Tag Archives: video

Too many tools

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I’m editing a video and I’m struggling to do it well in one place. I’m using Descript for most of my editing, but I wanted to put in a narrated slide show before the video and Descript wasn’t making the intricate edits I wanted without a major amount of effort. So, first I used Garage Band to edit the audio (after recording it on my iPhone). Then I used iMovie to put that together with the slide show (after making it in Powerpoint). Then I added the recorded slideshow into Descript.

I recognize my frustration is my own fault because I haven’t done these kind of thing in almost a year, and so now I barely remember the tips and tricks that used to come naturally to me. That said, I’m also frustrated because Garage Band and iMovie have had updates that put things in unfamiliar places for me. These updates seem to complicate rather than improve the user interface (UI). Meanwhile, the Descript UI seems improved, but it’s different enough from the last time I used it that I feel like I’m using it for the first time. Still, I could see myself eliminating the need for iMovie with the current Descript updates, so that’s one less tool I’ll use next time.

Most of my frustration is that I’ve spent over 15 hours doing about 5-6 hours worth of work. I spend so much time knowing what I want to do, and not knowing how, and then googling and watching YouTube videos that take 5-12 minutes to tell me 2 minutes worth of important information. I just want one tool to rule them all, and then I’m sure that I can get more done in less time.

The cost of a photograph

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Back in July, 2019, when I started writing daily, I wrote ‘Photographs in my mind’. In it I spoke nostalgically about the era of print film and the unknown of if I got the shot I thought I did, until after photos were developed. I also wrote about the photos I ended up not taking, and how some of those are more memorable than the ones I did take. Here is the end of the post with one particular shot that came to mind today.

There was the shot I lined up at Pike Place in Seattle, of an older man sitting on the hood of a parked car enthralled in a book, while cops on the street behind him tended to a fender-bender. I can still see the image that I did not take, feeling like I was invading his privacy.

We seem so much more free to take photos now, always having a camera in our pocket, and not a concern of the cost of taking one more shot.

But of all the shots I didn’t take, the photographs that still linger in my memory. These come to me from an era when film was the only option and the cost of the next shot lingered in my mind.

Today I thought of a different kind of cost, not financial, but maybe social, cultural, or personal. I thought of the potential photo I didn’t take above, and how I felt that I would have been invading this man’s privacy, stealing a moment from him. This made me think of children having photographs and videos shared on social media by parents. Precious moments, but also embarrassing ones. I then thought of photos shared without permission, voyeuristic images shared in confidence then reshared in anger, more often than not by a vindictive, jilted, or just plain mean ex-boyfriend.

I thought of photographs that perpetuate stereotypes, or promote cultural exploitation. I thought of videos that show people at their worst going viral and how they typecast a person on the bases of a single act, one transgression, an embarrassing moment memorialized as the defining of a one-dimensional character.

We don’t live in the film era anymore. We live in an era that is not just witnessed, but fully documented. And I wonder, what is the price? What costs are we paying for the free availability of endless videos and photographs?

Coming Soon

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I have been meeting my uncle, Joe Truss, and playing with geometry regularly on weekends. We didn’t meet this week, but I still put some time into our project. Today I put the finishing touches on the first video we are going to share about living in a Tetraverse. We believe our universe is structurally built out of triangles… Triangles (not turtles) all the way down.

Is the video perfect? No, far from it. Is it polished? No, I could spend a few more hours tweaking it. Is it ready to be shared? Yes! We have hours and hours of video, but we chose this one because we are actually playing with the shapes we are talking about, and it seems like a good entry level introduction to the topics we discuss.

Originally I had hoped to have the video edited before the end of 2023, but I had almost no time over the holidays to finish it. So, I put in a few hours the past few Sundays and now it’s time to share… as soon as my uncle approves. I didn’t hit my year-end goal, but I got it done in time for my uncle’s birthday in a couple days.

I’ll share it here really soon!

Do not go quietly

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16 years ago, January 28, 2008, I shared a presentation I did in with some SFU student teachers. Here is a clunky version on Slideshare. Here is the post I wrote about it. And here is the video I made out of it for a presentation at BLC 08 in Boston.

Do not go quietly into your classroom! 

The video had close to 100,000 views on BlipTV, which died in 2011… like many of the place I shared that you could find me online at the start of the video. A lot of those links are dead now. But this slideshow and video were pivotal in sharing my transformation as an educator who empowered students with technology. I remember the hours I put into timing the slides with the music, and the the relief of finally thinking it was good enough to share.

A day or two before the original presentation to student teachers, I found out I was going to become a Vice Principal. I was inspired to share the things I’d learned and started another blog, “Practic-All – Pragmatic tools and ideas for the classroom.” Where I shared a weekly series called Dave’s Digital Magic. It only lasted for 19 posts, but it was my way to stay plugged into what was going on in classrooms and to have good learning conversations with some of my staff.

So hard to believe this was 16 years ago… And I’m still exploring the Brave New World Wide Web and sharing what I learn along the way.

Halloween fun (again)

Last year I shared my Halloween Fun post about the high school principal’s costume contest. The theme was TV shows/sitcoms from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Well our Carol Burnette Show lip sync of a skit was the clear winner, and so this year my team got to pick the theme. We chose Super Heroes.

We lost a principal, Rissa, to retirement and Judy stepped in. Stephanie, who chose the theme, also chose The Greatest American Hero as our hero. We decided that all 3 of us would play the hero, rather than playing different characters in the show, and yesterday we took a few photos in costume at lunch.

After 20 minutes of photo editing in PowerPoint (where I took the background off of a few pictures), and a few more minutes finding a couple computer screen wallpaper backgrounds to superimpose us onto, I had what I needed to embed us into the opening credits of the show.

When I got home from I spent about 40 minutes in iMovie and came up with this:

A few editing tricks I used were: a simple smashed glass sound byte and an image of a broken glass sticker for the crash; slowing down the video clips of the hero flying; and, reversing the clip of the hero falling back so it looked like he was getting up.

The odds of us winning the contest 2 years in a row is almost zero, and this was far less effort than we put in last year, but we had fun and I think we will get a few laughs with our attempt.

Happy Halloween to you all, enjoy the festivities.

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(Setting this to publish at noon, after our submission to the contest.)

Halloween fun

For the past few years our high school Principals and Vice Principals have run a fun Halloween costume contest. It often includes elaborate photos and even skits. The theme this year was TV shows/sitcoms from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. I have two other principals in my building and one of them suggested we get together to compete. The Carol Burnette Show was selected and we dressed up for a Momma’s Family skit about playing the board game ‘Sorry’.

We decided to lip sync a part of the skit. I set up two cameras, and with the help of a teacher at lunch on Friday, we ran through the skit twice (a bit more than that with a false start the second time. It took less than 30 minutes from set up to finish.

Saturday morning I spent just over 2 hours editing and here is the result:

It’s fun putting together something like this. I watched it later and had a few more ideas to add, but rather than spending way too much time making minuscule adjustments, I ended up deciding that it’s good enough. It was fun and it’s done.

Happy Halloween everyone. Enjoy the spirit of dressing up and having fun with it.

AI video

If you’ve seen my blog on social media or on my website (as opposed to in your mailbox), you’ve seen images I created in Dall•E 2. Like these, along with my requests that created them:

“A man walking in a forest path and hugging a tree in a pastel drawing”

“A Picasso drawing of a young man walking in a forest surrounded by clocks”

“A small man on a giant piece of paper trying to write with an oversized pen that is bigger than the person”

“A person standing at the intersection of a path that leads to a choice of a dark, loomy forest or a bright open field in a van Gogh style”

“A transparent head with a tree, an ocean wave, cogs, math symbols, a protractor, and science lab equipment inside the brain. ”

“A hand squeezing the film coming out of a reel of film with a movie projector in the background in a vector style”

“A vapourware drawing of a kid running with a kite in his hand. ”

“Headphones in the ear of a dark haired man, in a Kandinsky style ”

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I write a description and it gives me 4 options to choose from. I don’t always get exactly what I had in mind, but if it’s too far off from my expectation then I just refine my wording and try again.

Well now Meta AI has come up with Make-A-Video, which creates video clips from descriptions. The examples on the website download onto my phone as images rather than video clips, so you’ll need to visit there to see them.

This is exciting stuff in the field of video creation and soon it will also become so good that you won’t be able to distinguish it from a real video. The creativity that’s possible is exciting. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg and soon we’ll see all kinds of fascinating uses for this tool.

Artificial Intelligence is just getting better and better and in the field of creative arts this is going to really change the landscape of what is possible.

(Also, I recognize that there are some scary deep fake implications, but for now I’m just excited to see what people do creatively with this tool.)

The waterfall experience

In March of 2017 I was in Costa Rica and we visited a beautiful waterfall. This was my description on Facebook.

Take 43 seconds out of your day and watch this waterfall in slow motion.

Nature is amazing. There is a reason why we are drawn to the outdoors, and why natural formations like peaks, vistas, and waterfalls become beacons that draw us to them.

But what made this a truly incredible experience was that it was felt as well as seen. It was a full body experience.

Weapons of mass recording

As we watch war and resistance play out in the Ukraine, we are watching it from the film footage of civilians. Phones have become weapons against propaganda, weapons against tyranny, weapons of war. Instead of the story being told by a handful of brave reporters, anyone with a phone is now reporting and sharing updates.

These videos are being mapped and checked for authenticity, and they are being shared on social media. The battle might be being played out in the Ukraine, but it’s also being replayed all over the world. And now Elon Musk’s Starlink will ensure that the videos keep coming.

Resistance is now a shared global experience. The phone camera has become a weapon against tyranny.

We are (digitally) open

We had our second digital open house in 2 years last night. 9 students were there, 2 crew and 7 presenters, but there were many more that were showcased in videos, and involved in music and artwork to help make the show possible. It was definitely a student-made production.

This year the presentation relied heavily on audience participation. One of our seniors opened the show then manned the back end of our online form where people watching could answer questions. Then he and our host decided who would answer the question. We had 3 stations set up with microphones, one for the host, one for students, and one for teachers.

Doing this live with 3 camera views, 5 microphones, and a program that bounced back and forth between these based on audience question… live, is no easy task. On top of that there were videos scheduled, and when each person spoke, their names would come up with a slick animated graphic, designed by a student.

Anyone that has tried to run a live event would know just how challenging this would be to run. And our students did a fantastic job! It’s awesome to be able to work with these students and our team of teachers. And hopefully our open house will draw more great students to the school.