My final project? Well, let’s just say third time’s a charm. I changed my idea from first being a stop-motion movie, then to an iBook, then (successfully) to a video that is both a parody to a spy movie, as well as a teaser for the iBook that I am still going to publish over the summer. Here is how it all went down…

The stop motion movie idea:
LOVED this in theory. But the time it would take to complete it was excruciating. I am a perfectionist too, so I would have obsessed over this for likely a year or so before I was happy with it. So, I had to regroup here, quickly.

The iBook idea:
I still LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of not only becoming a published author, but of a digital medium such as iBooks with multimedia content. However, the way iBooks Author app is currently configured, there were too many challenges to overcome.

1. iBooks Author is template based. There is no blank slate, and the templates available are geared towards creating textbooks & other nonfiction chapter books. There are some modifications I tried to do, including purchasing templates made by others, but none seemed to be the right fit for a children’s picture book style versus chapter book style. I wrote to Apple to complain. I’m sure they’ll get right on that.
2. I don’t own an iPad, and there was no way to preview your work without one. I can understand why, as much of the content is made for a touch-based interface which is impossible to recreate on a Mac, but this was very frustrating for me as I just did invest in the MacBook Pro, and have to wait to invest in the iPad until later.
3. There is no iBooks app for the Mac (or PC, or anything else). Apple made iBooks Author app exclusively to create content for iPads, with the only exceptions being that you can export it as a pdf file, which of course you lose all that multimedia content.
4. Showcasing my final work would take more work than creating it. I admit it, I was running out of time. Since getting behing the 8-ball, playing catchup has meant trying to go about this same idea in the simplest form. This many work-arounds means that this project is delayed until I can get my iPad over the summer and complete it- which I am still excited to do and will keep you posted as to the process and final result!

The iMovie idea:

Since I didn’t get my hands on the video assignments the way I would have liked, this option served the purpose of killing two birds with one stone. (Why is it we’re killing birds with stones again Professor Levine?) -And I love the outcome! I decided to do a parody on the traditional spy film using my daughters as the secret agents. This is what I am writing my children’s iBook about also, so it serves as a trailer and multimedia content which I will use for my iBook over the summer.

I changed the story characters from being super spy ballerinas to super silly spy sisters. This was much easier to create a story around as these sisters are simply using their silliness to fight evil (or not, if they don’t feel like it). There is also a dog, Gus, who is their sidekick.

In my trailer, you can see them being silly, learning spy moves on the dance floor and the playground, and sending secret messages on their webcam. Oh yes. These sisters are so goofy, their humor just might save the world (or at least, their elementary school) from disaster.

Enjoy the trailer to this playground drama set in the nation’s capital. Stay on the lookout for the iBook, scheduled to be released over the summer.

I used iMovie to make this, as they have a template for making movie trailers, which is so user friendly. I had to select the clips of various types (closeups, landscape, action scene, etc) and some of the text. This process took a lot of time as these clips are just seconds or fractions of a second long. But I love the final product! It tells the story of my girls amazing imagination, and how their silliness inspires me to do more. That inspiration saves me from what would be a much more boring story (my life) without them.