Web Conference - Week 4

Attended the web conference today.  It is a Q&A and our team is cruising along quite well, so I am not concerned. This biggest issue still seems to be confusion over the forms we need to fill out each week.  As for our team, I think that Dawn M. and Dawn K have done an excellent job of keeping us straight on them.

I hit some bumps in the road with learning and trouble shooting problems with software.  Overall, I am thrilled with the upgrade I purchased.  I had some definite ideas about some effects that I wanted to achieve and I would not have been able to do them if I had not upgraded.  However, with the issues I initially faced, at first I thought I had made a mistake.


I am also happy that Dr. Abernathy is so flexible about our learning.  She made that point again today.  She enables us to take charge of our own learning and what we want to achieve.  If not for her flexibility I would not have been able to work with Adobe software which is an  absolute necessity for me if I want to be marketable in my district and state.

I am very pleased with what I have learned during this course and I feel like I have come a long way in this short period of time.  Dr. A. I am sorry to leave this class and I wonder if you will be teaching "Digital Graphics"; my next course?

Web Conference - Week 3

Again I am late in posting this.  I attended the conference and once again there was much in regard to clarifications.  I wasn't sure if we needed to submit a rough cut of our video.  That was my only question but I did not know that all team members need to submit the exact same documents so for those two things alone it was worth attending.
Otherwise, our team was well underway on the assignment and the software issues I was facing were my main concern.

EDLD 5363: Week Three Reflection

This has been a seriously crazy week.  It began with a giant ? over my head and has ended quite well.  I began our video using Adobe PRE 4 then started over with PRE 10.  I was experiencing issues with PRE 10 that I hadn't seen before.  That makes sense since I have only worked with these products since the beginning of this class.  I imagine there are many more things I haven't seen with this software.  In spite of that I learned a lot.  At first I thought I would have to go back to using 4 but there were problems with that too for this project.  On top of those problems there was some of the worst temps that Delaware ever sees on Wed, Thurs, and Fri.  That made me think my computer was acting up because it was too hot.  On Friday, I spent about a half hour talking with an Adobe tech because the video was running choppy, totally skipping some parts and it was erratic. With problems solved, that night I shared a rough cut with my team.  I won't go into detail about all of the issues I was facing but I feel like I have gotten over some big hurdles this week.

Web Conference - Week 1

I am late in posting this and that is partially because I got off to somewhat of a rocky start in this course.  There was a lot of confusion in the first week with wrong assignments and other issues including wrong reading assignments.  Plus this course was a little hard to grasp at first with being thrown right in to creating a digital story.  That was really scary for me.
I was not at all confident in my skills for doing this and I had a difficult time choosing a topic.  I knew that wanted to be able to do certain things and create certain effect that I would not be able to accomplish with open source software.  I must have looked through that list a dozen times or more.
Dr. Abernathy worked tirelessly in the web conference and during the week to clarify what we were supposed to do.  I know I asked many questions that first week.  She and Dawn (IA) were very patient and prompt in responding.  I will also say that participating in the web conference did a lot to clarify the situation.  I felt much more confident in what I was supposed to do and accomplish.
Thanks for letting me use Adobe because that is what I really need to learn.

5363 Podcast Plan and Script

I suppose I could have broken the podcast into 2 or 3 different podcasts, but that is for the future more experienced version of me. I am becoming Nancy 2.0!

My plan is to create a tutorial that will show and explain how to combine still and moving images, in order to create a new video using Adobe Premiere Elements. It will cover clip cutting, transitions, along with adding and editing still images. The final podcast will be uploaded to YouTube. 

My Script:

I found a lovely, handpainted, film by Len Lye; that reminds me of some of my older work. I am in the process of combining the film with my etchings using Adobe Premiere Elements.

I am cutting a clip from a longer segment of film; I found the start point, clicked on “timeline” and then “split clip”. I am moving the marker to the exact point that I want the clip to end.  There, I like that.  This time I click the “scissor icon” to make the cut.

I have to go the “sceneline” and click on the segment to to find my clip, click, drag, and drop it into place.

Then I pick my etching from the “project folder”, click, drag, and drop it into place.

The etching needs to be re-sized and repositioned. I don’t want to use the entire etching. I can do this by clicking on it and dragging it or the edges. I can also click on “effects”, then “edit effects”, open the “motion menu” and deselect “constraints”. Then I am able to change the height and width independently and re-position the image to what I want to see is on screen, and I like that.

I clicked on “image control” and I am changing the saturation to make the image look more yellow. I am trying to make it blend a bit better with the film. I am also altering the the brightness. There, I like that.

The etching is on screen too long, so I will drag the time marker to shorten it.

And that is the short of it.

5363 Week Two Reflection

I have decided to make some notes along the way this week as part of my reflection. I did my exploring and there was good product information. The articles I found most helpful were "The Art of the Edit" by Janis Lonnquist. I found very much in tune with what I want to learn and well written.  It did not too much information to overwhelm and no information that I could not understand. I could relate to it as an artist.  The other article I really liked was "Video Basics and Production Projects for the Classroom" by Andrew Garrison. It along with my new found knowledge of digital stories help me to think of ways that I can incorporate this technology into the units I teach. I have to say that I was using several different kinds of software along with my iPhone in creating my digital story so I had a lot fun to the point of exhaustion.

This course has been so intense I thought we were already in week three! For those of you who might have seen this post before this edit you will know what I mean.

The only easy thing about this course so far was downloading Audacity and LAME. Now I am in the throes of working on a video podcast for using adobe premiere for video editing. As if I did not have a BIG ? over my head. Yesterday I read the assignment and overview multiple times. I looked for videos in the "public domain", look for and watched tutorials, read through the users guide for my editing software, played around with the software, found a couple of great short films one is public domain, that is the one that I am using and it relates nicely to some of my older work, I looked for and found screen capture recording software, for FREE, made decisions about what my podcast will about. If you are exhausted from reading my run-on and on sentence then you might know how I felt last night.

Today I am refreshed and a lot more knowledgeable about what I am supposed to do. I am ready to write the full version of my script and record my podcast. I wonder how I will feel by the end of the day.

I have learned a lot this week. I can't believe the amount of information I have gained in such a short period of time. I have made lots of mistakes, and started over several times. I have learned so much about Adobe, found public domain films, found ezvid and used it for recording my computer screen. Great fun and exhausting at the same time. I really love the film that I stumbled upon in my search. I felt so connected to it immediately. Len Lye and I are somewhat kindred spirits.

5363 Week One Reflection

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gAhY2664GY

Here is the link to my digital story.  I did not think I was going to finish on time.  I ran into a lot of troubles, especially with the narration.  I just finished posting it on YouTube.  That alone is a first for me.  I am a very private person.  I get around it by pretending that no one will watch the video.  I had the same problem with beginning a blog and wiki but the difference with them is that they are about school.

Did I forget to mention that I really hate my voice.  I have a speech impediment that I spent 3 years in speech therapy to overcome.  Finally my speech therapist said "you're as good as your going to be", and sent me on my way.  In recent years I can hear my lisp more than I have since 3rd grade.

I really enjoyed this assignment but the week has been very confusing for everyone.  I think that for me it was complicated by this being my last week at work.  All of that behind now and I can focus on this course and my internship.

Speaking of internship, the websites Dr. A. gave us links to fit in nicely with my project.  Thanks!  Thanks again for helping us through the confusion.

Back to my digital story.  I was able to use my Adobe products that I have not had the opportunity to use before.  I also was able to use my Wacom tablet.  I used Illustrator and my drawing tablet to create the kid drawings and the yellow crayon drawings in my digital story.  I learned quite a lot.  I encountered many issues and I really got to test many aspects of the program.  This forced me to teach myself.

I also used Photoshop and Premiere Elements. I encountered many issues that I won't recount here but was able to find solutions to all of them.  Audio was a particularly huge problem.  It took 24 takes to sort out all of the problems and it still isn't as smooth as I would like it to be.  I had to say enough and submit it as is.  My next effort will be better.  Also, I am going to upgrade my Adobe Premiere Elements now that I know how to use it.  I think some of my audio issues will be easier to handle on a newer version.

When all was said and done it took me about 30 hours in two days to complete all of the drawing, photo finding, editing and combining, assembling, recording, and uploading.  Thanks to Google Earth, I actually got to zoom around my old neighborhood, where I lived from 1960-1964. The photo of the house was close to if not the exact house I lived in.  Although the neighborhood was much prettier when I lived there.  My dad always had a beautiful garden.  In the backyard he even had a greenhouse for cacti and other more exotic plants.  Dad had an amazing talent for growing anything.  The most beautiful flowers, along with luscious fruits and vegetables.  I feel another digital story coming on???

I am not whining because I have learned a lot and I am grateful that I was allowed to use Adobe products because my school district does use them.  I really feel as though I can speak with greater confidence about my ability with Adobe products now that I have gone through this process.  Before I had a big ? over my head and butterflies in my stomach.

It's late and I am tired but I forgot to mention how difficult it was for me to come up with a topic for my story.

This was a difficult and enlightening week.  This course is really throwing me into uncharted territory.  I am learning things that I have always wanted to learn for my own art as well as my career.

I am glad to have the confusion and troubles of week one behind us.
One last thing.  I really found Dr.Abernathy's digital story inspiring.  She said some things that I could really relate to.
Cheers.

5363 Script/Video - Crayons

My Script:

Crayons

The most prevalent memories of my childhood involve drawing.

I can think back to as early as 2 or 3 years old. The memory of contemplating the colors in the cigar box of Crayola crayons that my sisters and I used to draw.

I remember sitting on the back stoop of our house, with my sister, drawing.

I picked up a piece of a yellow crayon, and examined it carefully.  It had been battered by the other crayons in the box. It bore the marks of the attack of our hands as they sifted through the crayons in search of the right color. Battle worn, it barely looked yellow at all; covered by marks of every color it touched.

I remember thinking it looked beautiful. Speckled by circumstance. Imperfect. 

Our crayons were loved.