Archive for the ‘umwsum12’ Category

 

Explore Lake Tahoe

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

“Calling all Explorers”

This past week, I spent time in Lake Tahoe (The California Side) with my boyfriend and his family. Lake Tahoe has endless trails and outdoor activities. One of the video assignments was to explore outside in any way. I went on a 9 mile hike, 9,000 feet in elevation, and completely vertical. This to me, seemed like the perfect opportunity to document the great outdoors. However, I was struggling so hard to not fall over and hallucinate from lack of oxygen that I filmed on the hike down the mountain instead.

 

This was filmed entirely on my iphone 4 … oh how technology is advancing. I also incorporated pictures to replace video segments that were too shaky or blurry because of my (lack) of filming abilities. I used still shots that I took on the hike to make a smoother transition from film to stills.

I used iMovie to edit this video.

screen shot 1 © by katherinekd101

This is how it started out before any editing took place. I imported my video and from there edited away any portions of the video I didn’t want in the final piece. After completing this, I dragged the pieces of video I wanted into the top left hand box that says “drag media here”.

 

Screen Shot2 © by katherinekd101 

If I have

learned one thing from video week is that its all trial and error, edit then reedit then maybe edit again. The first time you put something together is highly unlikely that it is your final product. For the background song I originally used “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas. If you have time to listen to you it, you will understand why I didn’t use this song for my final project. It’s sad and discusses that eventually we will all be dust in the wind. Maybe a little too sad for a video that is exploring the beautiful outdoors of Lake Tahoe on a dry warm day.

 

Screen Shot 3 © by katherinekd101

In the end I chose the song “Knee Deep” by Zac Brown Band. It’s one of my favorite songs because of the mood. The song is upbeat and talks about living a carefree life, outdoors. To transition from film to still image I played with different styles of a quick transition pattern. The first one I worked with was “dissolving” but in the end decided to use the “door” pattern. In my opinion it looked cleaner.

Finally I included text for the credits and the title. One thing that I still couldn’t figure out with iMovie is how to make the credits go slower. I’m hoping to figure this out in my next video.

Enjoy :)

Carding a Deeper Me

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

My story is simple. A good girl, lost in a bad world. Not knowing whom to turn to and when. Wondering why no one understands that not all my days are good days. Even though I pretend as if they are.

When I saw this assignment, I thought about it for a long time. I had seen several of these kind of videos on Youtube and they were all serious. Some were very depressing and some people talked about how they wanted to kill themselves. Now, mine is not that deep, but I do express somethings.

The Process

1. Turned on my webcam

2. Wrote down my story on notecards

3. Played “Cry” (instrumental) – Rihanna

4. Hit “PLAY”

5. Hit “RECORD”

6. Showed the cards to the camera and held them up for a few seconds

7. Repeated step 6 several times

 

 

I hope this assignment let you all see another side of me. That sometimes I am outgoing, but sometimes I go through things and I feel alone. I’ve never been “depressed” but stress has come into my life. I hope this video inspires someone that is going through; that life is hard, but you will survive. Find your outlet and be yourself.

Video Killed the Radio Star in Week 7

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012

This letter home is in video, where I inserted some pictures and text into my video letter home. Still feeling my way through the video editing tools so it’s a little crude. It will get better as the assignments move into production, I’m sure. And I hope I’m looking (and feeling) better as the week progresses. One week of video down, one more to go. I can only imagine what the Directors of Camp Magic MacGuffin will cook up for us as we round out the Summer session of ds106!

Animated Rock Starts

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Phineas and Ferb is the best cartoon known to man. For those who aren’t big on cartoons, you should really consider watching it. It cones on at random times on Disney Channel and is on a lot. When I saw the assignment to animate a music video, I honestly almost fell out of my bed. This has to be one of the best assignments yet.

THE PROCESS..

1. opened up WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER

2. clicked. “NEW PROJECT”

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3.  went to Google images and typed in “Phineas and Ferb Rock Stars”

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4. downloaded 18 photos and saved them to a folder

5. went back into Windows Movie Maker, and on the left hand side, clicked “PICTURES”
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6. selected the 18 photos

7. downloaded PARTY LIKE A ROCK STAR by the Shop Boyz

8. repeated (step 5)

IMAG2259

9. selected the song

10. added a title page and typed what I wanted into the page

11. dragged and dropped the song into the Timeline

12. dragged and dropped the pictures according to the lyrics (matched them as much as possible)

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13. reviewed the work and made adjustments so the lyrics and pictures matched.

14. made a “credits” page showing where I got all of my work

15. uploaded my video to YouTube and embedded it into my post.

 

I have said many times before the music is my life. I know about a lot of songs and the Phineas and Ferb episode of when they were rock stars was my favorite. This assignment took a longer time than normal because I had to match pictures with words, but it was easy. It took me about 35 minutes to do, but it was fun so it didn’t feel as if it was that long. Once you understand the flow of how Windows Movie Makers works, it gets easier. I hope my video was interesting and my steps were clear and easy. Enjoy!

For more. Click here. –>>[Animated Music Videos]<<–

Past self

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Here’s my sound:

Video Prep Work

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Video week is really two weeks! Oh, what fun!

Last week we were doing a lot of prep work, familiarizing ourselves with the available software programs for video editing and starting to plan our assignment completion for the unit of study in ds106. Here are the assignments that I’ve scoped out and started planning:

Video Assignments 376—Return to the Silent Era (5 stars) gave me the challenge of using a modern movie trailer and creating a silent, black and white version reminiscent of the Silent Film era of cinematography. I’m going to use the trailer for Act of Valor, a movie from last year where the “actors” are genuine Navy Seals. I think this trailer will lend itself nicely to this task.

 

For Video Assignment 435—Serenity now! (3 stars), I will make a calming video like those displayed in a spa or used for meditation. I find the beach, especially at sunrise to be a soothing, peaceful environment for me the walk, think, reflect and just exist. On a trip to the Bahamas a few years ago, I was trying to use the time away to put things into perspective and re-prioritize my life. My soundtrack for this vacation was Led Zepplin…mostly because I love the lyrics, the melodies and the instrumentals in the songs. For these reasons, I will create a video of a beach sunrise, overlaying it with at least one Led Zepplin song. The hard part will be choosing which song to use…maybe Kashmir or something similar.

While I would love to go to the beach to film the video myself, my Outer Banks vacation isn’t until September, so I will be using a video from Creative Commons licensed video from YouTube (with the proper credits, of course) like this one:

 

Video Assignment 463—Watching Movies with the Stereo On (3 stars) directs me to take a movie clip and replace the original audio track with a song that somehow fits the movie scene. I picked the arrow roulette scene in the hilarious movie Grown Ups. I’m thinking I’ll dub “Moves Like Jagger” by Maroon 5 over it.

Stay tuned for the final products of these assignments!

That’s all for now, but I did get a great idea for a video assignment to add to the repository! I hope I have the time to flesh it out and develop an example later this week!

World of Remixes.

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Kirby Ferguson’s videos about remixed material was amazing. He took some songs and movies that I thought were original and showed where the artist or directions got their inspiration from. Many times younger directors and artist want to create an “original film/song” but they get their inspiration from older films that were thought to be GREAT. If a younger director or artist wants a great movie, they have to look a great movies from before and basically “copy” the framework. It was astonishing to see in Ferguson’s video to see who younger artist and directors looked up too. Some of these people aren’t even in the same genre of work, but they find ways to take on genre and make it work for another.

 

Now music, is something that I love and there are some songs that I know for a fact came from other songs. For example, I made a video of two songs. The original track is Michael Jackson’s “Wanna be Startin’ Something” and then Rihanna puts it in her song called “Please Don’t Stop the Music” Which goes to show that old music will never die.

 

 

 

I honestly, do not think that I have seen an “original movie.” All movies in my opinion are made up from another movie, but uses more modern/recent dilemmas so that modern people can relate. For example, the Rocky movies are all about a underestimated boxer that wants to win. He trains long and hard until he achieves his goal. But there aren’t too many aspiring boxers for filmmakers use other sports to prove that same point. If you are underestimated, train long and hard until you get what you want, like the Gridiron Gang.  I am not as much of a movie person as I am a music person, so I could be completely wrong, but I haven’t seen an original film.

Personally, I think it is enjoyable to see recent films based on past films. Mainly because it shows that we won’t forget great things that came before us. Like Michael Jackson’s music will never die, and a young singer(compared to him) used his music in her song. It always can be seen as a sign of respect or “thank you.” Rihanna could be using that clip in her song to show to Michael Jackson that she appreciated his music and it helped her. As far as movies, I think we enjoy seeing things from the past because it shows us they everyone is almost the same. Everyone from past, present, and future, all want some of the same things. Rocky was underestimated, and wanted to reign, the Gridiron gang (juveniles) wanted people who underestimated them to see that they had some positive aspects.

Basically, history lives on forever. People who came before us have paved the way for entertainment. We pay them respect by using their impressive works and show that everyone is more similar than we think.

Last week’s Daily Creates

Tuesday, July 10th, 2012

Although I did these last week, I’m just getting the blog post done for them. Sorry for keeping you suspense, but I am slightly behind on my blogging due to an injury I sustained over the weekend. Wish it was at least a good story to tell but it’s not. Just a stupid accident at home that left me with a concussion and a massive headache for a few days. Feeling well enough today to get back to the grind, so here we go…

tdc 177—Take a picture that presents wildness.

Wild Butterfly on Wild Flower

I took this beautiful image in my mother’s garden last week. Even with the crazy heat we’ve been having here in Virginia, the flowers are flourishing, attracting wild butterflies and bees. It was amazing to watch them and try to capture a pretty photo. This image was made possible by the incredible zoom on my camera. I was able to watch for a distant and zoom it on the resting butterfly.

 

tdc 179—Make a photograph of a plastic object that you’ve used today.

Plastics Keep Me Cool

My favorite plastic accessory of the past week has been my water bottles! The heat has been nearly unbearable and I am not going anywhere with one! This one was fresh from the frig and immediately formed condensation when I step outside. Simple point and shot image…no fancy imagery here.

Two more daily creates coming next week…

 

 

Home Stretch!

Monday, July 9th, 2012

Sorry for my voice on this recording. I had my first major set of technical difficulties, which is why this is may be a little late. My microphone stopped working so I had to borrow my sisters laptop to create my video and her microphone is horrible, but it works. I was able to actually edit everything on my computer though. It was fairly simple, I just inserted my daily creates at the end and then in the middle of my video I inserted a segment from my Schneider’s List clip.

Parent Traps and Dance Battles?

Monday, July 9th, 2012

I absolutely love the Parent-Trap, it is one of the few movies I can watch over and over again. This is one of the funny prank scenes from it and I thought with the action in this, you do not really need words to describe what is going on so it would be perfect for the silent film assignment. For this movie I would probably just change the contrast so that it is in all black and white. I would also split the scenes so that it is more choppy looking, like old films were.

My other Pre-Production assignment is the play by play video assignment. I recorded a “dance battle” between some friends at a wedding a couple months back and I plan on voicing over a play by play on it. Unfortunately I recorded it with a friends camera so I cannot upload the video right now. But he is going to send it to me via email so I can do the voice over. I am able to watch the video from his Facebook right now so i can get some ideas of what I want to say.