Part of the ds106 assignments this week includes doing pre-production work on two video assignments.

The first video assignment I chose to do was Return to the Silent Era. To get an idea of how to do the assignment, and what it should look and feel like in the end, I checked out Silent Star Wars and CogDog’s own Silent Harry.  These gave me a good idea what to aim for with my own final product, and helped give me some ideas going into mine.  I appreciated the clarity of the attributions at the end of CogDog’s clip, as that helped me understand what that writing at the end was supposed to be – it was completely illegible in Silent Star Wars.

Call me sappy, but I decided I really wanted to do Moulin Rouge for this assignment.  I didn’t want to do that, though, if it was already over-used.  I went through the assignments submitted already for quite a ways, and didn’t find a single one, so…it is decided.

Finding a clip from this movie was harder than I expected – the copyright hounds have been on the hunt for this movie.  But I found two to choose from, and I’m excited.  The clothing and setting make this movie a perfect candidate for a throwback style, and the movie already incorporates a lot of that kind of feel into it, so I plan to copy their style as much as possible during production.  Black-and-white is a must, of course, and I like Alan’s trick from Silent Harry, of reducing saturation to nothing so that other effects can be used.  I plan to use that and play with other effects.

I have to admit, though, I did end up finding several clips, and have yet to choose one.  That will be tough.  So I’m not linking to the clip just yet.

The other assignment I chose to do is Redub the Audio.  I LOVED the example from The Network.  I don’t know if that’s because I love the original so much, or what.  But I really thought it was clever and well-done, anyway, although I do think this redub will mean more to those who have seen the original scene and movie.  Maybe that’s the point.

With that thought in mind, I chose to redub a scene that anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock the past 20 years would know – Miracle Max from The Princess Bride.  My husband convinced our daughter to watch that for movie night tonight, and it was an epic experience, indeed.  There is no way I can possibly improve on this movie, but trust and believe, I will aim for and achieve awesomeness on some level.    Here’s the clip I downloaded for this assignment.