Feat. Photographer #9

My featured photographer for this week is Martine Roch, a woman from France. She is an unusual choice for featured photographer because she's not the typical photographer. What she does is takes multiple, seemingly random photos and mashes them together using some sort of photo manipulator. The result is neat and usually abnormal, but I find it impressive. Since I plan on going to art school for either the studio arts or graphic design, her works of art are an inspiration for the seamless photo manipulations that I hope to make sometime in my life. What Miss Roch does is take antique photos and manipulate them so they look brand new. She then takes her own professional animal photos and puts them together. The result is magical, a bit creepy, and yet still memorable. Her photos are copyrighted and I am not able to post them on this site but here is also a link to her Flickr Photostream so that you may check out her work.

Screencast Tutorial

I made this screencast so that those of us doing the Machinima for Mr. Anderson's class will know how to rip DVD footage. Our class needs to convert our DVD footage into computer files so we can use them in Windows Movie Maker. Ripping the file versus screencasting the DVD gives you a much better quality video. The site that you need to download the DVDx program is HERE. I hope this tutorial and program help you make a better quality video. :)



(This video is kind of small and hard to see so HERE is the link to the film in my Blip Channel

Featured Photographer #8

Australia ! Eyre Peninsula South Australia
Originally uploaded by john white photos

This picture is simply amazing! I chose john white as my featured photographer soley because of this picture. At a quick glance I thought that this was a picture of people bending water 'noodles' (if you know what I'm talking about) to say 'Australia'. . . but if you look closer you will see that the letters are created by make-shift torches! This picture is simplified yet soooo hard to capture- it's just the thing I want to learn to do! I would also like to know how to change the lens timer (or whatever it is called) so that I can take picures like this too.

A good resource. . . .

This week's blog will be another short one pertaining to our machinima projects. I want my video to be as exciting to watch as possible for a 17 year old using windows movie maker. That being said: what makes a video exciting? Epicness of course! And what makes a movie epic? More often than not, it's not the actual footage used but the way it corresponds with background music of epic proportions :D. To find said epic music, I simply went to the faithful YouTube and searched 'epic music'. There was a lot to sift through but after a few days of searching, I found one 'artist' that had some great sound clips. They are called Immediate Music and they mix some orchestra, some rock, some techno, and some choral aspects into their songs. All in all: epic. So I'm putting a link to some of their videos on YouTube so some of you guys can use the music too. Just use the Fire Fox Download helper to download the video and then take this downloaded video to Zamzar.com or a similar conversion site to change it into an MP3 file so that you can use it as audio in Windows Movie Maker. If you look on the left under the 'related videos' sidebar you will see a whole bunch of their songs so go check 'em out. I'm sure you will find something great :) The best part is that they want you to use their music so it doesn't infringe any copyrights (even if you weren't putting your own mash-up along with it)

(( By the way. . . I have dibs on 'With Great Power' by Immediate Music so you can't use it for this project ;) ))

Immediate Music of Epic Proportions

Machinima

Since we are starting our machinima project this week, I thought I should look up some examples online for me to base my work off of. I found a lot of good examples. . . and a lot of bad ones. The bad ones had too many voice overs in crappy quality. The creators would have to stop all other audio for the voice overs to be on there too, the result is something obviously fake. The good ones consisted of mostly music and maybe a little bit of dialog that fit in well with the video. These 'good ones' were sort of like movie trailers or video game trailers. After watching all of the videos that I have, I have decided to skip the voice overs from me and get my 'characters' voices from a digital source like another movie or video game. I will also try to make my machinima in movie-trailer fashion. I hope this way my video won't look too hookey but instead look well done and legitimate. I have also been looking up some good epic music to use to make my video more dramatic. :)

Featured Photographer #7

If you think you know the beauty in nature, you're wrong. Just take a look at thrumyeye's gallery. His camera has more than a lens, it has imagination, clarity, and love for all things nature. My words cannot even describe the beauty he manages to capture, you must simply go look for yourself. What originally attracted me to his photography was a picture of a kitten (above). It makes you want to melt in the cuteness. <3

Featured Photographer #6

This is kittysyellowjacket from deviantart.com and she is my featured photographer of the week (okay, last week haha). Her biography wasn't extensive but her name is Kitty and she is mainly self-taught. Her photos are all similar in the coloring that they share. I don't know how else to explain it but it is almost soft and reminiscent-y. I wish I knew how to either take a photo like that or edit a photo to be like that. . . :( Above is a prime example of that 'soft lighting and coloring' look that I like so much.

A Shrimp on a Treadmill

This is by far the most ridiculously random viral video I have ever seen on Youtube. . . Upon thinking, I cannot even remember exactly how it was that I found this but here is the gist of it: Some kid (obviously a stoner, at least at heart)in college decided to do some sort of experiment (lord knows what he was measuring)about a shrimp. So somehow he manages to build an under-water treadmill. He also manages to find a pet shrimp by some means (I suspect black market involvement here). And then- voila! He puts them together and tapes it. A shrimp on a treadmill. Now this video has caught fire in the digital world and this specific user, duffman452001, paired the video with the Benny Hill theme, effectively adding humor to the bizarreness of this video. Watch it, I guarantee it will be the weirdest thing you have every seen.

Featured Photographer #5

My fifth featured photographer is going to be numbpurplehaze (Karolyn Lowe) from the site Deviantart. I just happened to stumble upon her works but quite a few caught my eye such as the following two artworks. She does a lot of black and white pictures but I find her simple use of color to be truly stunning! Miss. Lowe actually lives in North Ireland as is 21 years old. She says that she has only been interested in photography for two years. . . as you can see from her photos she must have a natural gift.

I encourage you to take a gander at her Deviant art page found here.

The Vampire's Assistant-weekly blog

This weekend I went to the theatre to see the movie Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant- something I was quite excited about. When I first saw the trailer for this movie when I was last in the theatre I predicted that this movie would be full of stupid humor that was (get this) actually funny unlike many of the 'funny' movies that have come out as of late. Even though humor and vampires aren't usually mixed together and stupid humor isn't generally my thing, I thought that going to this movie would be worth my while as it was derived from a book series. So here I was- all excited this weekend for this movie. . . and when I left the theatre I wasn't massively disappointed (something that is a rare feeling after the more recent films that have been released in the shabby Red Wing Theatre.)
This film consisted of a fairly predictable plot, graphics that were shaky at best, typical character stereotypes, and it's 'meaning' was barely grazed over. What pulled this movie off was (shockingly) John C. Reilly. Yes- that actor from Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and Walk Hard. He helped pull the subtle humor along but he also impressed me with acting skills I didn't realize he had. Of course there were moments where I thought to myself 'Yep, this guy is acting' but there were also great moments where you could clearly see the character he was portraying. He was serious and had a cleverly done dead-pan humor, but he also didn't completely hold the center of the screen to himself, he also 'pointed' my eyes to the direction of the main protagonist, Darren the 'seventeen-year-old-going-on-immortal'. The way they played off of each other was nice and helped make watching that movie worth the 8 bucks. Another winning point for this movie: Josh Hutcherson, another young actor who is well on his way to developing into a Hollywood treasure. I must warn this however; if you are not as obsessed with vampire culture and fantasy genres as I am, then this is not a movie you are going to want to watch as the graphics and some characters require a very imaginative person to appreciate the story and what they are trying to portray.