Workshop with Mark

Some people with dyslexia see words on a page like this.  But I don’t.  I used to have problems with mis reading some letters.  I do have issues with word ordering.

While researching my personal project I found this video.  I quite like the way it starts – it teases the Viewer and prompts them to want to know more about the subject.  By using so many people it really shows the number of young people who have this problem.  However the ‘acting’ wasn’t great and although it shows their dyslexia distracts from the point they are making.  The device of using a number of people completing one sentence has been over used.

The use of close ups on the young people works well, to emphasies their words and their personality.

The strong directional lighting makes the faces very dramatic.  But it distances them from the Viewer – which is the opposite from the intended use of CUs.

The use of black and white, rather than full colour, adds weight or seriousness to the ‘message’.

The use of ‘sound design’ or music creates tension and a mood of seriousness.  This works focus the Viewer’s attention on the message.

The video then changes to highlight the positive sides.  The shot has changed to a MS, the music is jolly pop, the people are smiling and the atmosphere is upbeat.  By setting the sombre tone at first allowed them to highlight the change very effectively.

In my personal project I would prefer to focus on my personal experience of dyslexia with a lighter touch.  So that it’s not just about ‘facts’ it’s about personal practical everyday issues with dyslexia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngl_II8TtGk (Richard Branson’s comment)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyGgFcD5eRE Robert Carlye’s film Summer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyGgFcD5eRE

What might the iPad mean for me?

I have yet to actually see an iPad but there is already so much to read about it.  Some love it, some hate it.  MacUser magazine have just published a nicely balanced article on the iPad – in advance of it’s UK launch.  It really placed the iPad into context for me.

The points they made were simple and practical:

• fast Apple apps and web browsing
• small text is easily readable without zooming as on the iPhone
• books and magazines look really good
• illustrations look great
• colour text works well

But:

• you need to have some means of propping it up when reading
• it wont wirelessly sync
• videos are displayed in 4:3 or letterboxed 16:9
• there’s no alarm clock
• holding and typing is awkward
• the iPad uses iTunes to sync and store most material.  So you still need a computer
• it can’t ise Adobe Flash
• (at the moment) it can’t multitask (that comes with the next OS upgrade later this year)
•  

They conclude that there probably isn’t an over-riding need to buy one at the moment if you already have an iPhone or computer (3rd party apps that may well change this).

The ring fencing via iTunes is regretable.  The same limitation exists for the iPhone – adding the problem of trying to sync to 2 macs each with separate iTunes installed.  (The Dropbox iApp is one great way around geting material onto your phone.)

This week I have been asking my media students what they think of the iPad.  They generally said (in this order);

• they wanted one
• it’ll be useless for editing

None really thought about what they could publish or broadcast on it. As MacUser states

“…the iPad is about consuming media.”

I would add that it’s about presenting media. As a keen photographer, and with an old fashioned love of radio, the possibilities of delivering these in some multi media form on the iPad, and it’s Android equivalent, look awesome.  Content may be king but finding compelling ways to present and deliver that content is also important.

What the iPad does is to advance the quiet innovation that Apple ushered in with the iPhone – an easy system of making micro payments. They recently extended this further by permitting micro payments from within the applications.  All of which raises the rather basic question – what exactly is an application?  What is the difference bwtween a website, a magazine and an application?   Could the answer be ‘money stream’?  Is this the reason for the publishing world’s frenzy over the iPad?

How should my teaching and the materials I generate reflect the likely development of these platforms?  Is the iPad robust enough to be used in education?  I replaced the battery in my MacBook this month.  It cost £100.  If the iPads are similarly priced then running costs might well be rather high.

I look forward to using the iPad in the UK soon.  The UK price of the iPad is yet to be released.  I suspect that the price break will be keenly sensitive.   I also think that without a deal with Adobe over the implementation of Flash on both the iPhone and iPad, Apple will lose the initiative in this new market they’ve created. See more from MacUser.  Things are going to move very quickly in this new market and we may well know by this time next year.

Celtx Studio or Adobe Story?

As Adobe gallop ahead of Apple with CS5, Adobe’s Story is worth looking at. Here is Adobe’s introductory video.

I have been using Celtx for a number of years now with students and for my own work. It’s been really useful, robust and simple to use. The software has been steadily updated over the years – the last addition of a sketching facility was especially welcome. Celtx also offers a collaborative function called ‘Celtx Studio‘. This is a paid for service that allows an administrator to set up ‘seats’ so that collaborators have an individual log in. Then Celtx projects can be worked on by the group, with changes noted and tracked. Updates are saved to the ‘Studio. I have been working with 4 students like this for about 4 months. There is a useful chat function so that communication is separate from the writing. All the writing is displayed with the usual industry standard formatting. This makes it more practical under most circumstances for screenplay writing that the excellent EtherPad. Importantly for me Celtx also include a whole suit of planning and tagging for schedules, locations, prop lists etc to help with the production planning.

‘Story’ from Adobe is an AIR powered application. You will need to have an Adobe Log in here. Once you have logged in and opened Story in your browser you can install the desktop application. I strongly suggest you do. The ability to work offline is very handy. You can sync it later with the online versions of the projests. In fact switching from on to off line is easier than I found with Celtx.

First impressions are excellent. Story looks great. Anyone familiar with Buzzword, Acrobat.com or Photoshop.com will feel at home in the Adobe style environment. Naturally Story is designed to integrate with a future releases of the Adobe production premium suite including the latest CS5.

Adobe have seen the value of metadata and activly worked out how control of such data can be embedded into the production process. Imagine loading a QuickTime movie and being able to search for a line of dialogue, location or character.

Celtx will allow you to paste text into it. This text will then require formatting – which is quite quickly done with the application. Story will permit Importing a script as text or from Word or Final Draft etc. But since Adobe owns of the PDF format it’s not surprising that it also allows PDF import. Not only that but the script is broken down on import. That’s really impressive. If you find a script online you can now import it and then edit it with all the formatting preserved and generate all the production reports you need. (For some reason it fails to identify the title page.) It doesn’t embrace the production functions of Celtx, staying focused on the script. So it lacks the production tools that Celtx provides. eg calendar/scheduler, storyboarder, sketcher etc but at least for the short term it has plenty to offer.

Where is does better, immediately, is that you can collaborate without charge. All collaborators need Adobe IDs and you just share your project with them. Privileges can be set by the administrator, very easily. I expect to use both together since there are few script changes on the short films I work on once into production.

The Photographer’s eye by John Szarkowski.

Photographic gems from ‘The Photographer’s Eye’.  Published in 1980 and still valid!

I recently read Mark Galer’s book Digital photography in available light.  It’s an excellent book and one that manages to offer new instruction in a market full of other books on the same subject.  In the book he quotes from John Szarkowski’s book ‘The Photographer’s eye’.  As luck would have it the University’s library has a copy of this, much older book, on it’s shelves too.

The book is a fantastic collection of photos from the early days of the art to the 1960′s.  There are few words, instead the images are left to speak for themselves.  They are artfully arranged so that they relate to each other.  The words that are included are understated and insightful, contrasting painting with photography.  There is plenty to think about. 

The book attempts to describe the nature of photography – it’s relationship to reality.  The role of the ‘significant detail‘ and of symbol over painterly narrative.  It explores the importance of the frame, it’s ability to define content, create relationship, present juxtapositions and quote out of context.  It raises the fundermental Photographer’s question – What should be included what should be excluded?  He proceeds to sum it up beautifully;

“This frame is the beginning of his picture’s geometry.  It is to the photograph as the cushion is to the billard table.”

He then unpicks the relationship of photography to time and the ‘decisive moment’ (Cartier – Bresson).  In order to impose some meaning on an image, to make it a picture, the Photographer is obliged to arrange the elements by moving the camera.  The issue of vantage point is therefore raised.  All the while the points made are illustrated with a great selection of photos.

See more images at JPG magazine.

web 2.0

I have been working with mind mapping apps recently. Here’s a map of many of the web 2.0 apps I use. I haven’t added all the notes to explain each entry but I guess you can figure it out. There’s a mac bias. Sorry. I try to pick cross platform and free apps and services where possible. This was made with Xminds free application. It was neat and quick to use. You can figure it out quite easily. The export options are limited on the free version. Here’s the result.

There’s a lot of stuff here! Enjoy, see you next year.

Mike J

(I’ve had to correct the embed code and still can’t get the bottom of the player to show. Click bottom right to enlarge the viewer. Mmmm the hyperlinks don’t work. I am not impressed.)

pps. OK perhaps this will be better. I have uploaded the file produced by Xmind in mm format to Mind42 and published it. Here’s it embedded.

That looks slightly better and the links seem to work.

With web 2.0 there are a huge range of tool to help you work. I have been investigating some recently to help creative collaboration. Here are a few ideas:

Brainstorming -

1. Mind42 (mind maps)
2. Mindmeister (mind maps – incl iApp (£))
3. Xmind (downloadable app for mind maps)
   
4. Prezi This is a web app designed as an alternative to Powerpoints and the domination of bulleted lists. Might be good for outlining ideas, pitching stories etc.

Collaboration -
(real time)

1. Etherpad (Google has recently acquired this technology and the future of the free service is not clear).
2. Google Docs, either presentations or documents.
3. Facebook, for groups and communication
4. Celtx studio. I have a test account.
5. Acrobat.com has ‘buzzword’ for documents and presentations too. Slicker than Google Presentations. But only embeds pdfs like Google (so not documents).
6. iPaper embeddable documents!! Really aiming as a way of publishing. Works in VLE like Blackboard/Minerva.
7. Evernote Its possible to share research through their note sharing facility. iPhone app, Firefox add-on, downloadable application. Here is a shared notebook. I can add research so all can see. But others can only read it. It is an easy and very quick way of gathering and sharing material. But its one sided. Creating a generic account might be one way around this. But you could share a ‘look book’ or scrap book for filmmaking etc

Distribution (cross platform)

Dropbox (Docs and PDFs work well but text files don’t on my iPhone) Optional download App that lives in the Mac Finder window. Really neat idea. You can share items from your dropbox. Last year this seemed very slow, but it seems to work better now.

box.net – free 1GB up to 25MB file size.

The future will be strongly influenced by Google Wave. Its buggy and in beta now. I’ve messed around with it alittle. One to watch next year.

regards, Mike J

Re cycling HDV tapes – Don’t

Last year we decided to switch from SD DV to HDV. (How much do I regret that decision?)

I have already blogged about the issues we had with just playing the material in QuickTime outside of Final Cut. In view of the problems we had we decided to switch back. We recycled the tapes and even took the precaution of pre striping them in SD DV. Then we sent the teams out to shoot. When they returned, we started the capture and logging. that’s when the timecode issues started. OK, its one of the 3 Sony Z1′s. Nope they all had the same problems. Its due to the deck we striped with being faulty. Possibly but unlikely. We guess its the original HDV timecode. Wouldn’t you assume that recording over timecode would have erased the previous?

The advantages of HDV over Standard Definition 16:9 video are clearly outweighed because of the disadvantages. In fact if the time spent trying to get the stuff into the edit then out of the machines were spent on planning, shooting and editing the quality of the film would be more significantly benefited. ( Have I calmed down yet?) Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Researching and web 2.0

The web is an amazing place to research but you need to be organised. Since you have to blog as well, but not combine the two?

If you set up iGoogle and Firefox carefully they can help you do this. I use both quite a lot. I have added ‘extensions’ that add functionality to the browser. For example Delicious bookmarks, add to netvibes, Evernote web clipper, Screenshot pimp, Zotero and Xmarks. I also use a portable version of Firefox so that these are configured and present when I use my browser. With your home page set for something you use all the time – set several – and they’ll open when you launch the application.

Searching the web.

Searching with Google using + and – and “” to refine your search.
The advantages of using tabbed browsing should be obvious. Its also worth learning a few keyboard short cuts:

• CMD + T opens a new tab
• CMD + L highlights the current URL
• CMD + C copies
• CMD + V pastes
• CMD + X cuts ( and places on the clipboard)
• TAB key shifts to the next field or box

Don’t just use Google. Find other ways of accessing the web’s store of information. Delicious is a store of peoples bookmarks. It makes a good place to search. Search blogs. You can take even fuller advantage of web 2.0 by using the power of RSS with Google alerts, yahoo searches or even Yahoo Pipes. This way the information is filtered by choices you have indicated. I find Twitter increasingly useful – its often a case of finding a good person to follow. Here’s a good introductory guide written by my Colleague Katherine Reeves.

Google docs give me a suite of applications – online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I can access these anywhere and share the documents created there too.

When you embed a Google Presentation it’s worth noting that this is a feed. Any changes made to the file will be updated in the embedded version too. You need to make it 342 x 410 to fit the Blogger template.

Lastly, it’s good and fair practice to credit and link back to your sources. Derek Pierce, as Beatsystem, kindly allowed me to use his music with students. Where you have uploaded your edits with his music you should credit him and link to his website. This way if someone wants to know more about the music he gets the click through. I should have reminded you at the time. Sorry Derek.

Solutions to recent transcoding problems

Transcoding is the process of changing a file from one format to another. Last week having edited as aif students needed to convert to a Wav file. Its common to have to do this converted from one to another and back again. The conversion to MP3 is also very common. These are all different CODECs.

Here is a post I wrote earlier this year about Switch – a free Mac app that makes it easy to convert from one audio format to another.

The file conversion site Zamzar is another favorite of mine. This works on all sort of file types – image, document, media.

The producers of Switch also make a free – multi platform audio editor called Wavepad Sound Editor, it looks good and will do the conversion to multiple formats too. The open source fav is Audacity – which I have found to be good. for simple stereo editing Sound Studio is neat and very mac-like. It only runs of Mac and doesn’t convert to MP3 sadly, oh yes and costs $80.

You have to get used to understanding formats and develop your own toolbox and workarounds. There isn’t an easy cheap one stop shop. Or maybe there is? Let me know.

The Art of Blogging 2.2

This post carries on from part 1 and details the practical aspects of writing your blog. I also cover assessing reflective writing and list some blogs you might like to subscribe to.
How do you blog (using Blogger.com)?
Here is a quick introduction from Blogger.

You might prefer to use WordPress.com. Here’s this post using that blogging engine.

Layout. The great thing about about Blogs is that they allow you to present your ideas and writing without worrying about the HTML code that underlies the blog – which is really a website. But you still need to think about how you make the limited number of choices about layout. Its easy to post your first blog and then experiment with different styles and looks – called templates. These will alter the form but not the content of the blog. Make sure your blog is readable. Grey text against black is not a good idea. Some of your selections can affect how they read when the blog is accessed by a Reader. Check! Here are some ideas, from the web usability expert Jake Nielson, about positioning pictures and information – the F-shaped pattern.

Widgets. These can add great content to your blog and are quite easy to set up. Add, check and remove if they detract. See cliches below!
About you. Include some information about yourself – who you are, why you are blogging, what you hope to achieve, what someone might learn from your blog. You are more likely to get people subscribing if they have these information.
(Post) Title. This is what as known in web design as ‘microcontent‘. Choose the title for your post very carefully. It needs to be simple and informative. Again Readers display the title. Subscribers might scan just the titles while deciding what to read. Then mark as read anything that doesn’t appeal – missing your beautifully crafted post.
Structure. The opening paragraph needs to summarise the post, but in a way to raise interest. I often write this last – before publishing online. Its easier once you can see what you have said, to craft the introduction. There is a difference between academic writing and writing for the web. The structure is closer to the journalistic ‘inverted pyramid’.
Links. Without any links the posting has no context. In an academic essay you are required to include quotes that support the ideas you are discussing. Then at the end of the essay there is a bibliography that relates to the reference. The idea being that interested parties can trace the reference back to the original source. How much easier is it to do this on a blog! If you find a useful site and use it, link to it. If there is more information that relates to your post, link again. Be aware that if you want to link to a blog post make sure you use that postings url (permalink) and not the blog’s home page. (Whats displayed on the homepage will change.)
Multimedia. Not using images, video and audio is to criminally under use the blogging medium. As they say a picture can say a 1000 words. Not only that but this is a media course. So include media, both yours and others (its about context again). You can upload video and images to Blogger. They get stored on your account – Picasa. You can download Picasa as an application and use it instead of iPhoto (I think its better). The free storage for Picasa is actually quite modest.
You are better uploading to your YouTube or Vimeo account and embedding the video into the blog. Still images could be embedded from Flickr or Photobucket. (Keep track of your accounts and passwords). There are uploaders for iPhoto that will help you manage uploads. iPhoto will upload to Facebook and Picasa. Videonic will upload from your mac to Youtube.
Here are 13 blog cliches from Jeff Atwood’s blog that are worth thinking about.
Writing. Just because its not an essay doesn’t mean that you don’t have to spell, capitalise, punctuate, and paragraph. I expect to see all of these displayed to degree level. There’s a spellchecker in Blogger. Use it , then check it – its US English. We require UK English! Its normal to have 2 spaces at the end of a sentence – it makes the piece easier to read. Use one space after a comma. If you cut and paste from WORD you will get problems with your blog. Use a plan text editor instead, like TextEdit on the Mac, NotePad on a PC.
Organisation. Labelling (or tagging). You have the option to tag/label your posts. This is basic metatagging. It makes your blog easier to navigate. It makes sense for you, your readers and its good media practice. Things need to be organised so that you can store, search and find things. The labels allow you to catagorise your posts. If you are interested in the ideas of organisation – and they are relevant to you and your studies, watch this presentation by David Weinberger (or read his book – its an easy read!)

Content. Your content needs to be legal, fair and decent.  You must avoid libel, slander and deformation of character.  Your blog is public not private.

As students this is where the bulk of the marks will be given. It would help to start by thinking about what use blogs actually serve. Whom are they aimed at? Here are some broad descriptions:

1. A diary/daily journal – what you did, what you think,
2. Commercial support – development and problem solving with users
3. Interest groups – sharing information with like minded people on one subject, area or topic
4. Personal thoughts and ideas – reflecting on topics and subject(s) that interest you

Your blog may need to have some journal type of writing (1). As well as your thoughts and ideas (4).
Description. What of what happened,what didn’t happen, and what were the consequences etc.
Reflection. Detail the logic of decisions and choices. You should comment on alternatives you might have taken and whether that might have been better/worse for whatever reasons.
Context. You also need to contextualise your work and thoughts – that is relate them to other examples, current practice etc. A lot of student writing tends to cover descriptive writing quite well and be less effective in reflecting on and contextualising their work.
Lessons learnt. You should also comment on what you feel you learnt, what you feel you need to learn, illustrating it by explaining how you might perform the task/exercise if you were to do it again.
How do we judge ‘reflective writing’? Broadly we might define reflective writing like this:

Excellent reflective writing has these qualities: Reflective language that describes, analyses and plans subsequent actions as a result of reviewing processes and events.

Good reflective writing has these qualities: Use of vocabulary, writing style and expression indicate engagement with the reflective process. Evidence of self-evaluation and awareness of the wider context.

Poor reflective writing has these qualities: Writing style mainly descriptive but some engagement with the reflective process. Reflection largely confined to the personal, with little attempt to connect to the wider context.

Very poor reflective writing has these qualities: Use of vocabulary, writing style and expression entirely descriptive, showing very little engagement with the reflective process.

As with all things you get better with practice, but you can also learn a lot from just reading a range of blogs. Here are some you might like to read and subscribe to in your Reader (they may also provide context for some of your studies):
Phil Bloom Freelance Director of Photography and exponent of cinematic style video shooting. (Often on DSLRs).
Powertothepixel Great site that attempts to gather news and information about transmedia developments.

Wired magazine UK based version of the US techie site. Good for tech news with UK slant.

Readwrite More tech news this time based in the States, but very comprehensive and up to date.
Smashing Magazine Highlights design issues. Often something of interest.

Stu Maschwitz Stu wrote the DV rebel handbook and is a post production guru. Interesting and thought provoking. Some of his stuff on colour grading etc is very informative. (His books worth a read too. Check out the library.)
The Guardian (Media section) classic resource on the Media (Monday’s paper issue – but there’s more online)
Good luck with your blogging. If this has helped you, or you think it can be improved – leave a comment. That’s also very much part of the art of blogging.
Mike J