Month: March 2015

Working on audio and video as the #noir106 cohort is working on video as/for their characters. Watching the interviews coming up and they are absolutely on target and so fun to watch! I can’t wait to see the videos from the groups as well as cruise through some of the assignments created. There is a part of me that watches and the waterfall of awe in thinking “how can I learn to do that!”.

The strength I see is in the character alignment. I am on board with the comments of the instructors that this might be the best cohort so far in creating. I have to believe it is because they “own” their character and create the stories and that started on day one. Many of the assignments are the same as they have been for other cohorts – the difference it seems is in starting with character and developing them thru the use of learning techniques, tools, and effective digital communication. It isn’t left to chance that a certain direction of an assignment clicked. In busy schedules and life, there is a constant and frame that is owned by each person to develop.

I didn’t start with a character – I can see the difference. Especially when getting to the more complex tools of video. Video also requires content and story to be strong to be good. The format of noir106 has really enabled having some heavy lifting done to add to new challenges.

So – I am struggling trying to own an idea or direction to create within the assignments. The open course seems to be practice exercises – which are well designed – but without others doing them at the same time for some connection I haven’t found myself wanting to attempt. I am seeing my family content and things I want to do. There is a lot of prep and building to go on to be able to create. I opted for the Soft Puppy (Soft Kitty) Parody instead of the Charlie Chaplin Foley assignment. It started as an audio of trying to merge 3 layers of me singing and then put it to video. My husband decided to join in and then it took another turn. It needed music – so I used an iPad keyboard and played soft kitty. Audacity was the tool for the audio. I couldn’t get it to be the same tempos and line up – so I went with it being a little off – especially since we were both off key anyways. A few effects and then imported into iMovie.

I used iMovie bulletin board template. FinalCut Pro was going to be too much for this experience. I did move some of the key frames, changed transitions and tried to get under the hood of iMovie to see how it can be maxed out. I wasn’t going for an academy award – just some outcome for working with the applications.

Hope you at least get a chuckle out of it – we had fun and it stars our favorite boys!