BP7 OMM

Ok, here's my one minute movie. I actually choose a tool that I hadn't reviewed in my previous web2.0 posts, but was a tool I had been researching, reviewing and looking into for my CBR project.

The tool I chose to review is actually part of a larger category of web2.0 tools called virtual manipulatives. Theyre interactive programs/software used for teaching and reinforcing mathematical lessons.

For this project, and for my CBR I've been looking into the Illuminations website of virtual manipulative tools. You can see the site here: Illuminations

My "commercial" is as much of a commercial for the idea of using virtual manipulatives as it is for the site/tool itself. I created with the idea of using this to pitch my project to administration.

I look forward to your feedback!




Note: The image of the boy with the chalkboard is courtesy of Microsoft Clip Art. The image is royalty free and was retrieved from here:
Microsoft Clip Art Chalkboard Image

PE3_iMovie

First of all…

Ta da! I did it. 

Now after watching all of these tutorials, I was a little overwhelmed. I wanted to try so many things! I loved the beat matching function, where you could set still images to music. I don't really have any videos, but I'm a photographer, so I have A LOT of cool pictures that would be neat to use.  So I was tempted to do that. 

I had a lot of ideas running through  my head, but ultimately I came back to the movie trailer idea, which I mentioned in my first blog post. 

I really thought that was a neat feature, and kept going back to that idea when I was thinking about what to produce. I thought it would be neat to make a trailer for a "movie" based on my photos and influenced by some of my personal writing and fictional stories. 

…This wound up being much more difficult than I thought. We're not really "family photo" type of people in my house, and many of my pictures are "stuck" in film format. I didn't have the time to scan them in, so I had to make due what I had on digital AND try to weave them into some kind of story. I This is what I wound up with. I hope you enjoy watching it. I'd like to try this again, given more time. 

What do you think?


EDIT: I decided I'm really not happy with the quality of the video as blogger displays it. I think they compress the file after it's uploaded. Viddler shows in slightly higher quality, so if you want, you can view the video here at my viddler site. You'll also have a few more features in terms of size as well. It looks pretty nice on my macbook in fullscreen, so I'd like you, my audience, to have a similar experience.

I also would like to state, for clarity's sake, that ALL of the images in that trailer are mine. I am the photographer and editor of all of those pictures. Only the spinning globe logo in the beginning is not mine. 

PE2_iMovie

Editing, Effects, and Audio, Oh my!

Now we're getting to the interesting parts. 

I love the movie trailer options for new projects theme. This was not available in iMovie '09. I'm already thinking I may use that to for my 60 second video. 

On a side note, I really REALLY like and appreciate the way lynda.com breaks up lessons in small chunks that are around 5 minutes. I think the longest lesson was 8 minutes. As a teacher, I understand too well the attention span of most people isn't very long. Research has shown that even when a person is interested, their brain can only handle about 15-20 minutes of information before going into "screensaver mode" (my words. hehe).  As a student, I understand this all too well!

So the smaller chunks of information really help to enhance the assimilation process. I probably retained more information because of this format, than if I had a solid 30min or hour long lecture. 

The precision editor seems a bit strange to me. You can precisely chose where two clips transition but as you cut or add to one clip, you're cutting or adding to the other clip as well. So your overall time doesn't change. That can be helpful, but I can see how it might be frustrating as well. 

I can see this is a feature I'm going to need to play with a bit before I fully understand it. I really need to do things, and sit and "try to break" (as one of my friends calls it) something to really understand it. Note: I don't *really* try to break software/things I'm trying to understand. ;)

Me trying to figure out the precision editor....

Ok, I played with it. I was a little incorrect about how the overall time doesn't change. It CAN change the overall time. The tutorial was kind of…unclear in that part. But I can't blame him, because it's still kind of a strange tool to explain. Now that I've played with it, I get it, but I don't know that I could explain it to another person myself. :D

Watching these videos is making me excited for our filmmaking class that we'll have later in the program. (I may regret this excitement later.) Part of this is because the tutorial videos talk about technical aspects, which rely partly on good storyboarding and planning of a video. It's one thing to know how to crop a shot to zoom in, but it's another to know when to zoom in, or the best place in a scene to use that feature. It was in fact, the cropping and editing tool tutorial that made me think about this. Although I did notice he mentions some tips on planning shots and when using effects. 

The entire "working with effects" section was fascinating, and my favorite part to watch. Just listening about the options of  incorporating photos, side by side, picture in picture, green screen, one step effects, etc gave me so many ideas for future projects. 

Some of my ideas are too complicated or time consuming for this weeks 60 second movie, so I've created a file to store all my plans. 

I may have gone a little nuts exploring the different effects...

I'm so excited about these features!

Now to make my movie!

PE1_iMovie

This post, and the posts following will be documentation, thoughts, and reflections  on my process of learning the ins and outs of iMovie '11.

First of all, I have the say it's nice to be working with iMovie '11 now. In my previous classes and projects, I had iMovie '09. I was able to upgrade my version recently, and through my own exploration and these videos, I've discovered a lot of small, but useful differences and additions. There are lots of little features/differences, that aren't really outstanding or really noticeable, but definitely contribute to ease of user experience.

I liked having the exercise files to work along with. I work by not just watching but by doing. I could use my own files to work along with and do similar things, but its still nice to have the exact same files to prevent errors (file mismatch or such)

Although I had used and felt I was somewhat comfortable with (at least the basics of) imovie, I'm realizing there are many small details I don't know. (For example, the ability to switch the project and event panes. So simple, but useful)

I figured these videos would be helpful, but it's interesting to see just how much the program is capable of. 

I liked the intro to the connectors and how to import from different sources.  I was pretty familiar with the connections already, but I'm impressed they included it. I've seen many tutorial videos (for various things) that assume too much of the viewer. 

The different abilities imovie has to import data is also impressive. The fact that imovie can automatically detect and improve stabilization, and detect the presence of people in a clip so it can make special adjustments for that is pretty amazing. 

I knew that Macs are known for being especially user friendly, but it's not apparent until you really work with the programs.   

Going through the first 4 modules was more of an overview for me, reviewing basic features and actions. I still learned a few tips and tricks though. For example, i knew that you could adjust how the clips would appear in the event window (in seconds), but for some reason I didn't realize that it would change the speed with which you could scan/view the clip. I thought it just changed how many pictures you saw. D'oh! 

5 second interval

1/2 sec interval

                                                                vs.

These would have been helpful to know a  few months ago when using imovie! :)

Part of me wishes we had this assignment in month two, but then I realize that we've had access to lynda.com since month one, and nothing was stopping me from using the tutorials then. 

Live and learn. 

The next sections (Editing, Working with Effects, Working with Audio) seem a bit more in-depth and intensive. While these are the sections I'm most excited to explore, I think I need a break before I tackle these… 

notes to self: iMovie can import  .mov, .mp4, .dv , for other types (wmf, avi)must convert. Quicktime 7 pro is one example of program that can convert many file types.