Ahh! This week was such a whirlwind! let me just start by saying that at first, i was definitely hesitant about this week…BUUUUT after discovering keepvid and iMovie, it was almost as if all of this was too easy! I got off to late start due to some issues at work but in no way did that stop me from getting down and dirty with video week! A big part of this week were the star’s we had to complete! We were really allowed to do as we please and I thought they were so easy so I completely 30 1/2 ?’s but thoroughly had fun with each and every one of them. I decided to do:

• Tutorial for Grandma
• Where are they now??
• 30 second documentary
• Public Service Announcement
• Scenes that changed my life
• I am me
• Music Video

Please watch them! it was a lot of work but it was also a lot of fun and it never hurts to comment too. The links lead to my blog posts on them as well so you can see all about what I did in case you want to try any of them as well! All in all, each video was very time consuming but I started off with the Music Video, and although it was taken down due to copyright issues, I still had a good time learning the ins and outs of iMovie. The Music Video is what forced me to learn how to do transition, and adding in audio, especially when I had to add in audio on any video I did. The most frustrating thing was going through the copyright issues. I didn’t understand just because I wasn’t profiting…or trying to claim that anything was mine? I actually put a disclaimer but nope, they didn’t care! It was just flagged and never even got a fair few views. I tweeted to my fellow DS106′ers about it, and was given this nifty DS106 Handbook. While it was nice knowing why, it still didn’t exactly soothe the insult (please don’t flatter yourself Youtube, I DON’T NEED TO USE YOUR WEBSITE THAT BADLY!)   However, I didn’t let this discourage me, and I opted to use Vimeo instead, which was a huge lifesaver. Fortunately, I only hit copyright issues on the one video and the rest had no problem going through. Here’s the saddening conversation I had with Alan:

@cogdog i tried uploading a video to youtube but i’m getting stuck with a lot of copyright issues!

— micaela (@mmbutlerr) April 12, 2013

Please note I did not give up..I just didn’t want to give Youtube the satisfaction of a fight, because we all know who would win (cause DS106 students don’t lose!) Apart from this, we also went back to FOLEY SOUNDS! and did our Charlie Chaplin video assignment, rather than letting it go, our assignment was to take our classmates sounds and put them into a video. HOWEVER, we also had to add music, strip the video, so on and so forth. Here’s how i did on it but the basic jist: it was hard at first, finding the appropriate music, and making sure it didn’t totally suffocate the sounds but also went well with the mood. I was possibly being a little picky but hey, quality > quantity, right? Well when I had my finished product, it was extremely satisfying because I put in so much work and it came out really well!

In the past two weeks, it was hard to balance life and classes but I made it work while having lots of fun! I actually regret not dedicating as much time as I would have liked to because these assignments have been my absolute favorite, hands down. I do have to admit failure in one portion though. Although I previously said I was going to do the MS Paint assignment, and I have to say..I understand why no one else has done it. It was extremely hard especially since my trial ended for Mac Paint. I attempted to do it with GIMP but the layers weren’t going into my iMovie and it became a bigger mess than the tutorials taught. However, I didn’t let that deter me and I still put in a lot of effort with everything else. I learned a lot this week to:

• Pre-planning is much more helpful than anyone would realize. Although I wasn’t able to be on the computer, I still planned what I wanted to do and it made everything go SO much faster.
• Keepvid, please, round of applause for keepvid.
• Although I’m bitter towards Youtube for throwing a copyright clause at me, I understand it; artists don’t want someone jumping their ideas, so I have to up my creativity in order to get around this issue. (it’s not over Youtube >:D)
• Practice really does make perfect; by the time I was at 16 stars, I couldn’t stop; everything just seemed to easy that i didn’t want to stop!

I can’t wait for the next couple of weeks if they’re anything like this! Here’s to hoping.