It is visual assignment week in #burgeron106 and it is Icelandic week as well. That means, gnomes, elves, fairies and more.
The poster could be “design” because it is a poster- but I used my own photos to create it. (well – except for NanaLou’s porch)
I used a shot of the moon off my deck. I have tried for moon shots for a long time and this one is a step up in starting to understand the settings on my camera. It is from the fall – but it also forced me to get my camera out again and actually use it over my phone.
From there I decided to learn how to use the external flash and remote I got for Christmas this last year. I used it once and could never get it to work again – packed it away.
I spent about an hour trying to get the flash to fire when I took a picture – nothing worked and I have about 200 pictures of only black to prove it! Searched the Internet and everything said “not a problem – works easily – not difficult”…….hmnnn……..after a few more tries I finally figured it out! I had put the receiver on backwards!
Problem solved.
I use the external flash in one hand and hold it at different angles as I shoot to get different effects. I have some Tom Clark Gnomes that I collected years ago and have since moved to the basement with the former collections of things and thought they would make good subjects. More on how I shot the pics as the next products are completed.
Once I had the picture and lighting I liked – I cropped it and added it to the poster.
So while it looks like a design assignment – I am focusing on the visual and photography – and pictures telling a story. 🙂
Final version of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears – A group effort! Putting it at the top of the post – details follow.
Within the #burgeron106 summer retreat participants, Mama Boo put a call out to recreate Goldilocks and the 3 Bears as an audio recording. Cousin Ron, Nanalou and Dr. M, and myself – Bernie Burgeron, jumped in to work on it together.
Mama Boo created a Google Doc with some points she needed to put the audio together. The group quickly stepped up and volunteered to do the reading of lines. Rochelle Lockwood even enlisted the help of her grandson – DJ!
Things came together and the group helped me in stretching and taking the steps to recording as Goldilocks. I sort of got over the hearing my voice – but also realize I have to figure out how to get a better sound input. Either mic or environment. I do know to stand when recording – it was great to see Rochelle post about her grandson DJ knowing to stand to record!
I did some listening of files and offered some sound effects as a starting base to add as well. RonaldL added some more sounds to round out the choice.
An awesome product came out of it – Stone Soup of life and shows that a village working together is greater than its people alone.
The audio was SO inspiring – I just had the desire to put it with visuals after listening to it over and over.
I checked to see if anyone else was already on that path and asked for help. I began by gathering visuals that Bugeron106 has created. I then filled in with using photos painted ornaments that I made a few years ago. I also needed to get my mind around characters, Burgerons, ds106 participants and everyone else in between.
Remember Sybil? She was nothing vs being in #ds106 villages & collaborative stories Who am I & when? Who are you now? Awesome fun summer 2B
With the high sign from the group I began to put the audio story together with visuals. I scanned old pictures of Bernie – all black and white and put them in Photoshop. It was kinda like making paper dolls. I found pictures that looked like they would work.
Collaboration Fantastic!
The thrill of working on this project was the collaboration. From the start with audio – Dr. M was involved by supporting, cheering, asking questions and throwing out ideas. Mama Boo started it all with her audio idea. Cousin Ron seemed to wake up each morning and have something to add or an idea – he even created some music and when he saw the visuals started, went back into the audio and added more sound effects. Dr. M mentioned maybe the Headless Inkspots would enjoy creating some music – so I put out a call to see if creating an intro and exit for this video and to be used for any others in a series that may develop. Everyone jumped right in and the best of everyone pulled it together.
Adding Visuals to Audio and Video Editing
In photoshop I had to get rid of the backgrounds, clean up the edges and add color. I used the color replacement brush to add color. The picture for the kitchen table was mad by cutting and pasting the fabric design of the coat she was wearing to make it look like a robe, and then adding a foot with a shoe on the end.
I especially like the one on the cover of her peeking around the tree. This one worked perfectly!
I then took pictures of some bear ornaments I had painted some years back. These too went into photo shop and were cut, blended and made with transparent backgrounds.
I needed backgrounds so went to Flickr Creative Commons and found some for the path, the cabin inside and outside, the chairs, the beds, and the bowls of porridge. All were CC=O licenses – so that made it easier.
On several I used Transform commands of scale, skew, perspective, distort. I found holding Control while in the section I could easily move from one to the other. With the repetition of the story it was basic in determining the scenes.
I knew I didn’t want just a slide show and would need to use different editing features to give more movement and direction. For the chair of Baby Bear getting broken I created a GIF of breaking up the chair and exported it as a video clip to include.
I used IMovie as the video editor. I wanted to use Final Cut Pro and I did start in FCP – but for some reason I switched it must have been a good reason when I started, but I don’t remember what I ran into any more that made me switch.
IMovie I find is great for quick and great looking video, but it really does a lot of deciding for you and to override those effects, there are hoops to go through. I choose NO THEME so I could have as much control as possible.
The Ken Burns effect is simple, but easier than adding key frames and adjusting so that was a plus. I figured out after I started that my photos should be made in 1920×1080 pixels in Photoshop so that I wouldn’t end up with the black bars on the side of the video. So back to Photoshop and readjusting most of the stills I created.
All things continued to snowball. IMovie doesn’t have more than a one step backward feature or a save as feature – at least that I have discovered yet. This works against me as I like to try things and go back. If I changed something and didn’t like it – I had to remember what I had and recreate it again and hope it was what I wanted.
The other fun part of doing a fairytale was ignoring all the film rules of transitions and other things! No Hitchcock effect here or worrying about if the characters were strong or weak etc. They were bears and a fairytale! All rules out the window. I think I used more than 50% of the available transitions – but they all seemed to fit and make the story move. Door transitions – opening circles, swaps when changing from one bed to another. Each one has a purpose not just whimsy. Hopefully they are not noticed as transitions and more as the story being told.
Features I used:
To add more interest to the video I used the FlipClip feature in video effects to turn the rooms around. This was I could use the same still, but zoom and pan differently as well as give it a different point of view and not seem like the same. It also helped in hiding a little of the photoshop that wasn’t as clean in the first photos I created. I almost wanted to go back and do them over – but there comes a point when you need to decide improved skills will be great for the next project or you won’t ever finish or move on!
I also used the video effects for the beginning and end clips to give the photo of Nanalou and the Treehouse more of a dreamy effect and to allow the text to show more.
oh….I to make sure viewers knew who was reading the lines – I imposed the readers photos with green screen features. This helped I thought add more to the visual to personalize it. The drawback is the green screen doesn’t accept transitions – so placing so the pop in and pop out seems more intended has to be futzed with to place them.
Exporting from iMovie seemed easy enough and cut out the step exporting to desktop or coverting to QuickTime and then uploading. However, it then does not allow you to upload a thumbnail of choice. :-(. Good to know for the future.
I also had started recording what I was doing step by step – but lost that discipline early on. If there is something you see and want to discuss – I will be happy to do so with as much clarity and detail as I can remember.
I probably have a good four days in on this. The part I always forget is how long rendering and uploading takes! I don’t count that in as my work time.
Another plus of the collaboration – I have intro and exit clips for others to use now!
Design Week at the Bovine County FairyTale Festival
NanaLou is working with her granddaughter Rochelle, Cousin Ron, and the famous Headless Inkspots of #ds106 to pull together a Celtic musical performance on “The Porch”.
“The Porch” is where the adults gather at sunset after the children have had their story time and are settling in for the night. With the Fairy Tale Festival in full swing – performances and jam sessions are happening around the themes of the festival.
One thing I really appreciate about a network of people who collaborate is how I am pushed to reach for my best. I think that might be the case in just publishing for others to see as well – but when you have an active group it does help you to reach your best at the time.
I had an idea for this promo poster when @RockyLou22 posted she was working on it. I pulled something together at a late night hour and let the group know I was working on something…..
While I liked the bright colors and some other things – it was just quickly put together. On rare occasions you luck out and the first one is a charm – looking at this one, I needed to go back (and yet after it is all done – there are still some things I like about this version).
I pulled it up again to work on it in PhotoShop.
Open PNG file of NanaLou’s porch
Open Cow GIF in another file
Clear out background of cow pic
Smooth edges and clean up
Save, copy and paste into poster file as layer
Create a background layer – went with a pink to hint at sunset
Put background in as Dissolve and pattern
Blurred background
Used Filter – Clouds Made this base layer
Changed opacity on porch graphic to give it more of a late in the day feel
Added Text
Used Warped Text Features to create titles lots of playing around!
oh…..and I followed NanaLou’s lead and installed a celtic looking font….
Went back in and cleared out more of the treehouse pic to give it more grounding and be able to see horizon line.
From there it was mostly moving, looking at things – tweaking – increasing the canvas size and images so there was more balance….
Glad I had others who would be looking at it as it pushed me to make it better!
I did do the first draft with a GIF of SuperMoo’s cape in the wind….still need to go back and do that! Ahhh!!! the pressure! But I love it!
I love the creativity, the possibilities, the small details covered. Good audio is a powerful springboard to visuals and video added.
I hate the unlimited possibilities, the small details covered and that I forget that I can use my voice no matter how much I don’t like to hear it.
The morning announcement assignment was a good re-entry. With teleporting between villages I have not viewed or caught up with all the episodes. You can’t really write good morning announcements without context.
I decided to use the on hold music that drives Number 6 crazy and makes him bash his phone instead of the marching music. Seems it was repetitive enough and adds the conformity layer. And it did start to drive me crazy too.
I wanted to include my warder role of Designer/Painter into the announcements. I like the accents and my midwest voice didn’t seem right – so I used text to speech and chose Karen from Australia. This doesn’t give the best flow of language – but she seemed to sound pretty good.
I then combed episodes and a review site for audio clips.
Downloaded and gathered the lines I wanted and then started in Audacity. We all know – lots of moving around. Some of the music was too loud in areas and I got into mega envelope tool sets.
After a few hours of tweaking and puttering I still didn’t like it and thought I should record all in one voice. About that time – family intervened so that will have to happen later. I have left it with the multiple voices.
I have included some of the quotable lines I picked up on in listening to episodes and sound clips. New residents have a mandatory painting session in the garden. Hoping the residents can see through it and know it is a way to share information through paintings and choices for bungalow updates. But if they are already on a side or have become a number I am not sure it will help.
The art show is at 4pm and “we don’t know what it means – it means what it is”……
……more later in the week with either an update to this assignment or improving in the next.
I am following my path of assignments – which is the #ds106 way isn’t it? I should be working on design and audio this week but keep getting sidetracked – but all with good outcomes. I am still using the assignment bank or creating them as new assignments to add to the bank.
#Burgeron106 Family Story Time happens weather permitting, under Dr. M’s treehouse near the summer retreat trailer. Readings are for the children. In order to keep some semblance of family time for the Burgeron’s and not be overwhelmed with festival visitors recordings of the story time are available for viewing and use. To deal with the increase in traffic in the region almost all activities of the Bovine County FairyTale Festival are available for virtual attendance 24X7 to accommodate the needs of global (and perhaps extra terrestrial) participants.
The new Burgeron106 PR team saw the need to develop a press release to help publicize the access to Artist in Residence information. As a member of the fledging team, I needed to learn the ins and outs of a press release. It is a much honored and long time tradition that has not changed as the world has changed. I first researched the news release format. It is simple and straight forward which is probably the toughest part – how to say what is important without lots of words and descriptions – not necessarily my strongest skill. Most recommendations were consistent with each other and I used this page guide while writing.
The following is a news release:
Another feature I worked on was embedding from Google into the blog. Part of this is my learning and trying to develop a strategy for content maintenance and usability. As of now, Google is providing me with options to keep content in order and accessible and only have to update in one space to create change no matter where posted or linked. Currently in WordPress it is not as straight forward as Flickr or YouTube by just pasting the URL as a line of its own. However it is still an easy process.
Creating in Google and Embedding in WP. There are some steps to this so I created a screen cast thinking that would be easier than listing each step. It is a first run at using Camtasia for screen casts. You can get a trial version. I happen to have it as a perk from a workshop I took a couple of years ago and now am just getting around to using it. They have a great set of tutorials on their support site and many options. I can see a lot of potential and ease of use, but after a week of video editing – left this down and dirty for this post. If it helps at least one other person – then it is a success. I do want to come back and create a ds106 tutorial contribution using it – just not sure what topic yet. I am also not embedding as a Google Video to make it more accessible to other ds106 participants but could have done so using the same process.
on to the rest of the week and hopefully back on track with Celtic design and Prisoner106 audio!!
e #burgeron106 summer retreat participants, 
mer retreat trailer. Readings are for the children. In order to keep some semblance of family time for the Burgeron’s and not be overwhelmed with festival visitors recordings of the story time are available for viewing and use. To deal with the increase in traffic in the region almost all activities of the Bovine County FairyTale Festival are available for virtual attendance 24X7 to accommodate the needs of global (and perhaps extra terrestrial) participants.