Remix #4 (Video): Frank vs the Tranq Tutorial

This is the tutorial for this video remix.

Steps:

1. I found a solid version of the scene I was looking for and downloaded it. Next, I opened up iMovie, imported the clip, and messed around for a little while with the effects. I wanted to get a sense of what was possible. I wanted that jittery effect from silent films, but evidently iMovie doesn’t have that feature anymore. They do have “Film Grain” and “Aged Film” effects, however, which provide that old, deteriorated quality.

2. I needed some silent film title cards, and I found a template pretty quickly online. I downloaded the template, cut and pasted it into a Powerpoint slide, added a black background, copied the slide a number of time, and found a decent old-timey looking font. I worked on “script” of sorts and created appropriate cards. This is probably an area I’d work on a bit more in the future… I think I captured an Edwardian sort of diction–part of the humor I was attempting was in contrasting styles–but I could probably amp up the clever here.

3. I saved the PPT slides as jpegs, and imported them into iMovie. Then is was just a matter of splitting the clip, inserting the text cards, and adjusting each piece of the film for timing and look (based on the effects mentioned earlier). Part of the trick was establishing silent film pacing–I shaved off more than half the time from the original clip. Even with text cards, a silent film doesn’t seem to have the luxury of extended exposition or comedic build-up (or maybe that’s just a product of my amateur work).

4. I needed some old-time piano ragtime-ish piano music, and found a pretty good royalty-free resource with some interesting piano pieces. (Interesting how the short samples on the site evoke specific mood and character.) I found several I liked, downloaded them, inserted them into the project, and tinkered a little with timing. And I turned down the sound from the original clip.

5. I could have finished the project at this point, but I decided that some more text cards were needed (for the opening, credits, and the classic “The End” convention). So I went back to the PPT and repeated the process to create those… pretty easy.

6. I used Export tool to create the finished film.

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Remix #4 (Video) Frank vs the Tranq

For the final remix project, I did a spin on “Return to the Silent Era”. I didn’t really create a trailer for the film–more like re-visioned a scene.

First, here’s the original scene from the comedy Old School (2003). The context: man-child Frank (Will Ferrell) is attending a kid’s birthday party, where he finds a tranquilizer gun in the pony pen. Pretty much everything in the next few minutes kills me. Caution: a couple F-bombs ahead.

Here’s my silent movie version.

Not as funny, but overall, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Here’s my tutorial.

Tutorial for Truthful Movie Poster (Dumb in 90 Minutes)

Here’s my tutorial for my attempt at a truthful movie poster.

1. Even though I’m beyond raw with Photoshop, I still stuck with it for this work. Call me stubborn.

2. The polygonal lasso (PL) was definitely my go-to tool–it allows me to easily outline around a number or letter and thus isolate a particular space.

3. I started with the PL and outlined the 6 in “60.” My first goal was to rotate the 6 to create a 9, and there’s probably a way to do this easily. Instead, I first copy/pasted the area to create a duplicate 6, which I moved to the side. I used the Edit, Transform, Rotate tool to then turn this copy into a 9. I re-selected the area around the original 6, and used the Brush Tool to fill it in with black. Then I moved over the 9 I’d just created and positioned it just so. Pretty easy.

4. One move I had to keep making as I did this work was Layer, Flatten Image. Each time you copy and paste a section in Photoshop, you essentially create a new layer. Experts get really good at moving between layers to control/adjust elements, but I’m a total rookie and it was easier for me to just flatten the layers out each time so I was just working with one canvas. I’m sure what I just wrote would drive knowledgeable Photoshop folks crazy and reveals my total n00bness.

5. Using this select-copy-paste-flatten process, I was able to move copies of existing letters to the dark area on the left and perform operations in order to create new letters. Creating most of the new letters was pretty easy. I used the PL tool to highlight areas and then copy/paste them into new places, or fill them with color instead. Zooming in helped, and I used the Clone Stamp tool to copy some of the gritty weathered look. Once a new letter passed the “glance test” I moved on.

6. The major challenge was M. All of the letters provided were the same width, so this took some playing around. My first attempt began with an N, and I copied the rightward slanting middle stoke to serve as the last stroke in the new letter. This ended up as looking out of place, something like “N\” if you can imagine that. I decided this wouldn’t be good enough, that I basically need to build a new letter out of the raw material of an N. This took a lot of copy-paste and finessing until it looked okay.

Remix #3 (Design): Dumb in 90 Minutes (Truthful Movie Poster)

I definitely wanted to give this assignment a try–the challenge (as Lindsay points out)–is generating humor with the remix. Is my effort funny? We shall see.

Which film to choose? The one that came to mind immediately was Gone in 60 Seconds (2000), a Nicholas Cage / Angelina Jolie matinee film. Here’s the original movie poster:

One big mea culpa is necessary here: I have not seen this film. But twelve years ago, when the movie arrived in theaters, I remember thinking that it looked pretty mindless, and that a snarky film reviewer might use “Dumb in 90 Minutes” as the title of a negative review. (For what it’s worth, Rotten Tomatoes scores the film at 25%–a certified rotten score–which is pretty bad.)

And so here’s my remix:

The work took probably three or four hours all told, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. The most difficult work came in creating new letters. U, B, T and I weren’t so tough, but I struggled with M. My first version had the second leg of the M at an odd angle that looked really jarring, so I spent probably an hour tweaking an N into something better. I think you have to look closely now to notice the amateurish work. Check out my tutorial for more details.

I guess someone could quibble that the film actually clocks in at closer to two hours… but it looks like most reviewers would have liked it to be shorter. 🙂

Tutorial for One-Man Play (Son, How’s Your Day?)

My attempt at a one-man play was a pretty entertaining and generally pain-free task.

1. After some brainstorming, I settled on a scene from The Breakfast Club–I really wanted to do something from popular film. (When I do this assignment again, it’s going to be this scene from A Few Good Men…).

2. I found the script from the scene easily enough, by just typing in a few lines of the scene’s dialogue into Google.

3. I downloaded and installed Audacity, hit record, and gave the scene a shot. I was fairly satisfied with the quality of my reading after a couple of takes.

4. I used Audacity’s help feature to figure out how to Amplify certain phrases (i.e., turn up the volume) and Cut some of the empty spaces. This was very easy to do.

5. It was so easy, that I figured I’d go ahead and try to create an Autotuned version of my reading. This resulted in about two hours of downloading the wrong plug-ins to Audacity. I finally got the correct download installed so that the Autotune feature showed up in the Effects toolbar. I fooled around with it for a bit, but each time I tried to apply a setting it appeared to flatline the entire scene so nothing was audible. There are a couple of Autotalent (the program I downloaded) tutorials on Youtube, but nothing with the settings I had… so I abandoned that option for now.

Remix #2 (Audio): Son, How’s Your Day? (One-Man Play/Scene)

This is more like a scene than a play. It’s from one of my favorite films, The Breakfast Club, when Bender presents his version of Brian’s supposedly ideal home life.

Here’s my remix:

And here’s the original scene, the best version I could find:

Remix #1 (Visual): Twilight Gothic, Tutorial

Here’s how I went about this remix.

1. Starting in Pixlr’s advanced option, which looks similar to Gimp or Photoshop, I first uploaded three images (Bella, Edward, and the painting).
2. I used the Wand tool to cut around the heads of the figures in the painting, deleting them and creating an empty space. In retrospect I probably didn’t need to do this, since the new heads would have covered the old.
3. Then I cut the head from the image of Edward, clicked on the painting, created a new layer, and copied his head onto the painting.
4. I realized at this point that I didn’t have the sizes correlated for each image, because Edward’s head was tiny and I couldn’t figure out how to make it bigger. So I deleted the layer I’d just created, went back to Edward’s initial image, enlarged it until his head was proportional to the gent in Wood’s painting, and went through the process again.
5. I did the same process with Bella. Through this process I saved at multiple points with different filenames so I could backtrack easily if necessary.
6. At this point I used the pointer tool to move the heads into position. Edward’s looked pretty good, but Bella’s was more problematic because of the lighting. I probably should have stopped and found another photo at this point… but I didn’t.
7. I “flattened” the image, essentially merging all the layers into one. The I began to finesse the image to make it look less fake.
8. I used the “magic brush” tool highlight areas that needed color, and then used the “clone” tool to copy a nearby section and reproduce it. This took some practice and backtracking before I got the hang of it.
9. I tried adjusting Bella’s skin tone and highlighting, but after a long time messing with it, I still didn’t see it getting much better. At this point I saved again, and then reopened the image in Pixlr’s “efficient” option.
10. I used the Touch-up and Airbrush tools to keep working on Bella. Then I played around with Color, Color Splash, Contrast, and the Effects option. A more sepia toned look seemed best.

Overall, I was fairly pleased with how it turned out, with the takeaway that next time I’ll spend more consideration on matching the original images for lighting.

Remix #1 (Visual): Twilight Gothic

Here’s my visual remix. I chose the Adapt an Artist’s Work option, going with Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic.

Some notes:

1. It must be said upfront that I’m not a Twilight fan. But in thinking about possibly remixing this famous painting, this was the couple that sprang to mind. I did a quick Google search and found only a couple parodies along these lines, and I figured I would add to the collection. I considered going with Snooki and The Situation, but I didn’t want to spend that much time thinking about Jersey Shore. Interestingly, though most parodies of his painting seem to depict a husband-and-wife couple, the figures in Wood’s painting are actually father and daughter.

2. I suppose I succeeded in “changing or reinforcing the work’s meaning.” I’ve done some past research into AG parodies, but I don’t think this effort really pushed the critical envelope very much.

3. I’m fairly happy with how this remix turned out, although Bella’s face looks more mask- than life-like. I chose a photo based on her expression and partial profile, and I struggled with adjusting the lighting and washed-out skin tone. She looks like she’s wearing pancake makeup, or like her head is a balloon hovering over her body. There are probably better photos I could have used. I like how Edward turned out; here’s the original.

And here’s my tutorial.

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Agenda

A link to the Sep. 13 agenda.

ds106 test

Just a check to see if his tagged post goes through to ds106.