Becoming a Princess Make a Girl Do Some Crazy Things…
One Archetype, Five Movies, Five Seconds
This is video assignment 448! It is worth three stars and the assignment description was:
“Create a five second video of one archetype from five different movies cutting together one second of each. Examples could include: Prisoners, Thieves, Beauty Queens, Kings, Robin Hoods, James Bonds, Bank Robbers, Assassins, Bad Boys, Kung Fu Masters, Femme Fatales, Sports Heroes, High School Bullies, Rogue Police Officers, Brainiacs, Pregnancies, Principals, Mean Teachers, InspirationalTeachers, Gunslingers, Gangsters, Monsters, Bartenders, Warrior Princesses, Swordsman, Knights, Mad Scientists, Nerd Girls, Obstructive Bureaucrats, Sidekicks, Wise Old Men, Hardboiled Detectives, Tough Coaches, Swooning Ladies.”
Before beginning this assignment I watched a few examples, my favorite was Minions with an F in Evil because I thought it was a very unique archetype and it made me laugh! I also liked the Librarian example because it too was funny and unique in my opinion (just A LOT longer than 5 seconds).
After watching a few examples, I decided to create a video about princesses! Disney princesses basically consumed mine and my sister’s childhood. We still have so many VHS tapes and probably 95% of them are old Disney movies. This project definitely allowed me to reminisce, life was so much easier when all we had to worry about was the princess finding her prince. I think most people know the basic story line of many Disney princesses. I think this will be a video that others can relate to. 
The first step in making this video was figuring which video clips to use! I searched YouTube for Disney princess clips and chose 5 that I thought would be good for the video (one from The Princess Diaries, Pocahontas, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, and Snow White). After all 5 clips were downloaded, I had to cut them down to 1 second each (this was HARD). I tried to let the 1 second clips each demonstrate something new to each new Princess. (The amazing new room, the fancy under wear, legs, magical ball gown, and a life saving kiss) Once I had each clip trimmed down, I loaded each clip into Movie Maker and dragged them in to the order I wanted and then I added a text box on each clip (for those who can’t tell what is occurring with just one second of viewing time). I originally trimmed the clips in MPEG streamclip and then trimmed them a little bit more in movie maker, but I preferred Movie Maker’s trimming feature. It was a little less permanent (which is nice because I kept changing my mind). I didn’t add any opening title or ending credits because I really wanted this video to be exactly 5 seconds! And believe me that was quite a challenge!
I guess this is kind of its own, condensed princess story. If it had a narrator…
“Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there was a new princess, crowned just yesterday. This princess was in awe over her new fancy room and huge new bed, and even her underwear were fit for a princess or so she said. This princess transformed and became as beautiful and graceful as a dove, until she died and could only be saved by her a kiss from her one true love.”
I know its a bit cheesy, but I put in extra effort to make it rhyme, all good fairy-tales rhyme.
Original Clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du9A-A_9OT0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V_222ks1f8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZNQELECEaA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1AbVUalxgE
Just another Manic Monday…
This is video assignment 467, Song Visualization. It is worth 2 stars.
“Pick a song (or a minute from a song) and create a video that displays a picture representing the lyrics. Feel free to make it silly or stick with the theme of the song.”
I chose this assignment because I am always watching music videos like this on YouTube, I thought it would be fun to create my own! I chose to do Manic Monday by The Bangle because I think it is a song everyone relates to. After all, who likes Mondays?
I HATE MONDAYS. I love the feeling of sleeping in over the weekend and relaxing, until Monday comes and it is back to reality. I always feel like the weekend spoils me, hearing Monday’s alarm to wake up comes as a shock to me every week, it never fails.
This song is a story in itself, about a Morning. I think many have had mornings like this (hopefully I am not alone here). I really like songs like this one that contain a story (especially when it is a relate-able one).
This assignment wasn’t to difficult. First I saved all of the photos into a folder, the photos came from Flickr. I opened up Movie Maker and dragged all of the photos into the program, then I placed them in the correct order. Once the pictures were in the order that they were going to be used, I dragged the sound file into Movie Maker as well (it has been waiting patiently in my iTunes for years). Next I trimmed about 10 seconds off of the long intro to the song and changed the amount of seconds each picture was displayed so that it would appear at the right moment in the song. (This took quite a while and I think I listened to the song about 50 times). Once the timing was all working, I added a title slide and credits at the end.
Photos Used:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23644442@N04/5331520786/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8782969@N04/2943304181/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blamethemonkey/5412683079/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocell/4201081/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cchu/4440403721/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zuzana_baranova/2919215094/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingman/131284292/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brize/7807214458/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/free-stock/7028523331/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andysarmysellscalgary/5843161854/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12674411@N03/3057895966/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theinspirationfiles/5551263670/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mafeguisao/5238906773/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocking_osborne/5362708753/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/highflyerin/4266079702/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oskari-/4459554158/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fat-feet/5927530668/
Stuff Sheldon Says…
This is 5 star, video assignment 608, Supercut It. The instructions were:
“Create a supercut montage of overused dialogue, themes, motifs, filmmaking techniques, etc. for a particular character, tv show, film, and/or public figure. A supercut is a “fast-paced montage of short video clips that obsessively isolates a single element from its source, usually a word, phrase, or cliche from film and TV.”
This assignment caught my eye because I love video montages, and I thought it would be really cool to create one myself. When I read this assignment I immediately knew I wanted to created a funny montage of the strange Sheldon Cooper from “The Big Bang Theory.” It is one of my favorite shows, I think I like it so much because of the funny things Sheldon says and does. Also, I am kind of socially awkward, not to the extent of Sheldon but I feel like I can kind of relate. This is a show my entire family watches together and loves; we even record the episodes just in case we aren’t around when they come on.
I think that even if you have never seen “The Big Bang Theory,” my video montage will allow you to experience Sheldon’s hilarious and awkward personality! I like to think of this montage as telling the story of Sheldon’s everyday life.
To create this montage, I first found funny Sheldon clips on YouTube. Then I downloaded each one I planned to use. Next I dragged the clips into Movie Maker (I stopped using Streamclip, It started messing up my computer!) and I trimmed the clips down to make the montage more fast-paced. I only kept the segments that were necessary. Once all of the clips were trimmed, I dragged them around until I was satisfied with the order. The most time consuming step was trimming down all of the clips.
Media Used:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaM5B0MBAoA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10iRPkutI8s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hehrqxi-HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CWGEHdG384&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmFfmBGu7aw&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgHcHgsTy6M
The Pregnancy Pact
This assignment is called, “Do the Hitch Cut”. It is worth 4 stars and is video assignment 732. The description was:
“Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary master of suspense, shares a brief 90-second lesson on how a simple change in a three-shot edit can result in evoking a completely different response from the viewing audience. Can you do the Hitch Cut? Make two versions of a short three-shot video — in each instance maintaining the first and third shots, but changing out the second shot in each. Can you get a completely different result from your viewer? “
After watching “Hitchcock loves bikinis” I really wanted to try it out! I was incredibly excited when I saw that it was an assignment option! Now I just had to brainstorm on how to do it…
After brainstorming, I decided to use “The Pregnancy Pact” to create my “hitch cut.” In the movie, a group of teenage girls (I believe they were all 15) make a pact to all get pregnant. It is a Lifetime movie based on a true story. I decided to try and make my video an awareness video as well because teen pregnancy really has become an issue and it is not as glamorous as the movies make it seem.
After finding the original clip, I cut out the clip that I wanted to use as well as the piece I was going to replace the old clip with. I made two copies of the original clip and then cut the middle out of one and replaced it with another clip. She went from being sad that she was not pregnant to sad that she was pregnant. At the end I added, “Teen pregnancy is 100% preventable” I use to watch “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and the characters always said that during commercial breaks. I hope you like my video, THANKS!
When Life Gives You a Banana…
This is video assignment 598, it is called “5 seconds of fame.” It is worth 2 stars. The description was:
“Make a five second film. Try to keep it funny! This assignment was inspired by 5secondfilms.com. I suggest you draw from your own life experiences of strange but funny moments.”
My roommate and I were just trying to make a silly video for our friend’s 21st birthday, and things got kind of strange. I didn’t intend to do this assignment but I felt like this video of our life was something I just had to share When I saw this assignment, I knew I had to do it!!!!
We were dancing around like goofballs and then somehow a banana came into the mix. We should have known that was a recipe for weirdness. I was wearing a scarf as a dress (I have no clue how I got talked into that one) and my roommate tried to stick the banana down my dress but it got stuck on the bottom instead, looking very inappropriate. But it was hilarious as it happened, we still crack up whenever we watch this video. I hope you enjoy it as well!
I edited the video down quite a bit. It is a little longer than 5 seconds but so was the example, I hope that is okay (I think it will be worth it). After I had the portion I wanted, I added a title slide and a credits slide. This assignment was pretty simple to complete especially because it just happened naturally.
Thanks for watching!
REFLECTION:
WHEW! I am glad these 2 weeks are over! Video work took me forever! But I enjoyed it, it was the first time I have used Movie Maker, it was very user friendly but it did not have many features.(I heard the old version was much better with the features, I wish I had that one!) The videos were not hard to produce just very time consuming. I am addicted to checking my youtube account now to check my views!
I wonder what next week has in store…
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