This is the end

This is the end

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 21, 2018

“This is the end Beautiful friend This is the end My only friend The end” — The Doors My final project took a dark turn. C’est la vie. I have to go where the muse takes me. It can’t all be silly videos. I chose to tell the story of letting go, how a father …
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Driving Safety

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 21, 2018

We make things a little more serious with this post on driving safety. My oldest daughter is 16. With her learner’s permit acquired in September, we’ve practiced driving since. I forgot how strange learning to drive was. It’s all coming back. Nothing teaches you to do something like teaching it to others, and I’ve spent …
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War Slug

by @Darth_Pipe

| #tdc2353, ds106, Syndicated
June 19, 2018

Just saying the phrase spirit animal conjures the narrator’s exploits in Fight Club. Today’s Daily Create called for creating your dream animal, forcing one to ask ‘what qualities represent me?’ Well, laziness, for sure, combined with hatred of the outside world. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, War Slug. Most of these images were fairly easy to manipulate, a …
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Video Extravaganza!

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 17, 2018

What a fun assignment week! We were tasked with reaching 12 stars worth of assignments. Mine are 4, 4 and 5 stars and I really enjoyed producing them. The first video I made from the Assignment Bank, Psycho Cheese, came about from a brainstorming session with my youngest daughter, Cordelia. We needed help from my other …
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Best Dad Ever

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated, VideoAssignments, VideoAssignments397
June 17, 2018

Since today is Father’s Day, it is only fitting that we present to you this old-timey educational video from the Assignment Bank (5 stars). This video was a lot of fun to make, and the whole family chipped in. After some brainstorming, I had the idea and wrote the script in MS Word. We all got …
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How Tea’s Made

by @Darth_Pipe

| #VideoAssignments492, ds106, Syndicated, VideoAssignments
June 17, 2018

Via the Assignment Bank, this video shows how to make a cup of tea in today’s kitchen (4 stars). How’d we do it? After some planning, my personal barista and I went into the kitchen and began filming. Uploading and downloading 8 clips took considerably longer than the previous video.While that dragged on, I found …
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Psycho Cheese

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated, VideoAssignments, VideoAssignments407
June 17, 2018

Courtesy of the DS106 Assignment Bank, here is the 5-second film (4 stars), Psycho Cheese. How’d they do it? After brainstorming some ideas, Cordelia and I settled on parodying the shower scene from Psycho. As I prepared the cheese tray and Cordy did her makeup, Danielle came home, which was great because I soon realized I …
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Weekly Roundup!

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 13, 2018

I started this week with (of course) a Daily Create. @ds106dc Okay, so maybe this doesn't follow the assignment to the letter, but … #tdc2345 pic.twitter.com/jlY0bbIG51 — Bryce Piper (@Darth_Pipe) June 11, 2018 Yes, perhaps it didn’t follow the assignment exactly, but once I saw the Thunderbirds (never heard of ’em) I couldn’t stop thinking …
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There once was a man from Nantucket

by @Darth_Pipe

| Syndicated
June 12, 2018

This week’s question had us re-writing a nursery rhyme. I went through a dozen, most too short to do anything with, and kept coming back to Peter Piper for obvious reasons. But, rejecting Peter, I chose Rock A By Baby, which always perplexed me, even as a very young boy. What is that baby doing …
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Haiku!

by @Darth_Pipe

| #tdc2346, ds106, Syndicated
June 12, 2018

Today’s Daily Create had me outside enjoying nature. It says poetry is an option. Between that and the photo subject I chose, I couldn’t stop thinking of a sketch by The Kids In The Hall. How’d I make this? After taking a dozen photos or so, I chose this one for the framing and the …
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Old Hitch’

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 11, 2018

I love how you really notice things after someone points out the obvious. I’m a Tarantino fan, but watching the video example, I noticed his use of low camera angles really conveyed meaning in many scenes. With the exception of Daryl Hannah’s deadly assassin character gasping for air in a toilet, they each conveyed the …
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Schadenfreude

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 11, 2018

One of the first classes I took at UMW was Professor Mathur’s Shakespeare in Film. On more than one occasion during discussion, I stressed to my fellow students that everything — everything — on the screen is there for a reason. My arguments were met with quiet derision. Well, pearls before swine. But now …
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Crank(y) Call

by @Darth_Pipe

| #AudioAssignments, AudioAssignments1665, ds106, Syndicated
June 10, 2018

So, my daughter pointed out to me as I recorded this audio that it will be interpreted as racist or discriminatory or anti-something. My answer to that is that this is nonfiction. This is a phone conversation I had sometime back in 1997 or ’98. I wrote the dialogue as true to my memory as …
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Chugging along

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 10, 2018

Okay! You know that feeling when you’re on a long, arduous journey and you keep thinking ‘we’ve got to almost be there by now’ and you look up and realize you’re just more than halfway there. Yeah, that. So, my first project since Wednesday was this Daily Create. Pen crafting is something I started doing …
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Crank(y) Call

by @Darth_Pipe

| #AudioAssignments, AudioAssignments1665, ds106, Syndicated
June 9, 2018

So, my daughter pointed out to me as I recorded this audio that it will be interpreted as racist or discriminatory or anti-something. My answer to that is that this is nonfiction. This is a phone conversation I had sometime back in 1997 or ’98. I wrote the dialogue as true to my memory as …
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Tales From Space!

by @Darth_Pipe

| #AudioAssignments, #AudioAssignments70, ds106, Syndicated
June 9, 2018

On this week’s episode of Tales from Space!, our intrepid hero learns that not everything on unexplored worlds is friendly … After listening to some samples, I came up with the idea of a space explorer meeting his fate on an uncharted world. I searched for sounds of a spacecraft landing, steps on a metal …
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Cordelia Villalobos

by @Darth_Pipe

| Syndicated
June 9, 2018

Building on the theme of ‘if the Spanish Armada had won,” today’s project is a local radio newscast. I wrote it to parody Telemundo, the all-Spanish broadcast, as if English were not the common language here. I’d have done the whole thing in Spanish if I spoke a word of it. I tried a little …
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The First Cut

by @Darth_Pipe

| #tdc2341, ds106, Syndicated
June 7, 2018

For today’s Daily Create, here’s something near and dear to my heart …
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Create. Every. Day.

by @Darth_Pipe

| dailycreate, ds106, Syndicated
June 5, 2018

The first Daily Create I undertook was a puzzle. I hoped against hope that the rest wouldn’t be puzzles. I’ve been having fun doing them, though! I struggled for an idea for the “idle” create, but followed through with the meaning of that old proverb about idle hands … The previous Create had …
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The good, the bad and the polished

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 5, 2018

Can I make something like Moon Graffiti? I have worked with audio before, including SoundCloud and Audacity, though I’m not as familiar with Audacity as I would prefer. I often know what I want to do, but not how to do it. I have a basic familiarity with Adobe products, including SoundBooth. But since the cost …
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The good, the bad and the polished

by @Darth_Pipe

| #audioreflection, ds106, Syndicated
June 5, 2018

Moon Graffiti presented an excellent example of using sound as an integral part of storytelling. The producers effectively used recorded audio, sound effects, and background music woven with a compelling narrative of mixed fact and fantasy. The audio pushes the imagination, bringing the adventure of a lunar visit and subsequent crash to life in the listener’s …
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Yep.

by @Darth_Pipe

| #tdc2338, ds106, Syndicated
June 4, 2018

Yeah, that about sums it up.
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Walter Sobchak

by @Darth_Pipe

| #tdc2337, ds106, Syndicated
June 3, 2018

While it doesn’t look like it, I spent about 3 or 4 hours struggling with this puppy … I used VideoPad, which I’m not familiar with and wants you to upgrade to add tracks. There are 2 video tracks and 3 or 4 audio tracks, so this was a pain! The video is from my …
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Two down …

by @Darth_Pipe

| #Week2EndOfWeek, ds106, Syndicated
June 2, 2018

Took a day of rest Thursday. That was needed. It didn’t help Friday, though, when I jumped back in head-first. Began with the alternate history book cover design. I immediately thought text book, and started in. In keeping with the idea that we’d all speak Spanish, I kept the book title in that …
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Flower in the desert

by @Darth_Pipe

| Syndicated
June 2, 2018

I went dark with today’s Daily Create. I wanted to do a sort of apocalyptic ‘flower in the desert’ sort of thing. I’m not entirely pleased with the final result, but do think it hits close to the mark. I started with an image from the Abandoned America page, and found an image of a …
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yo quiero

by @Darth_Pipe

| #ds106 #DesignAssignments #DesignAssignments2255, Syndicated
June 1, 2018

America would be a much different place had the Spanish Armada defeated England. Here, I changed all the white in the U.S. Flag to gold to honor the alternate heritage (gold and red of the Spanish flag). That was a LOT of tedious coloring… Bringing that tree branch in front of the one sign was …
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Yet another book you don’t want to read…

by @Darth_Pipe

| ds106, Syndicated
June 1, 2018

Using tips from the Canva tutorial on fonts and weight, I started with the title, “La Armada Espanola.” I knew I wanted it large, the most dominant feature. I chose a fitting font style and increased the size to fit the page. The sub-title, …
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Week 2, Week 6, What’s the Difference?

by @Darth_Pipe

| Syndicated
May 30, 2018

Wanting to start with something easily palatable, I began with the Question of the Week. The family brainstormed some ideas, then laughed as we continually came back to ‘what if Spain defeated England‘ during its 1588 attempted invasion. Spain, then the dominant world power with its wealth re-invigorated by colonies and exploitation in South America, …
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Ad-ing it up: DesignBlitz

by @Darth_Pipe

| #ds106 #designblitz, Syndicated
May 30, 2018

Taking a critical look at design concepts in ads, a short trip revealed some really interesting concepts. Last stop was Kabob Corner for lunch, so it appears first in the Instagram feed. This logo is very well done, demonstrating balance, clean use of white space, use of complimentary colors, hierarchy of their store name, repetition …
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Layout & Design

by @Darth_Pipe

| Syndicated
May 30, 2018

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the work of either of the Ted Talk presenters. Paula Sher reminded me of the genre of drawing and text (design) permeating media of the 70s and 80s, during which time I grew up (and exposed to ‘leftovers’ from the 60s). Perhaps that’s a testament to her …
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