I couldn’t help but feel like learning how to download YouTube videos was illegal. (Is it?)  I had fun learning how to do a lot of the different stuff though, even if my level of familiarity with video-editing software could hardly even be described as novice.  I have Windows MovieMaker on my computer and I definitely used it before.  About four years ago.

I don’t remember anything about it.

Well, that’s a bit of a lie.  I remember being surprised at how easy it was to use it.  I typed that first paragraph after doing some of the assignments but I’m typing the rest of this as I go — I haven’t used Windows Moviemaker this week as of yet, so I’m sure my stance on it’s user-friendliness and what not will change as this post progresses.

For the first time in this class, I was actually familiar with something before we tackled it for DS106.  I read Ebert’s “How to Read a Movie” and I have to admit, I’d never considered examining who was on the right or the left of the screen before or taking into consideration which direction the camera seemed to be panning.  I took a course about a year and a half ago though on “Jesus Christ in Gospel and Film” in the religion department and we had to watch lots and lots of movies about Jesus (Jesus Christ Superstar was my favorite) and do a write up of the tools the producers and directors used in the film.  This included lighting, sound, placement, and so on, so I was at least a little familiar with reading a scene.

It’s important to note that I said “familiar” and not “particularly or in any way skilled.” This distinction can probably clarify my unorganized and probably a bit off-point analysis of this scene in Good Will Hunting.

After this, I learned how to edit/trim videos and put them together.  I definitely had flashbacks to our first week when we experimented with videos, which was actually a good thing because I ended up not being able to use the “KeepVid” tool provided to us on the DS106 site.  I downloaded Java like it said to and received notification that Java had installed successfully, but no matter how many times I tried to use KeepVid to download a video from a URL, it never went anywhere.  I returned to iLivid to pull the video from online and worked from there with the streamclip software.  You can learn all about that experience here, but here is the final product:

I also added a video to the “YouTube Genres” document as well.  Mine was the trailer for “Call + Response,” which isn’t necessarily a “YouTube video” but can be viewed on YouTube.  It is a documentary about human trafficking created by Cold War Kids (a band) that double-features as a series of music videos by artists who wanted to participate in raising awareness about the cause.  You can read about my take on youtube video genres here, but this is the trailer for Call + Response.

You can read about my daily creates here.

Next week:  Video skills.  After looking at the Video Assignments we’ll be doing next week, I am nervous but excited. I had a lot of fun with the streamclip software, so I’m looking forward to using it some more this week and maybe enhancing some of my skills.