Projects

Transitions, wrap ups, and beginnings!

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August:

  • – time for wrapping up the short summer and bringing projects to completion.
  • -time for family and making memories with visits and activities.
  • -time to panic about not being ready for the new adventures of fall
  • -AHHHH!!! So much going on and all fun and important!

As family is arriving for visits – I had some time to fill while waiting for next events. The summer #ds106 holiday groups are winding down but #prisioner106 combined with #burgeron106  members are working on a radio show. Several have stepped up to take on some heavy lifting who will all be recognized in the final product posting and credits.  My time now doesn’t allow me to commit too deeply at this time, but the energy is high and draws you in to wanting not to miss any part of the action.

While a partner activity would be ideal – I can only add content to the overall product from an personal standpoint because of other life happenings right now. However – community is available for feedback that is helpful and connects!!

While others work on the script and main part of the radio story, I have done some smaller activities in creating a bumper and a commercial. Hindsight tells me this should be about half as long! Still trying to figure out what could be cut out…..

Tune in on September 6th to http://ds106rad.io/listen the 106 Goodspell Show with Mariana Funes and John Johnston, produced by RockyLou Productions, for the premiere of Labryinth Tales!

The bumper:

I also created a commercial for Minotaur Tea. You will need to listen to the show to find out why it is the product. 🙂

The commercial ended up being 3 versions. My first version was the basis.

Process:

  • Review commercials on YouTube to remember most are phrases, not narratives.
  • Outline and write a basic short script for the product
  • Since I didn’t have access or time for collecting people to read lines – I used text to speech to record the script
  • I used different speeds and chose the UK voices – it is Tea, you know! The UK voices are more easily manipulated so they don’t sound so computer like as well
  • Next was finding some background music. I searched Jamendo.com for Swing and found a repetitive piece that would work well if chopped up – plus it was kind of catchy.  It is by Henry Rubin – Music of the World
  • I could have left it at this – but that would not be complete so I searched freesound.org for Tea kettle sounds and tea cups, an evil laugh and a sip and ahh. Adding these added dimension to the composition.
  • I used Audacity and set the clips in layers.
  • I chose to use both male and female voices and mix them up rather than one voice. I thought this would add more interest in the overall product.
  • My first version was 1:35 – some repetitions. I seemed to be trying to direct the listeners and not have them create the vision in their own way in their minds.
  • Because of transitions in a radio show and the connecting of different clips I added a buffer of the steam kettle at the beginning so that content was not abrupt.
  • I normalized the vocal tracks to soften any sound bursts
  • Checked how the tracks sounded together to make sure one wasn’t overpowering another
  • I posted. Received some immediate feedback from some that confirmed – too long for a commercial.
  • I went back and cut 30 seconds out – it was better and my favorite version
  • Went back again and cut back to a total of 45 seconds – this is probably the best for the purpose and needs.
  • Because I kept voice submissions to each phrase and had music that was rather repetitive and didn’t have specific parts of melody or stanzas the cutting was clean and smooth.
  • Faded out at the end to ease out the music so it sounds like it is the end

Sometime I will learn not to post every iteration –  but in doing so I hope others realize they are not alone and that even when you think something is done or you can’t see what can yet be changed – you will as soon as you have posted!

Shortest Version – Best fit for inclusion in Radio lineup

 

 

A slightly longer version –  my personal favorite

 

and – the long version DRAFT that needed some feedback to get where it needed

 

 

Got your interest?

Tune in on September 6th to http://ds106rad.io/listen the 106 Goodspell Show with Mariana Funes and John Johnston, produced by RockyLou Productions, for the premiere of Labryinth Tales!

As the summer holiday groups end – the fall groups are starting up! Next is #ds106tales!!

See you on the dark side.

Change of Seasons – Switching up and Radio

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Wow – where did the summer go? Burgeron106 is being hit by a hurricane! The Village is without a number 2 and the Philosopher – Christina Hendricks,  has pulled things together for the group left in the Village. The new UMW students are gearing up for #ds106tales and digital storytelling 106.

As a transition from the holiday creations to the rigor and schedules of the fall, a group is completing a radio collaboration. The last half of August is time for family and transitions of our own so not too much time to delve too deeply. But I still have the urge and wish to create and contribute.

To contribute I created a bumper for the radio show.

Viv Rolfe – one of the Famous Headless Inkspots,  had created some music rifts for us to use. I chose one and went with it. My personal challenge was to keep a bumper to the length of under a minute.  I took the script and crafted it down to bullets/headlines and recorded – 1 take!

I have always wanted to use the echo effect and this seemed to fit the bill. It added to my recording. I left the call out at the end in my un-effected voice.

Not many details – straight forward. It was the music that inspired and helped the final outcome direction. Thanks Viv! I used Audacity for sound editing.

I can’t wait to hear the full radio show – stay tuned – you won’t want to miss it!!! It will be broadcast on #ds106Radio on the #106GoodSpell the end of August and beginning of September.

When Collaboration moves beyond just support….#ds106

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After starting my ds106 journey, I soon realized I was going to be #4Life. The ds106 community network has many nodes which grow from the main hub. One node I follow along is the #ds106 Google Community of people who love to create and share their talents.

Through this community a summer theme developed for any and all who are interested in building new creations. I am now trying to absorb all the wonderful and intricate story lines created and figuring out how to jump in. The Burgeron Family was established and family members created as well as location, family histories and linkage. A summer event at the family trailer was held in 2014 for the 100th birthday of the family matriarch – Nana Lou. Workshops and classes held by Sappho, time travel trips by Cousin Ron as the story of Ron Burgeron tells his secret is told. Many adventures told by Anna Cow. Dr. M’s Treehouse, music created, and so much more!

I have discovered Bernie Burgeron, although her exact place in the family tree is still in the research stage. As Bernie’s story  unfolds I find myself needing a flow chart of

  • who is who,
  • when is it a family member (character) when is it a ds106 #4life person,
  • what art is created by family?
  • what art is created by a ds106 person for family?
  • am I communicating with family or ds106?
  • who am I when communicating  – KOnarheim or Bernie?
  • how far can I build on another’s story?
  • in an asynchronous environment how do you communicate creative direction with enough info to not cause undo stress for self and others?
  • How do you share your own work for other’s use and use other’s work in your creations with respect and creativity?

Many of the above are self-imposed. It is ds106. You are respectful of others – but you create and build. Different tangents others may grab hold of and expand, or sometimes they just sit out there on their own and don’t connect in as complex way. Just as each contributor sees things in different ways – so will any audience that finds the information.

It is grand! I love how there is no right direction but MANY right directions to follow the story. This format includes the audience in an open story and engages one to fill in what they think is needed and not passively view in a linear path. Even if you are not creating products to continue story lines – just viewing requires one to engage in reflection, imagination and creating an understanding unique to your own thoughts. It is active story telling and active story viewing.

I still have to figure out Bernie and her story and work on an actual Fairy tale. There is plenty of summer for that to take place. I just need some simmering time to figure it out.

In the meantime, I have looked, or at least tried to see the Burgeron Family – (is it Burgeron or Burgerons – I find it both ways – but have stuck with Burgeron as that is how the name is listed in the family tree and descriptions), Bovine TX, and the Fairy Tale Festival from entering as a new viewer and the 100,000 foot level.

It seemed to me that the bi-annual story telling festival focusing on Fairy Tales needed some PR boosts.

I started with an answer to a daily create and used one of Nana Lou’s Puffin fairies:

Daily Create Arrest Photo - Old

Nana Lou jumped on it and identified me and the fledging Bovine County Burgeron PR department. From there I realized I had a job to do.

The Burgeron Family works hard at their creations and they are some of the best things out there for enjoying by others – but in a world of so much media not often found. So I began to create the Bovine County Fairy Tale Festival website.

I had wanted to try WIX as a tool to decide its usefulness as a marketing tool and if it was something others might be able to use and what the criteria might be to make it a tool of choice for specific endeavors.  More on the tool in a future post, but I do love the bells and whistles of the HTML5 in a WYSIWYG when you are focusing on messaging over technical focus for a project.

I began to pull info together to promote the event – NOT replicate the content or give it a new home – but highlight and attract interest.

Bovine Count Fairy Tale Festival Home page
Bovine Count Fairy Tale Festival Home page

I had started and let the other family members know by sharing a link to a start-up via Google Community. And by gosh – it got some notice! I was faced with the place of now having shared my work, it is open to others and that brings questions, feedback and expectations. Attributions being a critical piece, I also found that is sometimes easier said than accomplished. It also has helped me realize how organizing and sharing my work in different ways makes it easier for others to use and to attribute.

As I have travelled my ds106 path, most of the work to date was assignments and sharing, but assignments were not connected to others. I missed the timing on group work in spring 2015 with radio show creation. I now have realization of the power of collaboration vs community support. Up until now, I have had great interaction, feedback, and support for personal creations. Now I was in the realm of creating collaboratively. WOW – the power in that and wealth. It does bring with it many dynamics and expectations from self and others. I can say however that the ds106 community is open and accepting and a model of how collaboration by a group is accomplished, yet very personal. Something not often found in our life chosen professions as easily.

I have taken the web site and started to inject some building blocks for more creations by myself as well as an open opportunity for others.

Since the festival is virtual and in Bovine County, I thought it was necessary to help festival goers know what kinds of activities and events would take place over the summer. Below is the overview page and suggestions.

Click to view page
Click to view page

The activities list allows for creations in several media creation paths to tell the story around the festival and the family in addition to writing fairy tales and their media tangents. I have several of my own visions for each of these areas, but not sharing at this time to keep possibilities open for others who might see a path they want to build.

  • Artist In Residence Breakfasts
  • Childrens’ Theater
  • Behind the Scenes Tours
  • Concert Series
  • Fairy Garden Tour
  • Out of This World
  • Fairy Tales From Around the World

Activities Schedule

 

To stay with the PR Marketing theme, I created a News/Info and Where to Stay page. Bovine is a remote area and not highly populated. It in some ways is like the Sturgis South Dakota of Texas as its population exponentially increases during the festival.  This offshoot also has potential for some building and content creation in the story around the story.

Added Note 6/14/2015: Seems the Bovine Arts Council according to the Bovine Daily paper and some town folk were concerned about the festival overpopulating the area and requiring resources. Still a bit of a political controversy and topic at the diner each day. Pluses and minuses on each – we will see what develops.  Read about it in Aunt Sappy’s post.

stay

 

All this just percolates in my head and is mushrooming into so many paths of possible creation. It is the synergy of connectivity to others and collaboration vs collaborative support. I hope that others may find some inspiration and share their creations as they build or connect. I also hope that I can build and connect from the work of others and do so in a respectful and creative way to take things to new dimensions in my learning. The greatness of building is the beauty of using the strength and quality of pieces to create new iterations and dimensions – which in turn should spur yet more creativity.

Please share your creations and ideas either here, via Twitter #ds106 and #bugeron106, or drop a message from the Bovine County FairyTale Festival contact page.

and as many in the ds106 path know – this is only the start of the story-  not the end – more as I go on and discover and experience…. 🙂

The Boys are Hired!

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IMG_9980The Boys of 4LC – The Dream Team

One of my #ds106 projects is in development and is growing larger than I had anticipated. I have added on staff for help. Their full bios and details will be part of the 4LC site launching soon. It was just so fantastic that I was able to hire these experts that I couldn’t wait to announce their joining the team! Having a public announcement hopefully will keep headhunters off their trail for a while so I don’t lose them too. They are my Dream Team!

From left to right:

The Boys
Who says #noir is about cats! These boys prove otherwise!

Jaxin: The older, but wiser of the bunch. He keeps things in line and makes sure we all know what is important. Making sure we drink, eat, and sleep. He also keeps the other 2 in line. 14 years of experience.

Teddy: The youngest of the team. He supplies the energy and attitude, keeping us fresh and relevant. His antics open up new directions that we never thought of, but sometimes can get in the way of staying on task. A good balance. Still an intern status – but moving up fast after 1 year.

Sam: The lover of the group. Strives to please everyone by supporting through continuous tail wagging and “going upside down” for belly rubs. Makes sure that all are attentive by using squeak toys to get everyone’s attention and get back on task. Mid career and top of his game at 8 years.

As a team they can sniff out details and find things no one else knew existed. They are ready to support and serve you in 4LC.

CONTACT THE BOYS – Available for sub-contracting!

 

Eastide: Jerry = i”m a Transition Junkie in need of rehab!

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What a week! I should have stuck to some of the building block assignments. #noir106 was doing character assignments, so I decided maybe I should use Jerry and learn some Final Cut Pro and video editing. Early in the week it sounded sensible to do an overview video for future expansion of his story.

First – when you can start from scratch on a story and have all the artistic license I think it is easier. I struggled with using the facts, but not trying to over sell. I also found out how much isn’t collected or saved like you thought. It really makes me appreciate those who take a photo a day for 10 years or document over time effectively. So how does one apply those thoughts to new projects? Story telling needs planning, thought, direction, and collecting and creating. Or – making do with what you have and filling in or in some ways leaving parts of the story out.

The next challenge was in trying to condense 76 years into a short time period. As I worked – I realized there needs to be chapters and this would be more of an overview and have gaps. I was dependent on photos that were already scanned (not all in good quality) and many years of gaps. Jerry was not one who was friends with the camera and the little video there was has him in the background or non-existent aside from the pieces I used. I was very pleased that I did have the video – it actually is a very insightful piece of footage and genuine to who he was.

Uploading was another issue. The Share feature clocked at 4+ hours and timed out and failed. It was using something called the compression app. Second time I exported as a Quicktime movie – but quality dropped and frames dropped as well. It only took 10 minutes to export and 20 minutes to upload to YouTube. It looks great on my iMac, so-so on my laptop. Now I have to read about configuration settings on exports.

Here is my draft video. It is not a finished product at this point. IGNORE THE TIME stamp– it has 8 minutes of black space when it is finished for some reason – another tweak to be done! It is long in internet terms- but comes in at about 6 minutes with credits.

PROCESS:

I skipped the template based software to learn more about manipulating the content. I used Final Cut Pro 7. While my project was large for my skill level it was not huge. But the sheer quantity of photos and pieces got overwhelming. And just when you think you are about done – you hit a key and all goes out of whack or something disappears!

I set up 3 folders: Photos; Audio;Video; and imported them to the tool. I chose songs by the Ventures for the music from YouTube – it was one of his favorites. I had done some voiceover, but it seemed like too much and did not help the story – so that time was practice. I separated the video audio and had to make sure it stayed in sync so linked the video and audio for that part only so that it would not move or alter. I had to extract some photos from other sources and they became of lesser quality. Photos were organized and named for easier placement and moving around. As chapters go on, one solution may be to make the older ones have an older theme overall to look intentional.

From there it was learning to use the viewer and canvas. I watched some tutorials from Lynda.com on the software which helped see the built ins and how to maximize time with keys – really a timesaver!

A key lesson was understanding that going forward the more organized and prepped the content is earlier to creating and editing the better. The feeling of wanting to get to the video and create has to be delayed. Making sure all the content is fixed, edited, logged and named correctly prior will make this easier and probably result in better outcomes.

I ended up creating a monster – 13 video tracks and 9 audio tracks in layers. They probably could have been condensed – but after losing some work, I began to lock layers so I didn’t alter them as I worked on other portions.

With so many still photos and looking at them for so long, it seemed necessary for transitions and not abrupt cuts. I WENT TRANSITION CRAZY! DON”T MAKE THAT SAME MISTAKE! In hindsight – this is one of the tweaks on the next iteration. Getting rid of transitions and equalizing the length of shots overall. The readings for the week were good – and transitions discussed – but once it was uploaded and watched outside of the tool – I don’t like so many of them. I had initially thought consistency would be better than too many ones – but again – that is not how it turned out.

Because of the content – the time was fun and meaningful. I will be remiss if I don’t go back and do this right or better. This being the first story of the family should not mean it is the roughest. I will continue to polish and improve in his detailed chapters.

While I was in the midst of all this – I did a short project in iMovie putting my audio assignment into visual format. The details are here. The video is below.

All in all – it is learning and video has a short shelf life in most cases – so on to the next one and making it better.

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