Youtube Mania

Our final project in Multimedia Tools and Apps, was to make a video and post it on youtube. We needed to find a poem or short story. We also had to find some pictures and a song that would go with the writing.

A friend wrote my poem specially for my project. It was a poem about friendship. So I went onto flickr and found a bunch of photos that I thought would portray the lines in the poem. I put them in Final Cut Pro, along with the photos on the timeline. Then I started to write over with text the words of the poem. I put a couple fade ins and outs in a couple spots. I thought a fast paced song was the best way to portray the emotion behind the poem.

When I finished I compressed it into a file and posted it on youtube. Where it can be viewed now.

Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42dY1ZbaecM

Prezi. Com

After my Multimedia class worked with 280Slides, we continued our unit on Presentations by moving on to Prezi.com. If any one is interested in using this tool I definitely recommend it, but I also recommend watching the tutorial video. Prezi is lots of fun to work with and watch presentations made in it, but it is very intricate and I found that it took quite a bit of work to figure out what was going on with it. I don't even know half of what there is to know on how to use prezi, since its just basically an introduction to the program.



Again, first I had to choose a presentation. I used the same idea that I used for 280Slides, which is "How to Setup a Scene for a Movie". Again I used this idea because its something we just got done talking about in another class, and knowing the topic well made it easier to focus on the presentation part of the project.



The Prezi sheet is spread out on the whole screen, you can zoom out to see the broad piece of you're presentation, or zoom in and only focus on working on a small portion. You can write wherever you want, add pictures, and frames around it. When you have all you're information down, you add a path. The path is helpful, for when you are ready to present, because when you click it acts like a regular slide show and takes you to the next number in the path. The good thing about Prezi is that if someone wants to go back and look at another slide, you can back out of the "presentation" to the wide view, and go back to that slide with ease.

To present, you can do a picture within a picture, adding dialogue. Or you can have a spiderweb of information that is expanded across you're prezi spread sheet.



You can upload you're own pictures, or pictures from the web and place them. You can size them, rotate them as you wish. As I said before this is really an indepth program that takes quite a bit of practice, so I can explain it until I am blue in the face. But more than likely I will just confuse you, or just won't be giving Prezi the "respect" that it deserves.



To just go and have a look at the site and tutorial go to ---> prezi.com



To have a look at the Prezi Presentation I made go to ---> http://prezi.com/c1a3qpoy_idz/set-scene-movie/

280Slides Workshop

In our Multimedia class, we began a Unit on Presentations. You know, when you're sitting in class and the teacher says "Powerpoint time", that sort of presentation. At first I was rather meh at the whole idea because even though powerpoints are a useful teaching tool, some professors...(at UVM who will remain nameless) use it as their only form and it can become very boring. But after we started the unit, just seeing the different tools that you have at hand to make them, is just amazing.
We started with 280Slides.com. This is a lot like powerpoint that is often on school computers and such, only it is through the internet and doesn't have the vast amount of options that you would get from powerpoint. But it is free, and it has a lot of other merits that outweigh that of you're run of the mill presentation program.
* First of all, as stated above, it is a free program. You can sign up for it just as easily as if you were to sign up for facebook or email or something.
* It is right there on the internet, so there is no hassle of changing formats or whatever to make it open on another computer. Since it is already there, you don't have to worry about graphics , words, and other portions of the presentation to disappear in transition.

Getting Started-
I found that after a few minutes of playing with the different tools that 280slides had to offer, I was able to make my way through the presentation with relative ease. So the next thing to do was to pick a topic. I decided to talk about setting up a scene to film for a movie. I had just been studying this in my movie class and as it was fresh in my mind it would be easier to write about and be able to focus more on the presentation part of the assignment. I decided on a light blue background, with white writing. I went slide by slide, making a point on each one, giving dialogue about it and quite often backing it up with some sort of graphic.
When we presented them, the feedback was that I had made more of an online tutorial rather than a stand up presentation. I needed to put less on the slides and be able to explain more with the slides as the BACKUP to what I was saying. I also found that somehow I had managed to change the font from white to black without noticing. So it was an interesting experience, and a good tool to have but I definitely have more things to learn about the program and presentation making.
When finished I published it to slideshare, so if anyone would like to take a look at it, you can find it at this link ---> http://www.slideshare.net/lanelane12/in-the-movies

First Podcast

First Podcast

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Pod-Cast

A link to my pod-cast on PodBean...I worked together with a friend and we kind of combined our projects. He had to write out an interview and I had to do a podcast on something, so I used the interview for the podcast. It's me talking about life living as the oldest with four younger brothers. Just something very simple.

Invisible Blog or Not?

So you are having trouble finding people to read your blogs? Feel like you have a lot to say and no one is hearing you...or seeing it as the case may be. Here are a few simple, FREE ways to promote you're blog, so that you're voice can be heard and you're opinions counted for.

The first big one is to simply exchange links with other bloggers. If you find a blog that perks you're interest, and is a lot like something you've written, then leave them a comment and ask them to take a look at what you have written. Don't go around just posting you're link everywhere without saying anything, that will be treated as SPAM. However, if you leave someone a nice comment about their blog, and then say you have more to say on the subject at you're own blog (insert link) and you would appreciate some feedback from them, it is a good way to peak someone else's interest. If they really enjoy what you have to say, and reading about it, then you may have a long time follower. If they become hard-core fans, they will comment and promote you to other bloggers who they think will have an interest in you're topic.

You could also Join/Start communities at any of these three sites : MyBlogLog, Bumpzee, and Blog Catalog. These places take you're blogs information and post them in the site. It also gives you the benefit of interacting with other bloggers in a different sort of setting, and having them take notice of you're blog. They also keep track on how many people have looked at, and commented on you're blog, so that other people who have joined the site can see whats popular.

Another way to promote, is to send the link to you're friends and family. Ask them, if they like it, to pass it on to THEIR friends and family who they think may also enjoy it. If those people like it they may also pass it on, and suddenly you're the top authority on the latest movies...or whatever you're topic happens to be about.

FInally, keep them fun, keep them interesting. Be sure to be polite, if you thank someone who has commented on you're blog, you are more likely to have people to return and read if they know that they are appreciated.

Happy Blogging!

Magic in Life

Taking a deep breath, I watched tense as he quickly stumbled back from the figure before him. So close to the door, but then both the black haired boy and myself froze when a new voice came from the evil man before him. The boys green eyes peered out from behind large glasses, trying to be brave as he backed away from his greatest foe, the murderer of his parents and countless other people. Forgetting his wand, he tries to fight back at the man who grabs him, watching as his face and hand blisters and burns before his eyes. Before he blacks out, he hears a voice calling to him "Harry...".
A sense of wonder filled me as I read the last few words of my book. I'd loved reading since I was very young, but never did I have the connection that I had to this book. I read it within the four hours that I had brought it home from the book fair at my school. From the very beginning "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of Number Four Privet Drive..." to the very end I was sucked into a whole new world that felt a very much a part of me. As a kid, I didn't really fit in anywhere with anyone. Sure I had a few friends but mostly the type that liked you when they needed you and didn't know you if they didn't. I wasn't picked on, or bullied..I was simply quiet and shy. I certainly wished for more in life, something bright in the otherwise bleak existence. By this I mean, I always felt that there should be more in life than school, home, school and home. Reading allowed me to use the books to escape from this world and fall into the adventure, love, safety or whatever of that other world.
When I first stepped into Number Four Privet drive and took a look at this little boy, sweet and innocent even with the hand life gave him, I was intrigued. Throw him into a world of magic, mystery and friendship and I was hooked for life. Magic was an interest of mine to begin with, but throw in a young boy my age, as unsatisfied with life as I was (for different reasons obviously) and a great school of magic it was like a piece of myself had finally been discovered. Once I started reading, I was completely absorbed into the words printed before me. I saw through the words, and saw a tall gray stone castle, with towers and a uplifting magical aura. I saw three kids, with a deep lifelong bond, and the evil that threatened to tear them apart. I became one of them, and I couldn't wait for each new installment of their adventure. I grew up on the series, waiting anxiously for the next one to come out, while contemplating what exactly could happen before reading it for myself. Often sitting in class, or up at night just placing myself back into their world, and having my own adventures.
This world, and that boy have been a part of my life for so long that they are as real to me as the computer I type from, or the bedroom I sit in. So understandably, when it was announced that the last book was coming, there was a deep sense of regret as well as a sort of excitment. After all this time we'd get to see a "happily ever after" for the character, but then again there would be no more adventures to look forward to. I was eighteen when the book came out, and I read the whole thing in six hours. When I finished, I cried. It wasn't because it was a sappy sweet happy ending, and everything worked out. I cried for the lives, yes lives not characters, that where killed in the book. Several of them where children that where in the story from the very first book, others where introduced later but where no less lovable or important. I felt a piece of me crumble inside, as I felt a part of me and something ingrained in my being and life end.
Even as it has come to an end, Harry Potter is still one of my main sources of "escape" today. If I'm having a stressful week or just feel like vegging out with something I pick up one of the books. I know them so well that I don't have to concentrate hard reading them, because I almost know them word for word. Everyone has a stress release, sometimes they change from childhood and sometime they don't. I'm grateful for that February day ten years ago when I first picked up that book of magic and wonder. It has been a rock, a security blanket through some of the toughest times in life. While it may be strange to many people that that is what I use, I would say its better than drugs, crimes and other harmful things that are used way to often in our society. What's wrong with a little magic in our life?