burgeron15

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.

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!

Odd Week but reflection shows results in #106 Villages

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I haven’t been consistent with weekly summaries. Many of the #ds106 “advice” posts are to start the summary early in the week and add to it instead of waiting until the last day. VERY GOOD ADVICE!

Giving it a go this week….and when done realized I had a productive week even though while going through it I felt like I had slacked.

I seem to have hit a plateau this week or maybe just falling into a realistic pace. I have spent some long hours on things the last few weeks because I could. This week has fewer leisure hours for some reason so not as intense of attack. I also seem to be hitting the midstream wall and content is not coming to me without lots of effort and thought.

Prisoner106 group kinda helped with that – seems the new new new new No. 2 is missing. Talky Tina jumped in and set some things up. From comments of many members – heading into August is a busy time and their time may be shortening as well. Radio week has some effort – not sure the constellations are totally in line – but ds106 surprises so it may fall into place or morph into something else.

This week in review:

Daily Creates: Getting back in the groove of doing the daily creates. They are a great activity and really do keep you sharp and thinking. I have slacked on them with doing more intense projects – so it is good to get back to them

Cowerful Dreams tdc1297

Cowlerful Dreams

Chicken tdc1295

Why did the Chicken cross the road?

and then views through a cutout….. tdc1298

Garden Cut Out

Butterfly Cutout

A challenge from RonaldL and John Johnston on creating a BCingU Gif..

I created a GIF while in my bungalow and waiting for a weekly message from No. 2.

Chicken GIF

Burgeron106 is looking at Native American fairytale and focusing on Animated GIFs – so reading and creating.

Heron and Hummingbird GIFs

Video week in Prisoner106 was a time sucker – I easily forgot how long things take – but I was determined to come up with a result even though I still can’t get totally onboard with the nuances of the story. Iron Maiden saved this week for me. I even have the music on my playlist for exercise time. 🙂 Here is my result of the creation process.

Hummingbird and Heron – Story Gifs

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puffintransblog Native American Fairy Tale week and GIFs!

This is a GIF to go with the story the Heron and the Hummingbird.

The story reminds me of the Tortise and the Hare.

Photoshop

My own acrylic painting of a  hummingbird and heron  photographed and turned into GIfs.

Cut out the wings and added frames with wings in different rotations.

With Heron – cut out heron and then added frames of it in different places on canvas. Took part of the background from another water painting and content aware scaled to fit PS canvas and merged the 5 heron frames.

Created screen animation and set timings – exported for web.

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