Star Spangled What?! video link
Today’s DS106 Daily Create tdc597 was to “edit an existing video clip to include an unexpected object in the story.”
Video is my “thing”. Not so the case for many of the DS106ers. And I didn’t realize until I read a couple of comments in the DS106 Google + community today that some of you have felt intimidated to try your hand at the animated GIFs and videos from previous daily creates once you’d seen submitted projects. A tip for maximizing the value from this course? Don’t compare your art contributions to anyone else’s. Do what works for you. Do what you enjoy. Don’t worry about your level of expertise with the tools. We are all beginners in some areas and there are those with more experience we can learn from. The DS106 community is a supportive group of individuals who hold a space and offer encouragement for us to take risks and move outside of our comfort zone. It’s okay to be vulnerable here.
For me today that took the form of not pulling myself back. But I also decided to take on the challenge of seeing how quickly I could produce the video. (I really need to get some sleep tonight. Too many late nights working on DS106 stuff!)
B&W Chicken GIF courtesy of John Johnston
My first creative inspiration was to use John Johnston’s chicken GIFs: Red ‘Chicken Talking and his B&W Chicken (He would be considered one of our ds106 experts in the GIF arena.) Based on my personal experience this summer with a previous project [Talky Tina – Sweet as Tupelo Honey] I knew if I used the original GIF files in my Adobe Premiere Elements 11 video editor, I’d have to string together multiple copies of the still images to have continuous movement over several seconds. This would not be conducive to going to bed early. Ding! I could use my screen capture software, Camtasia, to actually capture the GIF in action over several seconds. It would already be in video format and could easily be inserted into any video I wanted.
Chicken Talking from John Johnston
Next, I started looking at YouTube videos made by other DS106ers. I downloaded a few of them to my computer with the Firefox Video DownloadHelper extension. Nothing was working. I then remembered an earlier daily create of my own, Speedy Star Spangled Banner. I thought it would be really funny to have John’s red ‘Chicken Talking’ GIF do the singing, but it took me a little trial and error to make a “logical” substitution of the B&W GIF.
My video editing software allows me to have several layers, and all I had to do was to put the video versions of the GIFs onto a layer above my original video. I then spliced out a segment at the beginning that referred to the previous daily create, added a video title image that comes with the program, personalized the text, rendered the video, and published it to YouTube.
In John’s podcast today, Evidently Not ChickenTown, he talked about how we can have a flurry of ideas after seeing other DS106 projects. Here’s proof.
Original Video:
Star Spangled What?! shows up in my #ds106 #dailycreate tdc597. Blame it all on @johnjohnston ‘s inspiring GIFs. http://t.co/AlRiKeSyIJ
Ha ha! I laughed out loud at the use of the B/w chicken gif at the end–fits so well! Actually, I laughed all the way through with the other chicken gif singing. So, so fun.
Hmmmmm…I may have to get me some of that screen capture software. Useful for ds106 and for teaching, too! I did a free trial of Snaps Pro Z (I think it’s called), and it worked really well, but now have to think about what I might actually pay for.
The chickens are delighted to be included in your video, many thanks for the kind words and for giving me the first laugh of the day. I doubt there will be a bigger one. I love how ds106 recycles and rifs along. I’d swear the chicken is lip synced.
Your comments above are absolutely right: “Don’t compare your art contributions to anyone else’s. Do what works for you. Do what you enjoy. Don’t worry about your level of expertise with the tools.” In the recording of Jim Groom, Martha Burtis, and Alan Levine’s panel discussion for the eAssessement Scotland conference (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kTwnhIvfMY&feature=youtu.be), I think it is Martha that says something to the effect that if the students can’t do the technical part of the work, it is ok to discuss what they “would have done”; in other words, this digital storytelling thing is really about the storytelling, not the technology. The technology consists of tools to tell a story. I hope I don’t forget that!
Good job on the storytelling and the editing!
Not surprised to hear that video is your game, Rockylou. You make it look easy.
Though I actually like to draw, I’d be a bit intimidated by the drawing TDCs if not for my trusty Ink app on iPad. I’m finding lots of cool effects I can do with backgrounds and underlays. Gives drawing a whole new range of possibilities.
I’ve enjoyed your blog as I have your TDCs.
But did I miss your birthday? Belated happy birthday wishes for you and I hope you enjoyed a big slice of that gluten-free chocolate-cherry cake. Yummy!
[…] and his Red cartoon chicken GIF became once again stars in one of my videos [First appearance in Star Spangled… WHAT?!] The B&W movie studio chicken brings us in, and a duet with the B&W and the Red chicken […]