer (except when I am travelling).
Truth be told I had forgotten that there was also a component to link them all together at the end of the week. Here they are, my 7 Daily-Creates linked into one story.
Take 1: My own work
I went outside to cut some herbs for dinner.
The weather forecast mentioned a risk of tornadoes and, when I looked at the dark sky, all I could think was “there’s no place like home”.
Thankfully, the threatening weather passed and all I could see was a single cloud that looked a bit like a horse.
When I returned to the house, the phone rang. On the other end of the line was an annoying telemarketer.
The only way to react to this was to use their own energy against them, like in karate.
I remember a time before all these impersonal robocalls.
But I certainly wouldn’t give up my iPhone that lets me take photos, make videos, draw, edit photos, record
All kickstarted thanks to ds106
Click image for ds106 logo Anyone know how I can embed just a part of a video here???
Your week of Daily Create Challenges is almost over. Are you still in it? Today is another audio one, “Flip the decibels- Make a loud sound soft or a soft sound loud” — and very clever because the creativity is both in the choice and thinking about it, and the execution of it.
While 25 people joined the Soundcloud group, as of today I see 12 sounds, which leads me to think people are still working on it (if they do not, the drill sergeant is going to make them run laps all night in the rain).
I really enjoyed the variety here, and these are going to be very interesting media used for the final mashup challenge. A few favorites sit below the blog fold.
Brushing the teet was VEYR LOUD! I hope I do not get spit upon…
Norm lives on a street with an army of loud bugs
Cris records someone who is very very very thirsty
I am worried that Mohamed tossed out an important piece of paper (no, not his ds106 grade)
Andrew again mixes sounds richly, so we have a loud fan and a soft lullaby
Melanie stay with a troll unicorn theme- I guess the trolls are quiet? And the unicorns sound like normal horses!
Great stuff, tomorrow is the LAST day (but no reason to stop creating daily!) STAY FIT, SOLDIERS!
The Daily Create Seven Day Challenge piles up hard this week, with another video one today (I did not even look to see what was lined up when I made the challenge). For today’s we have 18 Challengers still standing, which is respectable. Where’s the others? preparing to have sand kicked into their faces, I bet?
When I think back to my childhood, I think about ice-cream sandwiches, playing Barbies, hours of swimming with my cousins, making clubhouses in a copse of spindly trees, the babysitter asking me if it was ok for her to smoke in the house (turns out it wasn’t), and watching some great, but entirely inappropriate, movies. In my early years of elementary school I was watching Jaws, Halloween, and The Shining. I discussed the merits of Nightmare on Elm Street on the school bus. Jesus, was I eight-years-old when that came out in 1984? I definitely didn’t see it in the theater, so maybe I was 9 or 10. My point is that I was young.
It’s not like I was sneaking around to watch these movies. My parents knew that my sister and I watched horror films. My cousins’ parents knew what they were watching too. It was all perfectly fine as long as we didn’t have nightmares. It may sound like a totally insane parenting philosophy, but I’m thankful that I grew up that way. There wasn’t a lot of parental oversight when it came to what I watched, read, or listened to. If something made me uncomfortable, I stopped watching. If a book was over my head, it was probably boring, so I stopped reading. I appreciate that autonomy, and hope I can raise my son with some modified version of that. I think I’d like to have more open discussion concerning the media and art he brings home when the time comes.
So here’s a short video on three movies that impacted the most. They should’ve been terrifying. They should’ve left me afraid of the ocean and afraid of the boogeyman, instead I’m left with some unforgettable memories of growing up free range with my sister and cousins.
* For the record, I don’t really think that my parents’ choice to let me watch these movies was bad parenting. I think I turned out ok in the end.
In preparation for this week’s topic for ds106 I opted to put out a question via twitter to get input on how you explain the differences between mashups and remixes (I get sloppy and move somewhere in the vague area between).
Probably the best outcome was getting clued into Star Wars Call Me Maybe. Shannon Wiebe gets my vote for the fruitiest metaphor
@cogdog#ds106 mash up=different songs together remix=1 song played in new way, mash up=fruit kabob remix=strawberries blended into smoothie
Mainly I got that Remix is a retelling, recasting of a single piece of media, say The Shining, in a new way (think the recut movie trailers, which change the meaning of the content by simple re-ordering and adding of music) — e.g. 2.6 million views cant be wrong
While a mashup mixes together media fro different sources, say a version of the Shining with an alternate media, say Jerry McHGuire
Are the differences really significant?
I have not played with storify in a while so wrapped in the tweets with some other links:
Things are really going super duper with responses to the Seven Day Daily Create Challenge, where last Wednesday I dared y’all (that means you, all 4 billion people in the internet) to do a ds106 Daily Create seven days in row.
People are stepping up, some of whom have not done TDCs before, and at least 2 UMW students are in the action. I’ve been doing daily summaries, found at my blog tag 7daychallengetdc.
Originally I had said at the end, I would challenge you to make up a digital story from your own work. And you can certainly do that… you make up your own rules (which still makes me wonder when people tweet apologies about not getting it done by midnight or the same day, phooey). After all, its not like anyone is getting graded here!
Then, and here is where it gets interesting, my friends, is that you are to make a mashup of content that other people created for each fo the seven days, and to make an interesting story out of it. How you do it is up to you, but you should use the media (and link back, give ‘em credit) to 7 different pieces of media submitted for the Daily Create on the days you did yours.
So there it is- now I challenge you to weave together a story from the work other people did the same seven days you did your own TDCs.
This week in the world of Daily Creates, cogdog expressed his frustration with lack of consistent participation with The Daily Create and issued a 7-day Daily Create Challenge. Rising to his challenge, I worked to complete the Daily Creates daily, everyday. And here’s what I came up with:
I took this picture through the open sunroof of my car while sitting in traffic on my way home. I promise, traffic was dead stopped…I was NOT trying the photograph and drive simultaneously! The clouds were looking quite omnious as a storm was brewing. Looked like trouble to me…at least this was not going to make my commute home easy. I didn’t see it initially, but cogdog commented that he could see a raven. Then I saw it…yet another sign of trouble!
This one was super easy and FUN! Referring back to the ds106 Packing List for web-based drawing tools, I found Flamepainter! What a cool concept! Selected my colors for a fiery theme, looped the cursor around a few times, and…easy, peasy…a fiery tornado. After uploading, it got the attention of a few participant that left complimentary comments, including a comment inquiring about Flamepainter. After publishing a tweet about it on Twitter, I think I turned a few excited followers on to a new tool to play with!
I so love the photograph challenges! It gives me an excuse to play with my camera. I am still amazed at the power of the zoom on my little red Canon PowerShot SX260. I was standing quite a distance away, using the max 80x zoom to capture these bees on a flower. I love how sharply focused the flower and the bees are while blurring the background, showcasing the subjects! In keeping with the instructions, there is not a single human artifact in this picture, foreground or background!
And we’re back to video again…but this one is easy, even to an amateur like me. I had to wait until late in the day to do this though, because I had the DirecTv guy working on hooking me up with a Whole Home DVR system and new equipment, so I didn’t have TV access most of the day. Using my iPhone camera to record this short clip, I discovered that channel 106 is not accessible to me! You see, channel 106 is ESPN-3D and it promptly reminded me that my TV is not 3D, so it could not play this channel. Maybe one day…
This one left me a little stumped at first. Not to mention, I still avoid hearing my own recorded voice whenever possible! But I sucked it up in the interest of not letting cogdog down! Anyway, it finally occurred to me that credit repair services and debt reconciliation firms are constantly advertising too-good-to-be-true services that will magically “fix” your credit problems and stop debt collections. A shame, really, as I’m sure in the current economy, they find plenty of desperate victims to prey on. Using the SoundCloud app on my iPhone, I was able to record and upload this short call quickly, once I had an idea to work with. I do admit using Audacity to edit out a segment that I didn’t like.
So there are 5 Daily Creates in a row. Sorry, cogdog, I still owe you yesterday’s TDC! No excuses, but in my defense the video session of ds106, combined with a concussion, quite frankly kicked my ass this past week! I’ll have it up later today and will amended this post then.
I would like to pont out that only 2 daily creates were required for ds106 students this week, so I more than doubled that requirement!
Ok, so TECHNICALLY I can live with my iPhone. Unlike cogdog insulin pump, my health and existence does not depend on it. But it sure does make my life easier, keeping me organized, in touch, entertained and more productive. The millions of apps available make it fully customizable to suit my needs and desires. I’ve been an iPhone user for 5 years and I am so happy with it. I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for the iPhone 5!
There is always that moment when you hear a new song, watch a new show, or see a new movie and go “wait, I swear I have seen/heard this before.” That’s probably because you have seen/heard something very similar. After watching “Everything is a Remix”, Kirby Ferguson makes valid points about entertainment and media all just being reused then reused again. A lot of “action” or “journey” films follow the same basic plot line. For example in comparing Harry Potter to Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Harry Potter are both simple characters but are destined for greatness. They go an epic journey to achieve a certain goal which is saving the world from evil. They go through moments of weakness but have their friend(s) pick them back up again. In the end, they achieve their goal and save the world from destructions. It’s hard to find a unique and original movie. I would first off say documentaries are original, but thats obvious. Toy Story, is another example in my opinion of an original movie. Toys come to life and have their own world based in a child’s room. They go on adventures and want to always be loved by their owner (andy).
It’s hard to come up with a completely original idea when so many movies have already been produced. I think now it is more about how well can a director spin off from a movie idea that has already happened and how well can they sell it.
While the ds106 video weeks have gone speeding by like some kind of super-luminal neutrinos, I’m still trying to wrap up my account of the audio radio project. Here’s the summary of my project.
The DigiOuijas (Bunk 5 group) decided on a theme of the morning after the apocalypse. Each participating member created a short piece which was compiled into the final production. I decided to write a story loosely based on the Mayan Apocalypse (scheduled for 12/21/2012) in which time and space come to an end in order to make way for a new world. I wrote a story from the perspective of a survivor who somehow finds his way into the new world, albeit transformed into an alien form, no longer human.
Since the project was audio, I wanted something more than just myself narrating the story, so to give it some aural interest, I had my story read by a text to voice reader. I intentionally searched for a reader that was less than perfect, so that the voice was distinctly unnatural. I used an online service at vozme.com. After the story mp3 was created, I added in some sound effects (mostly from Freesound.org) I used Audacity for the audio edits.
Here’s a the embed of my story on Soundcloud. DayAfter by wwnorm
After the story was uploaded, there was some chatter online about a possible gathering in Second Life where the DS106 radio feed could be heard. I thought it would be fun to join in. I’ve used Second Life a few times, and I’ve seen some really outrageous avatars there. I got a crazy idea to create a avatar of my transformed apocalypse survivor to bring to the Second Life meeting. Not knowing anything about Avatar generation in Second Life, I turned to my Second Life go-to person, @Cris2B (virtuallyfoolproof.com) to see if she had any tips to get me started. In response she offered to work with her Second Life partner Ajax to make the Avatar for me based on my description. That’s one of the great things about ds106; the sharing, helping, spirit. A day or so later later, they came back with this awesome Second life creature for me to use. Some screenshots were tweeted during the airing of the radio shows. Here’s a few more.
While the turnout in Second Life was not huge, we had fun listening to all the radio projects there. By the way, the sound quality of the DS106 radio feed was excellent in Second Life so there was no downside to listening in from there. We had fun taking pictures of the alien avatar and exchanging remarks on the broadcasts in the Second Life chat area.
I wanted to do something with some of the screenshots from Second life, so I decided to make an album cover for the DigiOuijas radio broadcast. I hope none of my bunk mates are upset that I made this album cover so self-centered, but if you are, you can always go make your own album cover. So here it is, front and back:
Camp is now over (see the final story. If you are craving an experience like this, head over to ds106 and see how to participate. For more on the Summer of Magic Macguffin, see.....
