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So I decided to return to Flash and the Aboriginal Dreamtime Stories. I wanted to spend more time with Flash and I am really drawn to these stories, so I started again on a “The Rainbow Serpent.” (Or maybe I’ve been subconciously preparing for my second trip to Aus coming up!). I thought I wouldn’t have to spend as much time getting to know the environment of Flash and that I could get right to work; however this story ended up requiring more and more scenes and actions then the previous story so I spent even more time on this one. Flash also crashed on me 4 times, and I lost so much work each time.

This time I wrote the story (based on two versions I found online) first and and then had Sam read it which was fine, but then I really had to stick to that exact story in the animation. I used another track from the Aboriginal music which I thinks works really well with this one. I wanted the music to start first and then Sam’s voice to start after the title pages, but the class didn’t really like the stillness when that happened last time, and I didn’t have time to go back to it in the end, so I just started the voice at the same time. I’m sure I’ll fix this later.

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Well, I had never used Flash before so when my family had cleared the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I headed into school just to try to familiarize myself with the program. I thought I would just spend a couple hours. This turned into five and I found the whole thing somewhat difficult, but also loved this new form of storytelling! I spent the next several afternoons/evenings/late-into-the-night, in the lab (right in the middle of the the Applications group editing their hours of footage, and having group meetings). I found it frustrating that certain symbols–like my birds–I couldn’t open up, edit, and then change the name to make it a new symbol.

After doing most of the animation, I went home and re-wrote the story, based on the two versions I found on the internet. I searced on store iTunes for some Aboriginal music and Australian birds—and purchased a few songs. Later, I worked with these in Audacity, cutting some of the Aboriginal music track and then inserting two layers of bird music (also edited) at various points. I imported this in Flash and lay this as a base behind the whole animation.

I also checked out an M-Audio and recorded Sam reading the story. I had no idea he would have such a good storytime voice!! So I imported this track as well, but then found I had to adjust my animation quite a bit to match his voice. There are a few parts where I would have added a bit more animation, but I also kind of like the story just to move with Sam’s voice. 

These are my storyboards based on an Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime Story.

In the week leading up to class, I was sketching out a story about some men and women getting ready for a dance. But I was getting tired of these drawings and the story didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Sam suggested I do an Aboriginal Dreamtime Story, which seemed like a great idea! So I then spent time trying to figure out which one I should do! I thought this one, with the Emu and the Brolga would be interesting to animate and loved the image of the egg cracking over firewood in the sky (????) .

Response to Reading: 

Here’s the sound file that Rodrigo and I put together.  We both collected clips and then came together to start editing. Except I forgot mine! So I started editing Rodrigo’s clips recorded from our ITP buds’ laughter! I found myself more intersted in the actual dialogue that occured while trying to get people to laugh so I worked with that too. I put everything into Audacity and moved clips around and also set a beat downloaded from an internet site. Then I sent all this to Rodrigo so he could add his own edited files to mine. Have a listen…and a laugh!

 http://itp.nyu.edu/~rd989/files/soundLab.mp3

Response to Reading: Understanding Media by Marshall McLuhan

It seems any particular media can only be assessed when scrutinized within the whole scope of the culture from which it is emerging. Take his example of Russia (p.27) and how even types of dances become “acceptable” as the politics and culture change. Further, I found his reference Margaret Mead’s ideas also worth exploring.

It’s intersting to consider hot and cold media; although, I am still curious as to why speech is cold. There seems to be constant interplay between hot and cold media. The example of Calvin Coolidge (p.29) and his aloofness and the newspapers’ subsequent response to his lack of image was a prime example of this constant battle to balance both hot and cold. I feel we always do this, even in the smallest of gestures.

Curious to consider McLuhan’s comment in reference to today’s age: Anybody will concede that society whose economy is dependent upon one or two major staples like cotton, or grain, or lumber, or fish, or cattle is going to have some obvious social patterns of organizaion as a result. (p. 21) Haven’t we acheived some sort of organization with our contstant stream of media?

I want to come back to this later, as I feel I have more to say, but really, one personal response to this text was just to look up everything/everyone McLuhan referenced: this helped give a better picture to the work as a whole.

Response to Reading: Shirky vs. McCloud, Re: Micropayments

First of all, it’s funny reading two articles by people to whom you already have a connection. Clay we see almost everyday on the floor and listened to him speak in Red’s class a few weeks ago. And of course we fell in love with Scott’s caricature as we all read Understanding Comics last month. So here they are, battling it out over micropayments, an expression I’ve never before heard.

To be honest, besides buying music, the only other time I consider buying for-fee content online is when I want to continue reading an article or look up something in an online publication of a newspaper. And I never do this; I’ll look up a free article on the subject or, as in the case when I was doing research for an article I was writing on political profiles, I used a friend’s account. But I’m probably going against the general movement of wanting everything to be accessible online. I would never pay to read a book online: I would want it physically to be in my hand. Maybe I would pay for a single recipe in a cookbook, but I would probably go call Mom instead.

I completely understand Scott McCloud’s point in preserving intellectual copyright by implementing a system where the artist still gets something for his her work. And where I agree with Clay about the delimma has become fame vs. fortune, I don’t think he really gives an alternative to micropayments. He just says, artists now have to make that choice.

BitPass did shut down last January, otherwise, I probably would have created an account. But it seems as though others like it still exist or will exist in another form in the future. It’s hard to form an opinion without actually going through the process of a micropayment system myself. I look up different poets all the time but I wouldn’t want to pay 50 cents to view a poem everytime. However, I can understand how Scott McCloud would want to charge everytime someone wants to view his comics (but I don’t think I would pay this).

I certainly think the “mental transaction costs” which Shirky speaks about (p. 2) is poignent to the issue, but in the end, I think it’s up to the creator to charge what they want for their content and the user to make the choice whether or not to buy it. If the “mental transaction cost” is enough to deflect an interested party, no matter what the price is, then ultimately, that comes down to the individual and the decisions they make every single day.

Just thought I would include these links to New York Times articles published today:

NY Times Article

and

NY Times Article 2

I found one member of class particularly critical of the movie. It was an excercise. I think the music works perfectly; I don’t think it’s too dramatic for the action. I think we definitely could of used some close-ups of Alex in the beginning, but we didn’t have them so we worked with what we had. So in the end, I’m happy with the finished product and learned a lot in the whole process.

The group sat down and viewed all our footage in the lab, which was a good way to just see what we could use and remind ourselves of what exactly we had. We had trouble with the Log & Capture function and in the end, just had to Capture.  This worked well for us and we labled each clip to use in the editing process.

We found we definitely needed more close-ups of Alex, from different angles, and kept searching all our clips looking for that footage. We also found that as we began to insert clips and play the sequence, we were laughing hysterically. This humor was welcomed in the process, and we were actually all quite pleased with this outcome.

I found Final Cut Pro pretty easy to work with, once we spent a few hours getting to know the environment and the commands. Editing, again was a long process, but very interesting for me at least, in working with this new way (for me) of telling a story. I have for so many years worked primarily with text, editing, paragraphs, cutting out lines, changing words, etc. So I found the whole process of editing visual media new and exciting. The only challenge was, I couldn’t conjure up some image of Alex to insert where we wanted, as I would be able to with words. And so we found Marianne was right, you can never have too much footage.

 here’s the movie!

 http://itp.nyu.edu/~kes363/CommLab/compressedhappyhour.mov  

First of all, a huge thank you to Alex Kowal for so graciously accepting direction from 4 women in my kitchen for 5 hours on a Saturday.

Whew, I think I’m still recovering from the shoot! It was indeed, a lot of work and rather exhausting to be director, actress, and part of the production crew. Reflections:

Lighting: We used one tota (? is this what it’s called??) with a reflector and one small spot. For the initial shot, we also had some natural lighting from my kitchen window. It was difficult to adjust the lighting once it got dark. In some shots Alex was getting to washed out or would have disagreeable shadows cast upon his face.

Camera: Hye Jung and Yingxian mostly controlled the camera angles, with Cynthia and I making suggestions throughout the day. While I have a pretty good sized kitchen, it was sometimes hard to find the right place to fit the camera, in regards to the actors, the lights, and the windows, etc. We used the tripod the whole day–but I finally took it off to shoot some clips of the rose at the end.

Direction: For the most part, the group trusted me with direction; although, we had to work through some storyline issues at the start and decide to just start shooting. As we walked through each scene, both with Alex, and with the camera, everyone became more invested in the action and could offer directional tips.

Acting: Alex was fantastic! I have some experience in acting, but it was a very different feeling, after directing the shoot for hours, to change clothes and try to become Nancy. I found I was analyzing every movement I made and trying to remember when to put the keys down, when to look at Alex, should I sort the mail, all these questions kept coming up.

Overview: This was certainly a long process but it was a great way to become more familiar with the equipment and the set up of each shot. It would have been nice to have been able to take some breaks, as everyone felt the tediousness of it, the difficulty in 4 people trying to make decisions, and the time passing rapidly. I would definitely like to try again with a different subject.

Cynthia, Yingxian, and I met to decide upon a story for which we would then create storyboards, film, and edit. We all arrived with various ideas and discussed these at length. For some reason I really wanted to do some research and find a bee keeper who would let us set up a shoot in their bee garden. Cynthia really took to this idea and we discussed possible shots, etc. In the end, we thought this might be a bit much for this kind of excercise. We talked through Yingxian’s princess story and flipped through some storybooks which Cynthia brought to share.  Cynthia thought we might take another look at some of our classmate’s 55-word stories, as well as our own. After reading through many of them, we decided to go with the one I wrote, thinking it was simple enough to make into a short film but had enough in it to play with the camera, angles of the shoot, composition, etc.

 We met again, this time with Hye Jung to discuss each frame, close ups, medium shots, wide angles… and then compiled our small sketches for Hye Jung to work with. Here is the final product:

 Storyboard 1

Storyboard 2

Storyboard 3

Storyboard 4