Video

Cinemagraph Learning step 1

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Earlier this week

I wasn’t sure why they are called cinemagraph other than having the same observation as

In some ways it took me back to Oct2015 and trying to step up into the Gifitup challenge. Taking time to make a GIF art over just an animated reply or statement. I am of the camp that they all have a place and purpose. The snarky fast GIF can say more than a full blog post at times and a really great art GIF can mesmerize for hours.

So the next conversations were….

The #ds106 club jumped right in with suggestions, resources and encouragement.

So as I am waiting for the arrival of grand baby #1 – whom at this time seems to be teasing us with a later than expected arrival and some false starts and my body is sore from spring garden clean up – I decided to try and focus on the challenge. I have to admit – my focus ability is very short now – so this is going to take a few iterations. To keep it in scope and to keep building – I started with the inspiration. Well -Cristopher Benitah spent a year collecting photographs and is at more of a professional level than I am -but that should not be a show stopper.

Subject and planning are key here. Not wanting to get to invested or too far from home in a video shoot if “the call” comes,  I found his example of hands, sky and water.  I thought this would be a reasonable goal and would use the subject as a way to deconstruct the process and decide what I need to do. Hopefully this will then help make a video set up more productive when I get to that point. I have visions of baby cinemagraphs floating thru my brain. 🙂

Started with a photo of my husbands hands to be able to crop out back ground and make my still. I used his because it was a quick shoot instead of setting up a tripod and remote to take a shot of my own hands. Nice to have a model around at times.

Pulled into PS – standard stuff. Lasso and magic wand and eliminated the background. Adjusted the photo to B&W and saved it.

Searched for some video footage of rain that was labeled reusable. Wasn’t very obvious in what I found, but then used the GIFIt plugin for YouTube and captured 6 seconds. Imported into PS using tutorial suggested by @mdvfunes at http://photodoto.com/how-to-make-a-cinemagraph/

Brought it into PS via Open after setting my workspace as Motion.  Had to do some problem solving as directions were not for same version of PS and things are in different places…. Set frame rate at 12. Pasted the hands in as a layer and lowered opacity and then that gave me something and I am still not sure what it was or is: Not very long – should probably loop it for better effect…

http://45.media.tumblr.com/0575c3af763611dbb760dc87230ab213/tumblr_o63w5l1n2I1ucblsbo1_400.gif

From there I went back to what I know – imported video as frames. Used Timeline and created frame animation from layers, made sure all new layers visible in all layers was checked and pasted in the hands. I ended up with an 8mb GIF – so went back and got rid of 40 frames and got down to 9. Copied the 9, reversed them and added them to get 18 movement frames. Applied the hands frame but wasn’t able to take the opacity down -still trying to figure that one out. That would make it look like the hands were actually in the water. Scaled down the size to 500 pixels and got a gif at 863k.

http://konarheim.tumblr.com/post/143282501555/trying-for-cinemagraph-far-from-it-yet-need-to

What I wanted was the hands a little more transparent and then a lava lamp bubble horizontal in the palms moving as the rain was moving behind it.

A few tweets and @dogtrax was able to turn on a light bulb.

But for video within a video with a still as a mask and constant will still take many frames being merged – at least in my brain and my level of PS. So I am thinking there are actions and presets to do some of this to be explored to speed things up over merging layer one of vid 1 with layer 1 of vid 2 and so on….don’t cha think?

I may try the long and tedious way with a short clip to try it out when I want the video within video with still.

The real challenge and task ahead is starting with my video and capturing that….seems there is plenty to keep me busy on this.

I am also now thinking I could use the accidental video now as an import as one layer – so again more to think of in creating the parts to get to a whole. Hoping eventually to document more precisely start to finish  – that will help me – but let’s just call this the semi-focused keeping busy so I am not worrying about when “the call” will come for now.

Thanks @dogtrax, @mdvfunes, @twoodwar, and #ds106 club for the diversion and a reasonable challenge  to take on in staying creative each day and between larger projects. Doing the sprints of creating art objects is good practice and spurs the thoughts and visions of ways to use in other things.

#4life 🙂

 

 

2015 -Starting from the end to the beginning

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Creating the digital family stories for 2015. Starting with the end – Christmas 2015.

I am creating some “Chapter” videos for Christmas 2015. Prep, Christmas Day, Christmas with Family and then the Crazy Family Christmas.

From there I will go backwards and create videos, slide shows and other designs for each month about what family was doing etc.

Going forward I am now set up to create each month as it happens. The digital organization is in a good place – still needs some tweaks and some faocus – but so much better than before. A post on the process and system will be coming soon. Light Room has been great. Google Photos, Apple Photos and iCloud also have a role in management. Next is getting the family stories website in order and updated!

2016 will bring continuing the story creation and organization. Creating a family recipe site, getting ready for my first grandchild by doing hands on creation in nursery prep and in creating the digital story of waiting for arrival. Hoping I can keep up with all of my ideas. And oh-yeah – maybe fitting in #western106 too!

This video was created in iMovie using photos and video captured by family and self. I used Google Audio for sound…..nice to not have the ads show up in the product!

#4life Skills applied

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Direct Link to Flip Book creation.bookcover

Seems  I have been absent in some ways in posting and updating. But I have been busy creating and #4Life. My intent was to create along #ds106tales this fall but seems they are now in week 7 already!

I look back at the last 8 months and how much the DS106 community has accelerated my skill building and made a difference in my creations. Adopting the “Make Art Damn it!” frame of mind has been awesome. Learning from others, expanding possibilities. I started this journey to learn things so I could use the stacks of family content now in my possession and under my care due to the loss of parents and parents-in-law over the last years. The loss along with my own children now adults and starting their own life paths of careers, love, and family, I wanted to be able to start creating in ways that would be special for them and the future through digital storytelling of family.

My brother-in-law by alignment of the stars has a milestone birthday of 70 years in October. My husband and sister-in-law wanted to do something to remember and celebrate their big brother’s milestone. Deadlines and specific targets always seem to keep me focused and this seemed a good kick-start to now applying some of my learned ds106 skills to something personal.

I have created GIFs of family and events. Scanning photos, capturing audio and whatever I can. Rochelle Lockridge introduced me to Flipbuilder via the Noir106 radio programs in spring 2015. The many assignments of the ds106 assignment bank in audio, design, video,  have given me lots of practice of which most is posted in this blog. The daily create has been a great source as well! Sandy Brown-Jensen has been a muse and inspiration as she shares her family storytelling creations. Thanks Sandy!

And thanks to all my #DS106 friends for your support and sharing (Twitter): @mdvfunes, @johnjohnston, @ronald_2008, and so many others – too many to list, but so important! Follow the #ds106 tag in Twitter and you will see them.

DESIGN: Created some designs to use as chapter start pages and book cover

I used Canava for these design posters. A handy tool for good graphic plates when you need several instead of one intense grand creation.

Book cover

POWER & STYLE

Chapter cover for Flip Book

I practiced my audio and video skills and learned lots! So much it is hard to share. I used Wondershare Filmora and iMovie as video editors and expanded on tools within each. I used the iMovie map animation in a video about the places he has lived over the years – so cool! The feature was there right in front of me all the time, but I discovered it thru this tutorial.

7 videos created for the Flip book: the YouTube Playlist starts with this video.

 

Each one improved IMHO. I used Audacity for audio and created audio scripts and clips first. Then imported into the video editors. For some of the videos I used features in one and then imported into the other video editor to gain the best features of each. I also used some of the iMovie templates, but to escape from the constraints, built a foundation and then changed the movie to a new project. This kept the theme transitions in place and available, but then allowed me to add and change to meet my needs.

I also was able to use family video from years past. Boy – a lot of footage and not much captured! LOL. I used a downloader to convert the DVD footage to usable digital pieces and edited in the video editors. A few I used FinalCut Pro for editing, to create content pieces much as I did with Audacity for sound. Without all the fancy interface it was powerful, but less cluttered and assisted in sticking to creating content pieces instead of production.

I also used my JibJab account and captured some video card creations to manipulate and build upon.

The Flip Book Creation:

The Flip book itself was a learning experience. Creating the WP plugin version and getting it to be accessible via a web page on a sub-domain I created for family stories.

The sub domain will give the opportunity to create something more static and approaches content differently than a straight up blog. I am going to try different versions of the theme with the sub domain over the next few months.

Flip Book Builder worked well. Things I know I will do differently are in customizing presentation and making sure the table of content links actually become links. I included the thumbnails open in the link to help family see the navigation. In the future, I would present with the option closed as the default.

The biggest AHA was that I now want to improve an develop more skill in using a page layout tool. I have access to inDesign – but will also look for some other open source options. The first flip book is okay-  but being able to make the pages look more art like and not document layout will be more pleasing for reading. It is not just about the content. Content is first and critical – but presentation makes the content shine.

As I move on to the next family project – I will reflect and try to post some process and development posts.

To see the Flip book check out my Family Stories site (still working on a better title for the site – suggestions welcomed!)

Direct Link to Flip Book.

 YouTube Playlist 

 

Sometimes you go back to things…Fairytale to Video

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Sometimes you go back to things you started but never finished.

I had left this just sitting on my hard drive from a few weeks ago. It seems this summer I am doing assignments, but ones I create myself instead of straight from the assignment bank. This started as Writing during the Bugeron106 Fairy Tale Festival. After going through writing – I pushed and did an audio reading of it so that I used my voice – something I was hesitant in doing. I moved on somewhat and created a PDF file of the writing with some pics to include in a FlipBook tool exploration. I still was trying to figure out how to used it in video and not just a slide show and had started playing around in iMovie with it. The drawback was not enough created art pieces to go with the story to hold it together so it was mostly an audio book. I left it and went on to new things.

Then I get mentioned in a tweet by @mdvfunes to @cogdog if my soundcloud version would help him in his K12 Keynote information collection. I had pondered how to help him out – but haven’t been able to condense my thoughts into something understandable and video.

The fairy tale is 11 minutes – longer than the 3 minutes that was requested, being another reason. I still have to think about if I can pull it off and if it would be helpful. Still pondering.

So as I was having my morning caffeine – I pulled up the video I started on the fairy tale. I am not sure if it is just time passing or because it is too dang hot outside today to want to do anything but sit still and keep cool – but I started to watch it and it didn’t seem as awful as I remembered leaving it.

So I looked at  a few options, added some titles and cleaned up some bumps. I used some Bitmoji avatar pics to stay with the storybook feel. I was surprised at how many can fit.

It is still 11 minutes plus and I don’t have all my attributions added yet. There are only a few – but they need to be added. Not sure it is anything Alan can use either, but will pass it on. It did feel good to take something that was left in the dust and at least polish it up a bit and have it in a form to share whether it is as something to learn from. The previous state was just a mess of files  – at least now it is connected.

I am getting to like iMovie a bit more. I can use it on my laptop or desktop so it allows me to be near family or in different rooms which is a perk. FinalCutPro means I am held in the office room. With this I found I could use some of the trailer templates and convert to a movie. The trailer templates are more polished and featured than the movie themes and it is nice to start with a base to edit from and not totally from scratch.

One thing which would be really nice is if iMovie Storyboard was somehow usable and a tool in iMoive for any movie. How great to improve planning and writing skills if it was possible to lay it out in a storyboard that converted it to the video like the trailer templates – but allowed you to be the director and decide what features and how long and what order. Is there such an option? Still looking – let me know if there is!

and here it is – A Story of Connections: DS106 and the Ed Administrator. Thanks to the Fairy Godfather – Alan Levine and the ds106 Guardian Angel – Mariana Funes, along with all the people and characters who are #4Life and continue to support and create.

Open sharing and connections are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They are the everyday simple acts of kindness and reaching out that together make wealth in life. Sometimes they become the awesome out of this world-never thought it could happen events, but mostly it is the true enrichment of the small touches that together add up. 

Give one – get many.
Open and share – you will never regret that you did.
🙂

and how appropriate – with auto upload from iMovie you can’t define your thumbnail cover – it automatically chose @NanaLou-  perfect!

Wearing down to becoming Village Resident

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A rather odd week it seems. Several independent things all together just making it odd. Or maybe it is settling into balance #4life by remembering to look up and see what else is going on and other creation possibilities not necessarily tied to No. 6 or tales of fairies.

Video  – a time for definite skill building.

I am starting to enjoy watching the Prisoner episodes – but in no way am I putting it together or carrying story lines from one episode to another. I was not diligent in watching them in order or making sure I finished one before the next either. I did find some episodes uploaded that are in 15 min segments. That has helped in watching. Don’t ask me why – maybe the shrink on the couch can tell me – but watching 4 – 15 minute episodes seems doable when I can’t commit to one 50 min clip. Same amount of time – but different. But it did seem that I am wearing down and becoming okay with being a resident. I think finding the tele-porter and getting back to Bovine might be necessary to stay free.

Which leads to trying to do a video without an idea. I did look through the assignment bank and probably should have stuck to a more direct route. I ended up combing several different strands of assignments and it became one project instead of several smaller ones.

What did inspire me was the music by Iron Maiden. I really like the song and the guitar sequences. It lead me to listening to more of the band’s music this week. During their height of fame I was a country girl listening to Steve Earle, Alan Jackson, the Judds and others. I seemed to miss the heavy metal era.

  • The project started with the song. I wanted to expand past the assignment of just creating a music video. So I used Mac Downloader and captured the song from YouTube.
  • I imported into Audacity
  • Found dialog clips from the Prisoner series at Http://www.moviesoundclips.com and imported them into layers in Audacity
  • I loved @iamTalkyTina ‘s interpretive reading of the opening dialog of the series and downloaded it from the prisoner106 archive.
  • I then worked on the sound file to blend with the music and somewhat tell a story (of a story I can’t figure out)
  • Sound complete

Then it was time to move to video. I want to get back to FinalCutPro because of the ability to really put your own stamp on it. As discussed in the visual week in creating book covers – wanting to start from scratch not edit.

I assembled my “bins” and imported into sequences – all the first organizing for FCP was set. As I started finding the razor blade for cutting etc came back quickly. THEN IT HIT ME! UGH! Rendering is necessary when working in FCP Every time something is added or moved. So using several different clips turned into a 40 minute rendering wait with the first clip. I had no patience for it on that day.

I kept it in the background, but opened iMovie.

  • Choose NO theme
  • imported into library clips, GIFS, stills and audio.

The next wall – iMoive accepted the GIFS, but creates them as a still image of one. To use the GIFs  as video or animated, I would need to covert them all from GIF to video in another program and then re-import. If someone knows the secret to making GIFs run in iMovie please let me know!

I wasn’t really sure which GIFs would actually fit where I might be going with the audio (remember – I said writing and storyboarding first is a lesson learned!) so spending a good chunk of time on converting hit the floor real fast.

I focused on using the clips I found, some stills I had – and now realize I had more that I could have/should have used. It was becoming the project that just needed to get done. Too much invested to leave it unfinished, but not quite compelling enough to turn into losing track of time into wee hours of the night without realizing.

iMovie was working for the most part. As with making art – lots of futzing. moving things and lining things up that most viewers will never even realize. I went back in and added Ken Burns effects to change some focus in hopes it wouldn’t be as noticiable that the video was not the dialog you were hearing. Towards the end I did clip the video and No. 6 seems to have a little tic or jerk as he says he is still himself – I actually liked that and had it repeated a few times as part of the story – so yes it was intended.

Towards the completion it still needed more since I didn’t have much original art included-  so I added title segments in some portions to focus on the dialog. It was like an aha – titles don’t just have to be at the beginning- and I didn’t have to go into a photo editor and make stills with text. The one slip was not having the Village font available in iMovie- and by this time I just could not think of figuring out how to get it installed and available to the program. Not for fear of doing a font install – but the uncertainty of iMovie in the way it saves automatically. After so many hours to get to this point I didn’t want it all to be lost of messed up and have to re-establish it all again. So yes – took the easy way out on this one.

So – still need to work on video skills and more practice to get comfortable and to use features that make sense. I will take this for the units this week.

I am glad I finished it and am okay with the result. I did learn while working on it. I am ready to do video again – but with a story that I may have more internalized.

 

 

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