As our Digital Storytelling Bootcamp draws to a close, I am saddened, except not really, because now the real fun is going to begin. We all now possess the tools that our professors think are necessary to maintain our very own blog. WOO.

GIF-Mania

This week, we went through the obstacle course that was making a gif. And man, I don’t know about you all, but I spent like a solid 2 and half hours (I know, I am kind of a dumb-dumb) creating that damn gif. Probably because I get in this determined state of mind where I think I can figure stuff out on my own. Alas, creating a gif was not something I was able to figure out all by my lonesome, even with the power of the interwebs on my side. However, I am still pretty pleased with the outcome of my gif:

For two reasons: because I love Fight Club, and because I love this particular scene in Fight Club. So, naturally, I love my gif. I wish I could’ve made it longer, but the whole scene that I wanted to use is about a minute long, and upwards of 100 scenes. Oh well. Anyways, if you want to read about my whole creative process you can read my post about it: http://estotz.com/wordpress/2012/09/08/where-is-my-mind/.

Creative Commons

One of the coolest tools that we were equipped with this week was the knowledge of how we, as digital storytellers can protect our shit. In researching what the what is Creative Commons, we learned about a means of protecting our ideas against thievery. Thank the wee baby Seamus, because no one wants their ideas stolen, and no one wants to accidentally steal someone else’s ideas, although if the latter happened that might actually be kind of crazy, especially if it really was accidental.

Anyways, I wrote all about what the eff Creative Commons is here: http://estotz.com/wordpress/2012/09/09/idea-thievery/. Check it out.

Daily Dose of Creativity

We upped the ante on our Daily Creates this week by two. Of the three, my favorite was take a picture showing the great outdoors. I have a plethora of these photos, but I narrowed it down to one:

I love this photo. I took it while I was at the beach last weekend (VA Beach). It was one of those rainy/overcast days when no one at the beach. I love those days.

The first DC that I did was to take a picture of a spinning object, I didn’t get too fancy here, but I did think my tags were funny (yeah, I crack myself up):

I like to pretend I am Darth Vader sometimes when I initially turn on my fan, which is why I choose to partake in this particular DC.

And finally, I took my most favorite picture of Dave Grohl ever to create the cover of tribute album for the Foo Fighters:

I love this photo, and I love Dave Grohl. It captures the rebellious nature that is inherent in the rock genre and the rebelliousness that I wish I had the balls to possess. I took this picture from a poster that I have hanging in my room, and changed it to grey scale, because I felt that was more fitting than the colored version. So, I didn’t get to creative here, but it is exactly what I would want to see on the cover of a Foo Fighters album. (Here’s to you Dave Grohl, Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, and Pat Smear.)

Customize and Maximize

Guys, we all became our own unique, and individual blogs this week. So cool. I’m going to admit, I changed mine more than once, and all throughout the week before I decided to stick with a pretty low key, and pretty standard looking theme. I think it captures my personality: very straight-forward, fairly simple with an underlying deeper aspect (that’s in the writing). I really do love this theme though. I will probably change it up after a couple months, but for now, it is sublime.

There were a couple of themes that confused me, and made customizing it a little odd. Most of the themes that I ran into did not give me the creative mobility that I wanted, and others were too cluttered. I looked around at some other people’s themes too and I liked what I saw. I think they all turned out pretty different from one another. This makes me feel like a baby bird, flying away from our nest. WEEEE.