Artist's Perspective: Multimedia (sp08)

Review of course objectives, readings, assignments, projects, and grading.

Examples of student blogs and projects:

Situational Tour
Soundscape
Media Appropriation

Overview of blogging as a medium for research, discourse, and documentation.

Setup blogs in blogger.com and review the form for writing summaries of readings and projects. Input blog URL's into the class syllabus. Topic for first entry: Based on the viewing of student work, ask a question that challenges how we can think of multimedia as a form of artistic expression. What in your opinion is the criteria for creating art with new media? Can we think of the computer as an artistic tool or medium? Respond briefly to your own question. Somewhere in your entry, add a link to the course syllabus. Be sure and tab your browser to switch back and forth between the "compose" page and the "view" page. Also, send me your email address while you are at the computer.

Discussion of blog question/responses to multimedia as an artistic medium.

Software used in course by project: (1) Firefox, Photoshop; (2) Soundtrack; (3) Final Cut Pro, Compressor, above; (4) DVD Studio Pro, above. Overview of lab software.

Required resources: minimum 120 Gb Firewire drive. The recommended drive for class use is the Western Digital Passport. Purchase a pair of headphones or use your earpod. Also, bring a looseleaf notebook to class for handouts along with a blank book for notes and sketching. You will need all of these items no later than Tuesday, January 22. I will give credit to everyone who follows through in time.

Required Reading, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality
order on-line through Amazon.com so that you have your copy no later than next Tuesday, January 22. As a resource we will use the Multimedia Website throughout the semester.

Center for Teaching Excellence New Media Center is a resource for projects and assistance.

Assignment (due Jan 18th): Reading: "Birth of a New Medium," from the Overture, of Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality. Blog a question/reaction to this reading on the history of the personal computer.

Question/Reaction - After reading the article thoroughly, writing down notes as you read, begin your entry with a question, followed by a brief response of 100 - 200 words. In class, we will share your questions and students will be called on to respond. Your blog entry will be a part of your grade for class participation.

Discussion of the essential forms of multimedia: today we will explore interactivity, and the history of the personal computer as outlined in the Birth of a New Medium.

Review of student questions.

Concepts: hyperlink, hypermedia, hypertext, cybernetics, computer symbiosis, augmentation of human intellect, dynabook, and the graphical user interface.

What does interactivity introduce to the creation and experience of art? A look at contemporary media artists who have exploited the paradigm of interactivity to create new forms.

Golan Levin: Telesymphony & Yellowtail
Randall Packer, Ken Goldberg, Gregory Kuhn, et. al., Mori: An Internet Earthwork

After viewing these works, how does the computer function not just as a tool for creating digital images or sounds, but as a medium? What is a medium?

Overview of the Situational Tours project, examples from past students, google mapping, selecting a site, etc.

Advanced blogging technique: embedding Google maps.

Reading: Randall Packer & Ken Jordan, from the Overture: Integration of the Arts, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality

Reading Assignment (due 1/22): Blog entry - Question/Reaction to the "Integration of the Arts" section of the Overture, Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality
Project Assignment (due 1/22): Blog entry - Choose and Google map a location for the Situational Tours project and describe the location in relation to the four keywords (see description below).

Continue reading "Forms of Multimedia" »

The integration of image and text will be applied through the construction of narrative using the concept of the "Situational Tours." Discussion of narrative strategies that involve the interplay between image and text: descriptive, fantasy, socio-cultural, political, etc.

Presentation of Situational Tours locations and Google Maps. How do the locations correspond to the keywords: ritual, ideology, security, authority

Techniques for basic photo corrections in Photoshop.

Hands-on Tutorial
Chapter 2: Classroom in a Book, Photoshop CS3

Assignment (due Fri. 1/25): Situational Tour project: photograph your location and bring images to class, ready for upload.

Continue reading "Media Integration" »

Review the use of the on-line syllabus.

Discussion of the "Overture: Integration of the Arts" essay from Multimedia. Blog questions from reading.

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) - Introduction to Wagner's concept of the gesamtkunstwerk (total art work) and how we can apply it to contemporary notions of digital multimedia.

Final Management: Organization of imagery in folders

Work on Situational Tour projects: upload images from photo shoots, apply adjustments in Photoshop, particularly the auto-adjustments and Levels to fine tune contrast. If you want to go beyond simple touch-up, you may increase highlights and saturation with the dodge and sponge tool as you did in the tutorial. Also, prepare your images for upload to the Blog: be sure your resolution is 72dpi, the image is no larger 1000 pixels in width (landscape) or 1000 pixels in height (portrait). Make sure images are straightened if crooked and that you have considered cropping to improve or alter the composition. Decide on final images and order of images. I recommend 10 - 12 images total.

Assignment (due Tuesday, Jan. 29): All of your images need to be fully adjusted and ready for upload to your blog. With the order of your images determined, write a first draft of your narrative (Word document) , drawing from the notes that you took during the photo shoot. Keep the texts short and concise (approx. 25 - 50 words per image). By class on Tuesday, your narrative should be drafted and your images ready for upload. You will work on your blogs during class time.

Continue reading "Situational Tours" »

Work on Situational Tours projects

Upload your images and text to blogs. We will discuss issues of formatting, alignment, in the organization of image and text for your situational tours.

Main points to keep in mind:

-- be sure to use Firefox, Safari has bugs with Blogger
-- insert all of your images and text into a single entry.
-- your narrative should unfold in "ascending order," top to bottom chronologically
-- when you insert a new image, it will appear on top, cut and paste it to the bottom
-- use medium size for your image, alignment is up to you, but center works well
-- format your text using typographical settings: font, color, bold, italic, etc.
-- limit text to 50 words per entry, check your spelling (note red underline) and use spell checker
-- use links if relevant

Take a look at my example.

Assignment (due Friday, Feb. 1): complete Situational Tour and prepare for critique

Presentation of the Situational Tours project.

For the critique (10 minutes maximum), be prepared to walk us through your situational tour, discuss the narrative and how you approached the assignment. Most importantly, be prepared to discuss how the project incorporate the keyword(s) (security, authority, ritual, ideological). How did the project change your view or perception of the location you chose, do you see it differently now? How so? I also expect the class to ask questions and offer commentary on one another's work.

Criteria for grading include the following: conceptual, aesthetic, narrative, technical, process, and ability to articulate the result. Most important is the ability to conceive an idea and follow through on the execution. With the Situational Tours, I will look at how you developed the initial keywords, however abstract; the quality of the photographs and their manipulation; how the narrative engages us and is thought provoking; and overall technical proficiency, taking into account that some have more experience than others.

Reading assignment (due Friday, Feb. 8: John Cage, "Diary: Audience 1966" (Integration chapter)

Blog Assignment (due Friday, Feb. 8): question + reaction to "Diary: Audience 1996"

ANNOUNCEMENT: See U23D for the latest in 3D filmmaking. Showing at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibility of men.

An introduction to compositional technique that involves the control and manipulation of time in the medium of sound. Each student will develop a project in the form of the "soundscape," a sonic construction that explores the spatial, temporal and narrative possibilities of audio space.

Introduction to the art of sound. Artists move across the boundaries of discipline without shifting their strategies. Conceptual approaches are reapplied to the medium of sound. In this assignment, we will explore sound art as a complex narrative medium situated in both physical and virtual space.

Project II: Each student will create a "soundscape," an audio environment based on the interpretation of a chosen locale or space using the form and process of the "situational tour."

Examples of Sound Art
Discuss walkthrough recordings
Review recording technique

-- setting up a digital audio recorder
-- use of a microphone
-- recording fundamentals
-- transferring files to the computer

Hands-On Tutorial
Apple Pro Training Series: Soundtrack Pro
Chapter 5: Using Soundtrack Pro's Editing Tools

Continue reading "Soundscape" »

We will have a shortened class due to the President's Inauguration. We will go over recording technique and answer questions about Soundtrack.

Class will be from 9:30 - 10:20.

Discussion of John Cage and his essay, "Diary: Audience 1966"

"We used to have the artist up on a pedestal, now he is no more extraordinary than we are." How does interactive multimedia change the relationship between the artist and the viewer?

"Do you love the audience? We do. We do it by getting out of the way... each individual free to lend his attention wherever we will."

Performance of John Cage's 4'33"

Concept for narrative in sound:

This work transitions from the real to the imaginary, from the everyday to surreal, from waking to the dream state. How is this achieved. How does the narrative gradually transition from one to the other? Which sounds are used to construct the space of the real and which draw you into the space of the imagination.

"Sircis/Ulna" by Randall Packer & Belén García-Alvarado

access to Audio Tech Sound Library

-- Command K (Go to Server)
-- afp://musictech.katzen.american.edu
-- slguest, slguest

Work on Soundscape projects. For today's session:

Import your sounds into Soundtrack, lay them out chronological to begin with, and apply markers that designate points of interest. As you notice a narrative emerge, make a new copy of your Soundtrack file with sounds and markers, and cut the sounds, re-arrange them, shorten them, so that the overall length of the piece is between 2 and 4 minutes. If you still have time, import sounds from the Audio Tech library and place them into new tracks to transform and heighten specific moments in the piece. These sounds can be similar or contrasted, but find those that add interesting textures and help articulate sound events. You can also layer sounds within your recording to thicken or elongate the textures.

Continue reading "Soundscape" »

Work on Soundscape Projects

First, be sure you have organized your files into a project folder, have placed your original sounds in a sub folder (including atech library sounds), and that your Soundtrack file(s) are in the root folder of your project folder. Don't move files around or you will lose the connection between the project file and the sound files.

With sounds imported, marked, and condensed into a 1 - 2 minute time duration, determine the narrative ideas you want to explore and elaborate. How can the piece depart from the original? Which sounds can be extracted and further layered? Are there sounds from the library you would like to add? Are you achieving an interesting continuity between sounds? Does the narrative draw you into the sonic space you are constructing?

As you expand the piece into additional tracks with excerpts of sounds, new sounds, etc., use the volume and pan controls to mix the amplitude levels and stereo placement respectively. Use these controls to highlight certain sounds. The controls can be used dynamically to create change over time.

As an optional technique, explore the effects. Try adding reverberation to one of your tracks to create atmosphere. The delay effect will give you an echo quality. The Channel EQ can be used to emphasize high or low frequencies. Try experimenting with effects, but I suggest you first established the overall mix, amplitude levels, panning, and textural qualities.

When you have reached the end of a draft stage, do a "save as" to create a new revision of the work. This way, if you make a mistake that is difficult to undo, you can always go back to a previous version or copy a section from a previous version.

Prepare for the critique of the Soundcape. We will cover the following topics:

-- Bouncing final mix to stereo sound file in Soundtrack Pro
-- Creating title screen for video
-- Exporting video from Final Cut Pro
-- Upload video to blog

Continue reading "Preparation of Soundscape" »

Work on Soundscape project.

Critique of the Soundcape project.

Regarding tomorrow's critique: we will play your sound pieces from the exported sound file, not the Blog upload, in order they are of the highest quality. In case you are having problems with the Web upload, don't worry, just make sure you have your export ready to go for tomorrow. I will though do my final grading with your blog version, so you need to finish that by early Wednesday at the latest.

Be prepared to discuss your piece: I am interested in where it was recorded and why you chose that particular location. I am also interested in how you transformed the original and where, sonically, you are taking the listener. What I am looking for is a verbal explanation of how you are transporting the listener to your sound world, what should we be experiencing as we listen/follow/react to the narrative of your soundscape. In answering these questions, you might consider the connections you have created from one sound to the next. Which sounds are most important and how did you emphasize them? How do the effects enhance the experience: reverb, eq, etc. How did you conclude the piece, what changed during the course of the work from the listener's perspective, have you taken us from one place to another. All grist for the mill....

No assignment for Friday.

Complete soundscape critiques

In preparation for the exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum, we will discuss concepts in contemporary video art and survey examples of works by artists in the exhibition: The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image. Everyone is responsible for visiting the Hirshhorn on Friday, March 7th. See the syllabus on that day for details.

"... a revolutionary solution that each of us become a manipulator, in the sense of an active operator... pass from the status of receiver to that of producer-transmitter." - Jean Baudrillard, Requiem for the Media (1970s)

How soon artists will have their own TV channels? - Nam June Paik (1973)

Midterm Writing Assignment I (due Tuesday, March 18): Everyone will write a blog response to today's lecture and the exhibition at the Hirshhorn in the form of a hyperessay that summarizes the following question: In the age of YouTube, a vast repository of video that serves as a 24/7 channel accessible via the Web, (1) how does the medium differ from broadcast television, (2) what is its impact on the creation and distribution of video art, and (3) what are the political and social ramifications of the broad distribution of video art? (4) Describe one work in the Hirshhorn show that demonstrates an innovative form of video art, explain why. Your response needs to be approx. 500 words. Refer to concepts discussed in class, but use image stills and/or embedded YouTube video examples of works not shown in class to express your point. Use YouTube and Google image search mechanisms to find examples that illustrate your essay. A hyperessay is an essay that includes not just words, but also other forms of hypermedia: image, sound, video, animation, and links.

Discussion of introductory text by Hirshhorn video curator Kelly Gordon.

Discussion of works featured on YouTube as well as video artists from the exhibition, The Cinema Effect: Illusion, Reality, and the Moving Image: Tony Oursler, Gary Hill, Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler:

Continue reading "Video Art" »

Max Perry, artist and AU MFA graduate student will discuss political art, including his own daring adventures into subversive, political cartoons.

This will be followed by the Steve Dietz Lecture / 12:00 pm - 1:15 pm / Recital Hall, Katzen Arts Center. In the year of US National elections and particularly the major party nominating conventions, Steve Dietz will discuss how participatory media can be used creatively to unscript the political process. Dietz is the founding artistic director of the ZeroOne Global Festival of Art on the Edge in San Jose, California and former New Media Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Midterm Writing Assignment 2 (due Tuesday, March 18): write a blog entry of approx. 250 words that describes in your own words what Steve Dietz means by "unscripting the political process." How do artists effect political change or alter political thinking through their work? Use one of the examples of an artist project from Dietz' lecture, as well as Max Perry’s introductory lecture, to illustrate your point.

Class will begin at 11:00 AM on Tuesday, March 4th. Everyone will attend the lecture by Steve Dietz beginning at 12:00 pm. If possible, please make arrangements to attend the whole lecture if you have a class afterwards.

THE CINEMA EFFECT: ILLUSION, REALITY, AND THE MOVING IMAGE
PART I: DREAMS

Exhibition lecture by Randall Packer, 11:00 am or 12:30 pm
Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
Choose either time depending on whether or not you have a class afterwards.
Attendance is mandatory!

Dreams, addresses film’s ability to transport us out of our everyday lives and into a dream world. Using a series of artists’ installations, the exhibition moves us through the different stages of consciousness and dreaming, from those moments between wakefulness and sleep to the darker recesses of the imagination and fantasy.

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is located on the National Mall in downtown Washington, DC, at the corner of Seventh Street SW and Independence Avenue. West of the US Capitol and east of the Washington Monument, it is the round building next to the Smithsonian's red brick Arts and Industries building.

NEAREST METRO STOP
L'Enfant Plaza (Blue, Orange, Yellow, and Green lines). Use the Smithsonian Museums exit to Maryland Avenue and Seventh Street SW.

Project III: The Political Advertisement

Appropriating and remixing found imagery from the Web, create a political advertisement for one of the three candidates for President of the United States. The ad needs to be exactly 30 seconds in length. I want you to create an ad that is topical in terms of the current political condition: war in Iraq, economy, environment, terrorism, or other relevant issues. The purpose of this assignment is to understand how media is used to effect public opinion, and how artists utilize media techniques for purposes of political propaganda.

For this project, I want you consider the methods utilized by the political campaigns to change public perception. Engage these techniques by creating your own propaganda. You are going to sell America’s next President. You choose the reason, the rationale, the purpose. Using images that belong to the Wikimedia Commons, images of war, pollution, oil refineries, or any image that conveys a selling point that illustrates the issue you want to address. Satire is encouraged, though your might also be deadly serious. We will look at several ads and show how propaganda for political purposes is constructed.

The objective is to understand the process of how political candidates are sold to the public through media and propaganda as a technique to change perception and develop the image of the candidate.

The first step in the project is to choose a candidate you want to support. Then decide which issue you want to use to sell your candidate. Choose your message, your angle, your selling points. For Friday, write a blog entry that includes the following: (1) your candidate; (2) the issue you think best represents your candidate; (3) a compelling campaign slogan, such as Obama's "Yes We Can" that articulates your candidate's view of the issue; (4) one downloaded image that conveys the issue (i.e. an oil refinery that expresses the gas crisis, or a windmill that expresses an environmental solution, or perhaps a terrorist if you are using the issue of national security.

Your 30 second political ad will be made up only of still images and text. On Friday, we will discuss the next phase of the project, which is to script your ad.

Techniques in Final Cut Pro: sequence settings, importing video, cut and paste, speed alteration, working with video and sound independently, exporting.

Hands-On Tutorial
Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 6
Chapter 2: Editing Clips in the Timeline

Continue reading "Project III: The Political Advertisement" »

Once you have chosen a candidate, developed a stylistic approach (satire, heroic, attack, etc.), and constructed your message and slogan, you need to download images. The scripting process will be done in conjunction and in response to the appropriation of still imagery. The first step is to search through Wikipedia for appropriate imagery that conforms to your message and approach. You can also use the rest of the Web, but keep in mind, if you were doing this professionally, that might be illegal.

Appropriation and video editing of downloaded imagery

The following is a sequence of steps that will enable you to appropriate imagery and transfer it to the sequence in Final Cut Pro:

-- download your images through Wikipedia and be sure the images have the Wikimedia Commons tag. You can use other images, but for future professional projects, this may not be legal.
-- choose images that are as large as possible, ideally minimum 720 width 480 height, but smaller will also work, though you will see some degradation of the image
-- download your images into your project folder in a subfolder entitled "downloaded images" (do not alter these images, they are the originals)
-- open a downloaded file in Photoshop
-- open the new file menu, choose the film & video preset, and select the NTSC DV size (720 X 480), give it a name and click OK
-- save this empty template into your project folder in another subfolder entitled "video images" as a photoshop file (.psd)
-- transfer the image from the original downloaded file into the template by dragging the former's layer into the latter's window.
-- resize the image using the edit/free transform function so that it fits the 720 X 480 window. a portion of the image may need to be cropped in the process
-- in the template image, choose the layer menu and select flatten image

The file is now ready to be imported into Final Cut Pro, where the dimensions of the image will be resized for the 4:3 aspect ratio of NTSC. Although this is not important for a video that will be placed on the Web, we are learning this technique for our final project, which will be placed on DVD and needs to be in the NTSC format. Note the following steps in Final Cut Pro:

-- be sure you have selected your Firewire drive as the scratch disk (this is where rendered files will be stored). Create a folder entitled Final Cut Documents and select this folder in file/system settings/scratch disk.
-- create a bin in the browser window, import your video images into the bin, and place them into a sequence to begin experimenting with the order. Name your sequence.

Once you have downloaded all of your images, develop a short text that will be used as your script. Look at some of the political ads we viewed in class to get a feel for the genre. Look through YouTube or the candidate's Web sites for additional examples. Keep your text to a minimum. Probably 1 - 3 complete sentences that are broken out into sections will do. Example from "Children" ad:

It's 3am and your children are safe and asleep... but there's a phone in the White House and its ringing... something's happening in the world... your vote will decide who answers that call... whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders, knows the military, someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world... it's 3am and your children are safe and asleep... who do you want answering the phone. I'm Hillary Clinton and I approve this message.

Next week we will work on the incorporation of the text into your video projects. For next Tuesday, have all your images downloaded, converted to NTSC templates, imported into your Final Cut Pro project, and placed into a sequence so you can get a feel for the order and pacing. Write a rough draft of your text. During class next Tuesday, you will place your text into the sequence as written text.

Work on political advertisement project

Additional video editing techniques:

-- opacity, option-w to turn on envelop, pen tool to create breakpoints, use to fade clips in and out, option click with pen tool to clear, use the point tool to adjust between 0 to 100
-- generate text, pull down text generator menu from lower right hand corner of viewer window, choose text/text, click on "controls" tab, and input text. Remember you have to create line breaks manually
-- clip on "video" tab and drag the text screen to the browser window, give it a name and place it in a text folder
-- open the text file again in the browser window by double clicking on it and set the duration
-- place the text file into the sequence
-- in the canvas window, be sure the top right menu is set to image+wireframe
-- you can now drag the text to place it exactly where you want vertically (be sure you have the time cursor over the text and you double click on it so that the canvas and viewer are synchronized)
-- click the "motion" tab in the viewer window to see exactly where your clip is positioned, to precisely center, be sure the left field of "center" to 0

-- transitions can also be used from one clip to the next, go to effect video transitions to select one. To apply, adjoin two clips and select between them so that the edges of both clips are highlighted, select a transition, adjust the length of the transition by dragging either outer edge
-- transitions will often require rendering, choose, sequence, render all/both or option-r
-- place your text file on top of an image to create a new video track, be sure the text file is "opened" in both the canvas and the viewer by double clicking on it, position the text where you want it (note the "center position)
-- choose the "motions" tab in the viewer window to add a drop shadow, adjust the parameters according to taste
-- the text file can also be faded along with the image files

Music

-- you can choose background music from the "Associated Production Music" in the musictext sound library or from whatever source you want
-- preview the music in the preview mode of the finder window
-- copy the music file to your project folder into a subfolder entitled "sound"
-- import the music file into Final Cut pro and place it in a bin entitled "sound"
-- drag the music file on to the audio tracks, these files are six channels but don't worry about that, place the sound where you want it and be sure you set the duration to end with the political end
-- fade the audio in or end just like opacity, render the audio, render all/audio

More advanced

-- to add sounds from the Web, such as political speeches, use a search such as 'Obama audio' which would result in something like this Senate speech.
-- play the sound file so that you get the Quicktime (Q) logo and then when it is done downloading, select the lower right menu "Save as Quicktime Movie" and add the file to your project
-- integrate the speech into your sequence, you might use Reverberation (Effects/Audio Filters/Final Cut Pro) and adjust the parameters to get something realistic sounding.

Critique of the Political Ad project

Export videos and compress prior to critique

Please Note: Class will begin at 11:00 AM on Tuesday, April 1st. Max Perry will give an introductory lecture. Everyone will then attend the lecture by myself beginning at 12:00 pm in the Recital Hall, Katzen Arts Center. If possible, please make arrangements to attend the whole lecture if you have a class afterwards. Ask questions! The lecture will conclude at 1:15 pm.

Colloquium Lecture: Randall Packer, 12:00 noon - 1:15 pm

3rd Writing Assignment

Writing Assignment 3 (due Friday, April 5): write a blog entry of approx. 250 words that describes the effects of what I refer to as “artistic mediation.” Now that you have created a political ad, how can artists effect political change or alter political thinking through their work?

Refer to specific examples from my speech/performance, “Speech for the Last Day in America.” The work is a narrative account of a rogue artist/political official, the Secretary-at-Large of the US Department of Art & Technology. After futile attempts to save the nation through the creation of a virtual government agency in the aftermath of September 11th, the Secretary-at-Large chronicles its ruin as he descends into the underworld of America.

Discussion of "Artistic Mediation" and the "Speech for the Last Day in America"

Final Project: Interactive DVD Composition

The final project for the course will be open in terms of subject matter. The form of the piece will be an interactive DVD with a branching/non-linear narrative. This involves the creation of video "vignettes," short video pieces with optional still images that are viewed in anu order to be determined by the viewer. The goal of the project is to learn how non-linear form, specific to multimedia, impacts the narrative of an artwork, and how the viewer experiences this narrative through their interaction and participation in the work.

Branching narrative - Involves a starting point followed by a sequence of choices that branch out in multiple directions. The story may have an ending, but can also direct the viewer back to the starting point.

-- Examples of student work from last semester

-- Examples of projects by artists:

My Boyfriend Came Home From the War by Olia Lianina
Grammatron by Mark Amerika
The Experimental Party by Randall Packer

In class brainstorming session:

Individually: (1) Develop an idea for your project and write an approx. 100 word summary and post on your blog

How do we break our concept down into modular sections? Discussion of the essential components of an interactive DVD in DVD Studio Pro: menus, tracks, slide shows. View Mori example. View Bible Belt example. Example of two projects in DVD Studio Pro: documentation of Mori and the Situational Tour of the Bible Belt.

Collective Work Session: (2) the class will together propose ideas for breaking down the narrative concepts into "vignettes" that explore a non-linear way of navigating the work. You may decide to change your concept, the objective of this work session is to give you insight as to how to break down a narrative idea into non-linear sections.

Techniques for creating a flowchart in Photoshop. View image

Project Assignment (due Tuesday, April 8) create a flowchart of your work that breaks it down into the main menu and tracks and slideshows, post on your blog

Reading Assignment (due Tuesday, April 8) Fantasy Beyond Control by Lynn Hershman, from Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, article #32. Post a question with short summary of the essay on your blog.

Continue reading "Final Project" »

Discussion of Lynn Hershman's "Fantasy Beyond Control" and her use of interactive multimedia techniques.

Strategies for filming video vignettes

From your storyboard flowchart, you will construct short video vignettes for the construction of your project. Each of the vignettes will be a video sequence the viewer will experience as a part of the overall narrative. Keep them short, approximately 30" - 2' in length. I would recommend creating between 5 and 10 vignettes depending upon the requirements of your piece.

Discussion of video camera technique, including: holding the camera, focusing, lighting, and sound. Be sure you have checked out a video camera for the week of Tuesday, April 8 - Monday, April 14 from the New Media Center. Also, purchase minimum 2 DV tapes for your project. They are not available at the New Media Center, I recommend going to Best Buy, where they cost approximately $5 per tape. They are even cheaper in quantities of 3 or more. You can also get them at CVS or Radio Shack stores. Possibly in the AU bookstore.

Hands-on Tutorials
Apple Pro Training Series - Final Cut Pro
Lesson 12: Changing Motion Properties

Concepts: reverse, slow/fast motion, in/out points on timeline, ripple edit, fit to fill edit (takes the source clip and alters its speed to fit between clips, freeze frame, insert edit (pushes clip forward when dropped in), overwrite edit (writes over clip when dropped in), run-freeze (clip plays to freeze point), run-freeze-run (clip play to freeze, then plays again), motion settings: scale / center point / crop, copy attributes (copy motion settings from one clip to another), split screen, opacity (transparency).

Stop at Animating Motion Parameters

Assignment (due Friday, April 11): Narrative Outline - Brief descriptions of each of the narrative sections of the piece. Concisely explain what is taking place in the scene. Describe the location, time of day, where you plan to place the camera, action that will take place, lighting if important, are there characters, will you place the camera on a tripod or will it be handheld, camera movement (panning, jerky, walking, etc.). If you shoot your video before Friday, bring it to class so you can begin the capture process.

Continue reading "Video Vignettes" »

For those who have already shot footage, each student will transfer footage to disk with the DV deck, using timecode (00:00:00:00; hours:minutes:seconds:frames) to log material, and begin the process of creating sequences for each vignette.

Discussion and review of narrative outlines.

For those who have not yet shot video, work on:

Hands-on Tutorials
Apple Pro Training Series - Final Cut Pro
Lesson 13: Applying Filters

Video Filter techniques: applying filters (kaleidoscope, insect eye, view finder, bloom (glow), blink, flop, mirror, earthquake, replicate), modifying filter parameters, copy/paste filters, audio filters (gain, normalization, reverb), creating favorites, three-way color correction (hue, saturation, brightness, blacks, mids, whites), frame viewer, animating filters (keyframes, envelopes), mattes, mask shapes

Production Schedule for Final Project

Friday, 4/11 - Draft of narrative outline completed, Filters tutorial

You should have a drafted narrative outline of each video vignette. See previous class for details.

Tuesday, 4/15 - Completed shooting / logging and capture, scenic construction

This involves logging all your media and creating separate sequences for each video vignette so that you can edit them independently of one another.

Friday, 4/18 - Work on scenic editing (individual vignettes), with audio

We will devote a full session to editing video vignettes. Be prepared to incorporate filters, audio, color correction and any other special effects. The videos should be nearly completed by the following Friday.

Tuesday, 4/22 - DVD Studio Pro tutorial, menu and button design

We will work on a tutorial for DVD Studio Pro and go over the design of menus.

Friday, 4/25 - Complete menus, export videos into mpeg 2, build DVD

Menus and compressed video needs to be ready for import into DVD Studio Pro, we will review the programming for buttons, starting and ending jumps, etc. We will also review building/burning DVDs

Friday, 5/2 - Final critique

All projects must be ready for playback on disc.

Overview of logging & capturing techniques. Each student will transfer footage to disk with the DV deck, using timecode (00:00:00:00; hours:minutes:seconds:frames) to log material. If you only have one or two tapes, you can either capture the whole tape to your firewire drive, or just sections you want to use.

By the end of class, your project should be fully captured, logged and organized into scenes or vignettes. Continuing the editing of each scene, applying filters and color correction where needed. Plan on completing a draft of each of the vignettes by the next class, including audio.

Continue reading "Logging, Capturing" »

We will devote a full session to editing video vignettes. Be prepared to incorporate filters, audio, color correction and any other special effects. The videos should be in draft form by the end of class. Break your scenes down into separate sequences so that you can edit them independently of one another.

Techniques for importing, organizing, and programming your media in DVD Studio Pro. It is important to have your flowcharts as a reference to determine exactly how many video clips, menus, slideshow graphics etc., you will need for your DVD.

Steps for the preparation of media for your DVD projects

-- (Photoshop) creating menus: for each menu, you will need to create an image template that conforms to the aspect ratio of either 4:3 or 16:9, depending on how you shot your video, for consistency between menus and videos. Create file/new, film and video preset, NTSC DV or NTSC DV Widescreen.

-- (Final Cut) creating menu image: one way of generating an image for your menu is to export a still image from one of your videos. Be sure it is not so busy it will compete visually with your buttons and text. Locate the frame, , choose export/quicktime conversion, select still image from the format image, click on "options," and choose Photoshop as the format, save the file (it will add the .psd suffix).

-- (Photoshop) transferring video image to template: drag the layer from the video still into your template. If you are using 16:9, and the still doesn't confirm to the full width, then turn on transform and stretch the image to the full width.

-- (Photoshop) deinterlacing video still: video images may have artifacts from interlacing, if so, choose filters/ntsc/de-interlacing to clean up the image. If you don't see the difference, then don't use it.

-- (Photoshop) flattening image: save a copy (keep your original with layers) and flatten in the image in the layer image. DVD Studio Pro can't read the image unless the layers are flattened.

-- (Compressor) compressing video: all of your final or drafted video sequences should be compressed to mpeg-2 and ac3 audio. There are two files (video and audio) for each video sequence.

-- (Photoshop) slide show images: if you have a slide show, all of your images should be placed in video templates at the correct aspect ration (see above). Be sure and place these images in their own folder to simplify their import.

-- (DVD Studio Pro) importing assets: you are now ready to import all of your menu, video, and slide show assets into DVD Studio Pro. Create a new DSP file. In Windows/Configurations, choose "advanced configurations." In the assets tab (lower left) click on import and select your final menu(s), video and audio files, and the slideshow folder.

-- (DVD Studio Pro) placing menu assets: drag your menu to the menu icon in the "graphical" tab in the upper left hand area. Double-click on the icon and go to the "menu" tab of the inspector in the lower right hand area, selected your aspect ratio under "display mode." Choose 16:9 pan-scan for 16:9.

-- (DVD Studio Pro) placing video assets: drag one pair of video assets into the track icon, double-click and select the appropriate aspect ration in "display mode." For all additional videos, create new tracks by click on the "add track" button on the upper menu and follow the same procedure for placing assets and setting the display mode. You can click on the play button in the viewer to view your movie.

-- (DVD Studio Pro) placing slide show assets: create a new "slide show" track in the upper menu, drag your entire slide show folder into the icon, double click on the icon to view the list of images. Set the aspect ratio in the "display mode" in the inspector. You can change the order of the slides by dragging the image icons around. You can set the durations by selecting the image and entering a new duration in the menu above, and you can determine whether or not the slides will advance manually or automatically by selecting the check box in the right column.

Continuation of DVD Authoring: compression, creation of buttons, programming connections between media.

-- Creating buttons: in the palette menu, select shapes/apple and browse through the many shapes you can use as buttons. Some work better than others. Here are some useful ones: "simple button" (for rectangular shapes); "rect24x3p white" (for underline shape); "rect round window border highlight" (for placing a video). Drag the shape to your menu, hold until the menu appears, and select "create button." You can then resize the button to any size you want. I recommend copying and pasting the same button (after it is programmed) for the remainder of your buttons to keep them uniform.

-- Programming a simple button: with a button selected, go to the inspector and do the following: give the button a name; place text in the text window if you need a name; set the text position and text offset to precisely place it. In the colors tab you can set specific colors for "selected" and "hilite." It is best to leave the "normal" transparent with the slider all the way to the left at 0. Finally, set the target to the track it links to from the target menu.

-- Placing a video in a button: if you want to have a video loop in your button, drag the video (.m2v) from the assets menu into the appropriate button (see above), hold the mouse down, and select "set asset." Programming the button is the same as above, except you can adjust the video by setting the "start frame." Also, set the end point in the menu inspector to control the duration of the menu loop (leave the start point at 0).

-- Drop zone: if you want a video to play on your menu, but it is not a button, drag the video from the assets to the menu, hold down the mouse, and select "create drop zone." Just as you might have done above, set the "start frame" to control where the video will start. It will also loop according to the duration of the menu (see above).

-- Additional programming: to set the first play, where the DVD goes when it is loaded, click on the "outline" tab next to the "graphical menu," and choose the disc icon. This brings up the disc inspector where you set the "first play." In each of the tracks, go to the track inspector and set the "end jump" to target back to the menu. Do this for each of the tracks.

-- Testing: first, click on the simulator and go through all the content of your DVD, making sure it "loads" properly, all the buttons are fully functional, and the end jumps go back to the menu. When you are satisfied that everything works, create a "build." Go to file/advanced burn/build to start the process. This creates the final DVD on your hard drive. Be sure you do this in your DVD folder. When finished, open DVD Player from the Applications folder, select file/Open DVD Media, and then select the "video_TS" folder and hit the choose button. You may need to click on the start button on the DVD Player remote to "load" the DVD. Go through your DVD again making sure that everything works. When all is working, you are almost done!

-- burn the DVD: go to file/advanced burn/format and click on the "burn" button. DVD Studio Pro will ask you to insert a DVD disc (use DVD-R), and if everything is done properly, it should burn the disc. Once the disc is ready, insert it back in the computer and run one more test with DVD Player. If it works...

Congratulations!! You are now officially a multimedia artist.

Critique of final project