So this is how it ends

My Final project. sorry so late.

The film that influenced my project

The End of St. Petersburg: The Combat Zone

Forest Hills T Stop

Here is my last and final project. I don't want to say anything that would prejudge you about the film, so take a look.

The Lies and Truths of WAR

by Kirsten Ellis

This will be a linear multimedia film that depicts the conflict in Iraq. The imagery will be dramatic but poignant. Audio will consist of music, ambient sounds and an orator. The media will be aggregated from different sources.

The film will consist of narration, video and still imagery to convey the quagmire that the Iraq war has become. It will show inconsistency and outright lies that the Bush administration used to promote the legitimacy of
war with Iraq.

The Flip Ultra Video Recorder

This video is of David Pogue testing a new tiny video camera. It costs under $200 dollars. For the price, it has great quality.

David Claerbout

So Michael and I were both late in meeting each other: we planned to meet for lunch before the talk. We met just before the talk in the gallery. Our guide was great, very informative and I enjoyed his way of speaking. He has a wonderful way of being fully present yet seeming just a little bit disengaged, which seems very MIT to me.
As for the exhibit, the first piece blew me away. I loved how the shadow came into the space so that the viewer was engulfed and engaged by it. I also loved how the piece was visible from both sides and how that changed your perspective on the piece.
I was intrigued by the highway ramps, but not enough to stick around and find out what was hidden in the foreground.
The umpteen versions of a story playing for 13 hours did not pull me in, although the view and architecture were very intriguing.
The many images about the moment of throwing a ball alternatively attracted and repelled me, as I soon felt it was too full of artifice to work.
I loved the still picture of the kids where just the trees moved. This was my favorite piece, so simple, yet so sublime. Are the kids moving, and the trees stopped, or the other way around?
In general, I liked how he plays with time and with digital media, and his work scares me. It is so full of artifice and manipulation that I don't know what is real, which may be his point. I also started to expect him to manipulate me, so I could not see later pieces in the collection without wondering what the fakery was.
In all, a good exhibit and perfect for our class.

How to Make Baked Cabbage

Here is my how to movie, both as a blip tv link and embedded as a quicktime video. Hopefully one of them will work....



How to Make Baked Cabbage

FYI-No cameras available until Wednesday

Just wanted to let you know, although i think some of you have your own cameras (lucky!). I had to walk over to get an answer from Ken and he has no equipment available.

Ravi- im going to have to adjust my project bc i cant record any audio like i had first hoped to.

REMINDER: NO CLASS MEETING

A reminder that we will not be meeting Wednesday evening, instead going on our field trip to the List this Saturday.

Soviet film book

Kirsten had inquired about another, more accessible, book about early Soviet film. I dug one out from my bookcase, Kino: A History of the Russian and Soviet Film.

Assignment for March 26

1. Write a last/final project spec and email to me before we meet at the gallery on Saturday, March 22nd. We will discuss after gallery visit (Mike and Michael we should do an email chain and/or chat).

2. Ravi -- find accessible soviet film book.

BOILING HORROR

FIELD TRIP DETAILS

Team A: Michael and Mike: Wednesday, March 19th at 12:30 pm

Team B: Kirsten, Charles, Alex and Ravi: Saturday, March 22nd at 2 pm

Boys and Girls

How to make the best darn sandwich...

How to make the best darn sandwich in the world

How to Make Toast

Its interesting working with real actors. Especially when they are YOUR progeny. But they were awesome. This film needs sound. The school camera was great and I was able to do a lot of editing easily in iMovie 3.0 (I have an OLD Mac at home)!

sorry- here is the link

http://www.charlierose.com/home

Chris Anderson interview

hi all,

i happened upon this. It was very interesting. enjoy!

http://www.charlierose.com/home

Yale Film Studies

Here's a great link that Alex found for us -- good visual examples.

Assignment for March 12

1. Finish editing your piece in iMovie.

2. Output as web video and post to blip.

3. Read the Eisenstein handout.

Before I forget...

We need to schedule our field trip and I'm still advocating a trip to the List at MIT -- especially when I read about the current show which sounds perfect for us!

Again -- this class will take the place of our usual meeting on March 19th. There's a gallery talk on Saturday March 22nd at 2pm -- can we all make that?

Storyboarding tips

Some storyboarding tips (gets a little more elaborate than you guys will do).

Assignment for March 5th

1. Finish storyboarding your treatments.

2. Shoot mini-DV footage to edit -- DO NOT EDIT YET.

Article from this month's Wired magazine

A One-Man Film Studio Delivers Hi-Def Footage to Indie Auteurs Everywhere

By Ben Paynter


Ben Paynter has written an awesome article in this month’s Wired Magazine. The article is about how Richard Welnowski runs a mobile film studio out of his SUV. He charges about 10 percent of the production cost of an average film studio.

anyone interested in working together?

Hi guys, anyone want to work together or even i assist w/ your shoot, you assist with mine, we use the same camera?

I couldnt get in touch with Ken today so I was hoping to secure a camera monday. anyone interested let me know. My personal email is mightyquinn19@hotmail.com

alex

Storyboarding tips

This website has a lot of tips for Shot Types and other information usual to us.

media college


EWS (Extreme Wide Shot)
The view is so far from the subject that she isn't even visible. This is often used as an establishing shot.


VWS (Very Wide Shot)
The subject is visible (barely), but the emphasis is still on placing her in her environment.


WS (Wide Shot)
The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as possible. The same as a long shot.


MS (Mid Shot)
Shows some part of the subject in more detail whilst still giving an impression of the whole subject.
MCU (Medium Close Up)
Half way between a MS and a CU.


CU (Close Up)
A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame.


ECU (Extreme Close Up)
The ECU gets right in and shows extreme detail.


CA (Cutaway)
A shot of something other than the current action.

Cut-In
Shows some part of the subject in detail.

Two-Shot
A comfortable shot of two people, framed similarly to a mid shot.


(OSS) Over-the-Shoulder Shot
Looking from behind a person at the subject.


Noddy Shot
Usually refers to a shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject, although noddies can be used in drama and other situations.

Point-of-View Shot (POV)
Shows a view from the subject's perspective.

Weather Shot
The subject is the weather, usually the sky. Can be used for other purposes.

Charles Hughley Treatment

There is an old saying if you watch a pot of water on a stove it won't boil...so that is the premise of my treatment to boil water. To add narrative and some sort of interesting twist this will be in more of a horror flick type of movie. I will take the necessary steps to boil water, some one will mention the old saying, then i will proceed to watch the water boil....and the rest you will see
;-)

Michael's treatment - How to Mail a Letter

Get a stamp from the desk drawer.

Look for an envelope for the letter, in all drawers, on shelves, etc.

Go to post office to buy an envelope.

Stand on line.

Postal clerk asks "pre-stamped or not?"

Say "no" because have a stamp already.

Look for stamp in pocket.

Get back on line when can't find stamp.

Get stamp from postal clerk.

Postal clerk gives "I told you so" look.

Look in backpack for letter to put in envelope.

Empty 50 pages onto table and thumb through each to find the right one.

Fold letter, put in envelope, place stamp on envelope.

Get back on line.

Wait for different postal clerk.

Alex's Treatment: "Boys and Girls"

Alex’s Treatment: “Boys and Girls”

• Little boy meets little girl
• Boy chases girl around a tree- as they run in a circle around the tree, they
grow into teenagers
• Girl stops running and boy runs into her
• Boy leans in for a kiss, girl giggles and runs off
• Close-up of boy watching her run
• Girl gets smaller as she runs away- She turns into a young adult as she runs
• Girl runs into different boy and walks away with him
• Close up of first boy, looking sad- he is now a young adult too
• A hand suddenly comes into frame and rests on his shoulder
• It’s the girl
• They embrace and kiss for the first time
• The end

This is basically a “boy meets girl, boy chases girl, girl meets a new boy but goes back to the first one at the end” type of story. I was trying to write what you would see instead of getting into a storyline.

Alex's animation is on blip

hi,

i cant duplicate what Ravi did in class. I dont have a space to store this and i didnt think quicktime was the best way to do this. if you can go to this link, you can see my movie:

http://blip.tv/file/698172/

MTAA: Yes vs. No

Thought this was kind of interesting. Two new media artists, known collectively as MTAA, put together a conceptual art piece which uses software to combine different pre-existing video clips of the two artists saying "yes" or "no". The computer randomly selects which clips will appear from each artist, so they can agree or disagree in any number of combinations:

Yes/No

Are we the cutting edge?

While watching TV, I saw this ad from Cisco, who makes the switches that run the Internet. They were pushing just in time convergence: they had an add where a inventor makes a prototype of a skateboard and users use it and give him instant feedback via IP phones that have video camera's in them. The inventor continually improves his prototype using their help until its "perfect"! It was a very geeky ad that I am guessing went over the heads of lots of people. What I found interesting is that it requires the kind of media savvy that we are learning in the program.
At the same time my buddy mentioned that while there are tons of videos now on the net, must of them suck. He was arguing that making media by the masses dumbs down the quality. I tend to think my buddy missed the point: every time you make the bar easier for the masses, you get more content for free. Now there will be a lot of junk out there, but there also will be a lot of interesting or important content (see Rodney King, etc.). What do you all think, and how do we make sure the quality stays high as the quantity jumps?

Assignment for February 27

I know you guys are on top of this, but wanted to keep our assignment posts alive.

1. Develop one page treatment for "simple task" (if you want to inject some narrative, that's okay!) Goal is for final video piece to be not more than 2 minutes long.

2. Bring treatment into class.

3. Charles, can you sign out two cameras from Ken Fye before class (I'll drop you a note about this as well).

Second Life

Hi all,

My boss asked me to check into this. Oddly enough, employers are using it as an addtl resource to market their companies to students looking for employment. Does anyone have any feedback about this or know first hand what its like? I've been looking at the website but I'm not finding anything about networking with employers. Any feedback or insight is appreciated.

http://secondlife.com/

PS- im still working on my animation. Not nearly as savvy as all of you. I've been having some technical issues but I solved one of those Friday night during the storm. I know, I'm a nerd doing homework on fridays but what can you do... I'ts coming soon- hopefully tonight!

Later,
Alex

Treatment/Simple Task Assignment

How to make the best damn sandwich in the world

1. Take two slices of fresh Wonder bread and place on a small plate.
2. On a cutting board, cut a medium-size banana into 7-to-10 even slices. Place to the side.
3. Take a jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise (not the fake stuff, Miracle Whip). Spread two dollop of mayonnaise on one slice of bread.
4. Take a jar of Peter Pan crunchy peanut butter and spread a generous amount on the other slice of bread.
5. Place the bananas on top of the bread slice that is covered with mayonnaise.
6. Being very careful, combine both slices of bread to make a peanut butter, mayonnaise and banana sandwich.

Bon appetit!

Treatment Assignment: How to make toast (Berger)

The premise for my movie is simple: imagine Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss's the Cat in the Hat making toast. Now imagine that my kids are Thing 1 and Thing 2.
I see one child opening the fridge and bringing out a loaf of bread, then throwing a slice at the other. Then they might both run around the house holding slices. Eventually bread gets into the toaster, then the toaster might be set on too high a setting. Smoke pours out. Alarms go off. Children smile. Toast.

I blipped my swf

If you click on the image, you will see the Flash movie in a new window.
Interestingly, blip.tv does not like .swf files so much either. It tries to convert everything to Flash video, .flv format, but since this is not a video to begin with, it can't do it. The result is that it uploads it but it does not put its nice player around it. :-(

ecstacy again

Click to Play

Let's try this!

ecstacy

Here's the mesmerizing piece we made last week.

Click to play.

CHARLES HUGHLEY: FLASH ANIMATION

This is my animation nothing special just a bunch of shapes...

New Syllabus

I've uploaded a copy of our revised syllabus onto my site.

Berger's Flash Movie

My movie exported to Flash as a 12kb file. However, since Blogger won't take Flash files, I had to make it a movie. The same movie was 13.9 MB proving Ravi's point that vector is smaller and better than raster (if you have vector content). As you will see, I got better with Flash, but I still find a lot of the interface awkward.

Slip slidin'

Okay -- it's official "my friends" (that's my little John McCain-ism), we have started to slip a bit in the class. It all happened with the animation stuff bleeding over... but hey, I got my shapes to move around in Flash during my demo!

So here's where we stand during this Presidents Day week:
- your assignment for this week is to work with Flash and FrameThief and strut your stuff in class.
- so this week we'll start stepping into Module Three this week, but Module Four will probably get the short shrift (sp?)
- I'll try to revise our syllabus and post that online to keep us all together.
- I'd like for us to do a field trip to the List at MIT, but unfortunately their late night is Thursday (until 8pm), so let's see if we can find a time for all of us to go. We can do a weekend maybe? (in lieu of a regularly scheduled class)
- I apologize if I've not been as active on our blog due to some life-business, but kudos to those who are keeping it fresh!

Stop motion project

This is my stop motion project.

Kellis

Flash project

This is my flash project.

Kellis

Flash Woes

So I figured out how to bounce a ball, sort of, and I was proud. Then I tried to draw something else and bring it to class, and I was humbled.
Flash seems to use some hybrid of Illustrator and Photoshop metaphors for drawing, but really neither. And it confuses me no end. I look forward to help from all of you in my attempt to learn it.
- Mike

"You Don't Understand Our Audience"

I found an interesting article in Technology Review.

"You Don't Understand Our Audience"
What I learned about network television at Dateline NBC.
By John Hockenberry


Mr. Hockenberry used to work at Dateline NBC as a news correspondent. This article is about NBC News Networks' refusal to embrace new media to communicate to its audience members. Mr. Hockenberry reports the network felt its audience was not interested or sophisticated enough to receive information by this method. He said he found it frustrating that the network was hesitant to use new media, such as the Internet, while the advertising world was embracing it.

interesting pics

I recieved an email with alot of these pictures, all were done with only one sheet of paper...thought they were pretty cool.

Assignment 1 & 2 - Michael's Redo

Much happier with these. Tried to use Photoshop as demonstrated in class and went to some online tutorials for help, but couldn't figure out how to do it...

Some book binding links

Some links for you guys:

Book binding blog

PDF of Japanese stab binding

Some more examples of artist's books.

Some Japanese book binding techniques.

Photoshop Tips

For those of you who are like me (which is to say pretty clueless about Photoshop) this site offers lots of great tips on how to get things done, including a post on layer masks!

http://photoshoptips.net/

Michael

Time-Based Media Links

A number of time-based art and technology related links I came across this past week you all might enjoy:

http://www.streamingmuseum.org/ features real-time exhibitions in cyberspace and public space across all seven continents

http://thenocturnes.blogspot.com/ - a night photography blog.

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4334/how-to-show-an-action-sequence.html Pop Photo's guide to shooting an action sequence.

http://www.tate.org.uk/conservation/time/about.htm Time-based media conservation tutorial.

http://www.artlink.org/artists/cat_timebased_media.html Gallery of artwork by time-based media artists.


Michael

Robert Leon- photographer

I saw this the other day and i really enjoyed looking at his photography but what is interesting is how he groups his photos into categories. Each shot(or at least most shots)has excellent composition but also as a whole they work together nicely to tell his story of his experience while visiting a particular country. In this way, I feel like this pertains to what we did last week, pairing individual photographs to tell a perspective. If anything, I think you'll enjoy looking at his photographs. I especially liked 'Cuba' and 'Guatemala Lago Atitlan.'

http://www.robertleon.com/reportage.php

Film Editing Glossary

hi guys,

after doing a bit of the reading last night, i found this website that goes more in depth about film editing. Thought it might be helpful to have this:

http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/htmfiles/editing.htm

Exhibition of fixed/moving Images

This is an image from an upcoming exhibition at the MIT LIST Visual Gallery. The artist is David Claerbout, and according to the description, "Crossing fixed images with moving images, Claerbout reworks each pixilated fragment of an analog image to create new digital compositions." This sounds to me like it directly relates to our current assignment, so I thought I would mention it. The current exhibit, Arabesque by Mary Lucier also seems pertinent to our class because it is an interpretive video.

New Digital Media

Hello class this was a link that we used in another class last semester but i was highly intrigued by the technology to come and felt it would be and interesting for all to check out.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/65

Assignment for January 30

1. Read the handout -- come prepared to talk about it!

(Ravi's friendly reminder that the first module is ending soon, so if you haven't posted yet on the blog, it would be good time...

Assigment 1 and 2 - Michael Rose

Not happy with these at all. The original idea was to capture the plants in different stages of sunlight, but that didn't quite work so well, and I don't think the original photo (the first in the series) is that interesting to begin with in terms of composition. Don't know how to use Photoshop, but just used a digital camera for the first time, so there is hope!

NOT THAT SAVVY AT EVERYTHING SORRY THEY ARE SO BIG I'LL FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THEM SMALLER FOLKS...

ASSIGNMENT #2 (HUGHLEY)

Assignment 2- Alex McHale Cant post for some reason

i did this assignment 2x and both times after saving it and opening it several times in photoshop, it will not open here nor can i get into any format that will work. I have all the pictures i intend to use with me so ... i am going to have to deal with this in class. I am sure there is a really easy way to do this in photoshop but i sure as hell dont know what that is. Any advice?? how did you guys get this to look so nice with borders too (all i have is a 4 week photoshop workshop under my belt where we didnt cover anything like this and i thought i could figure it out on my own but not so much).

Assignment 2: Ruggles Story (Berger)

I had a lot of fun with this assignment, playing in Photoshop. I tried ghosting in the image on the bottom right. After I played for a while, I thought I better edit it down. However, I made sure to leave one little thing that Mary might not like.

Two great articles on blogging

This week Wired has two great articles on blogging.

The Secret Life of a Blog Post
by Frank Rose
Page 132

This article is about what happens to your blog post after you submit it for everyone to read. Your post will be pinged, searched and indexed. It could be used by an on-line media outlet or even for spam blogs.

I will have to bring the magazine into class because Wired has not posted the article on its Web site.


Hawker Media


This article is about how the author gets paid to post information about commercial products on his blog. The advertising company pays a few dollars every time the product is mentioned on his blog. The author has a dilemma. Is it morally despicable to blog about a product you do not use, have no plans on using or even care about?

1. Sequence #1 Assignment:

Here is my next project.

kellis

Assignment for January 23

1. Sequence #1 Assignment: Revisit your Composition #1 assignment by extending the idea of a transformation to a five image sequence to present in class. All images should be presented simultaneously per the examples we looked at in class.

assignment 1: transformation (alex)

i had a hard time choosing one

Assignment 1: Transformation (kellis)

This image was taken on the 7th floor of a parking garage in down town Boston.

ASSIGNMENT #1 (HUGHLEY)

this is my transformation does anyone have an idea of what it is???

Assignment 1: Ruggles Empty at Night

This is my shot for Assignment 1. I was in Ruggles the night of the snow storm and it was empty. Since I don't often see it this way, I thought the transformation would be easy to make.
- Mike Berger

Mirah and Spectratone International

Tomorrow night, there's a multimedia performance with animation at the MFA: Mirah and Spectratone International: Share This Place with Flying.

Discounted for students!

Assignment for January 16

1. Join this blog and leave a comment in this post that answers, "What do you hope to get out of this class?" The more info the better!

2. Read the handout.

3. Composition #1 Project: Compose and shoot images that convey the theme of “transformation”. Choose one image to present in class. Post this image on the class blog (or post a link if you post it somewhere like flickr).

Our class blog

This is the class blog for the winter session of DM3225, Time Based Media. All students are required to post and comment on this blog!