Mr Howe’s Garage Blog

At long last, you’re on your own.  You are at the editing room, and it is time to bring your vision together.  You’ve got all the tools at your disposal.  Wednesday was your first day.  Do you feel you’ve got a handle on things?  Do you know how to use all the tools yet, or are you a bit nervous–weak in the knees?

What about the video you shot?  You should have followed your storyboard.  Did you?  Did you find you still needed to go back and shoot some more?  If so, why do you think that was necessary? 

Ok, we’ve plowed through a few days of learning the basics of editing.  Now you know everything you need to know, right?  Well, not exactly.  There’s a lot more that we could cover, but we’ve hammered out the basics and, at this point, you should be able to explore our editor comfortably to pick up on anything you’ve missed.  Don’t forget, software companies put help functions in their applications for a reason.  You can pretty much find anything you need to know just by asking for “Help.”  If that doesn’t work for you, try to “google’ your way to advanced skills.  You’ll usually find what you’re looking for and you might just find some new favorite links on the way.

In film-making, they often refer to the cutting-room floor when discussing editing.  In the old days, editors would actually go through film and cut off pieces of film that they weren’t interested in keeping.  So, do you feel you have the same kind of control now with the tools you’ve been provided with?  Do you feel you can piece together a quality piece of work with the film you have on hand and your newly-acquired knowledge of video-editing?  Do you now possess all the tools and skills you need to make your how-to video a real work of art?  Explain your answer.  And if you don’t feel comfortable just yet, tell me what you think you need.

Well, we’re back to fighting the demons of technology.  Some of you were able to capture your video–some were not.  Still, it’s my hope that you are beginning to get a glimmer of what’s involved in the full development of good filmmaking.

We’ll be delving deeper into the realm of editing in the next few sessions.  You pulled in some stills and, hopefully, some music from one of the “free” music sites on the web.  You’re being prepped to piece together a multi-media kind of piece that will give more pizzazz to your video.  On Wednesday we’ll be looking at another music source that I think some of you will find exciting. 

Did you find freeplaymusic to be pretty complete in terms of the types of music available to you?  Why do we need to be concerned about copyright in creation of our projects?  (If you don’t fully understand “copyright” yet, ask your parents.)  What do you suppose would happen if everyone downloaded an artist’s music for free?  Would he or she still be able to support himself/herself?

I want you to think more about the different pieces that you find present in good video.  What do you need to do to give the same “professional” quality to your work?

 In the mean time, give me your thoughts.  How are things proceeding? 

Planning your film is one of the most important things you can do.  It certainly separates an amateur from a professional.  It separates, too, sloppy filmmaking from dynamic, interesting, quality work.  Do you agree? 

Did you find the process of storyboarding difficult or did it come easy?  Why or why not?  Did it provide you with direction when actually shooting your video?  (Hmm, I wonder why they call them “directors?”)

Well, once again, technical difficulties.  I’ve looked into this a bit, and it appears we need to bring in the Pros from Dover.  So let’s take the opportunity here to reflect on what’s happened so far.  Ignoring today’s problems, does video still hold the promise of magic to you?  Do you see yourself creating videos on your own after the club folds up for the summer? 

1.  Today you got the opportunity to preview the work that you shot on Tuesday.  Funny, all I heard was raves yesterday, but today I heard more than a few groans.  If you weren’t one of those, great!  If you were disappointed, however, what bothered you about yesterday’s footage?  Not to worry.  We’re just beginning.  By the time we’re finished, you’re going to have a good solid grasp on what makes video magic.  Besides, we haven’t even touched editing yet.  Wait until you learn how to toss out all your bad work and weave together the good stuff.  Very, very cool!

2.  One of the handouts you received today dealt with the woes of the Zoom.  Read it. 

In reviewing yesterday’s work, did you find yourself over-zooming?  Do you see how this can create a dizzying effect in your video?  It’s something you always need to be aware of.  Remember, you want people to view your work–and you want them to like it.

3.  What topic did you and your group decide to tackle?  How do you plan to go about it?  Any issues getting your message across?  Any equipment problems?  Do you see the importance of pre-planning you shoot?

4.  How’s it going so far.  Are you enjoying the Video Club?  Why or why not?

Ever so brief, but you got a taste.  What did you think?  Are you hooked?  Was it a great, good, so-so experience?  Explain.

A picture is worth a thousand words.  It’s an ancient proverb that has been attributed to none other than our own Confucius–remember him?  Some say maybe not him; but what the heck, it still sounds good.

Whatever the case, it is meant to imply that even very complex stories can be summarized with just a single image.  Do you believe it? 

Do you think photography might be a good tool in teaching?

Let’s say you had to teach a lesson to your fellow students using digital photography and technology to make a slideshow. The slideshow could include pictures, text, and anything else the you might want to use to tell your story.  Think about it.  Pick a subject–any subject you like, but keep it school-related–and tell me how you might create your lesson.  I want to know what your topic is, what pictures you might use (just describe them, don’t try to upload anything here), and what words or passages you might use to make your lesson work.  Remember, folks, this is a club.  So have fun with this little challenge–don’t beat yourselves up.

Even if you weren’t able to go through your pics to save the top three, you at least got a chance to review your work.  It can be pretty tough to pull just a few images from about 300 or so.  Hopefully, you’re keeping those rules of composition in mind as you do.

You probably discovered that, while fun, there were still a lot of photos that weren’t of the best quality.  While you might be willing to overlook that because the pictures are snapshots of special moments, the average viewer would quickly tire of them and you might begin to hear whispers of that dreaded “b-word”–boring.  All of this can apply to video too.  So what kinds of pics do you think might keep their interest?

There is an old saying that the difference between an amateur and a professional photographer is the size of his/her garbage can.  Now that you’ve spent some time weeding out the bad, what do you suppose they mean by that saying?

Tomorrow–equipment willing–we break in video!!!

Ain’t technology fun?!!

Well, we ran into some bugs today; but considering that the district is still trying to get our lab up, I guess we should count our blessings.  It appears that we have managed to get all the work up except for one group.  I do know some of you are running out of space.  We’ll have to work around that.  For the time being, I managed to get most of your photos over to your SASI folders.  Next week I’m going to want each person to pick out their three favorite photos and send the rest to the trash.  If you want to save more, bring in a thumb drive and I’ll let you take your stuff home.  Once you start culling your work, we should have plenty of space.

While we ran into some issues, that can often–unfortunately–be a part of working with technology and we just have to work around it.

A few questions to ponder:

Naturally, the first has to be how was the experience today?  Did you think through what you wanted your shots to be?  Did you concentrate on the rule of thirds?  Do you think your shooting today will prove to be just a tad better than last weeks?  Professionals talk about a photographer’s eye, about being able to work with the principles of composition and still being able to capture magic in a shot.  Are you beginning to develop a photographer’s eye?

How about transfering your work over to the computers?  That, together with some signing-on problems, seemed to be the biggest issue.  Still do you feel that you’re getting a picture of what the process might involve?

David Thornburg, one of the gurus of the computer world, claims that you should do everything you can to make technology “invisible.”  He feels that technology should be a tool to discovery and not get in the way when you are trying to accomplish something?  He includes in his thinking the notion that one should purchase the very best to avoid clunky breakdowns and hindrances in what your trying to achieve.  Do you think our technology was invisible today?  If we are going to use computers and video in education, how do you think we can make it better–invisible?