Blog Final

The class that I would have would be an art class that was based in digital photography, Photoshop, imovie and potentially basic computer animation. The first thing that would happen would be to meet and explain how to use the digital cameras. Then the students would go out and take photos and just get used to taking pictures and being creative. The second thing that would happen would be teaching them how to use certain effects on the camera itself like sepia, black and white and color filters. After they learned this they would take more pictures using the special effects or recreating pictures that they like and think would look better with some of the filters. After the mastery of these techniques and the building up of the students’ portfolios we would move on to Photoshop. We would start with a basic summary and then have them fool around with it and try to get it to work either using photos they have taken or images from the internet. The next class we would go more in depth with some aspects and then I would probably give a Photoshop project so that they can show what they learned. This project would be either multiple simple projects or one very elaborate one along with a paper describing the techniques used to create each layer of the photo. After this project I might have a fun class about how to spot doctored photos if the class were interested. We would then move on to imovie and learn the basics in class (basic editing, titles, and transitions) and then I would have the students shoot film and come back the next class to use the film to make a short movie of about 30 seconds. The next class we would go into more detail about special effects with audio and video and learn about idvd. Next would be another project, a movie from 3 to 5 minutes and a paper explaining the artistry and symbolism shown in the project. If we had time and if I learned how to do it we would start something in computer animation and the basics of that. The final would be a project that was based in one of the things that we learned or some combination of them. A completed digital photo portfolio or 10 minute imovie are a few examples. The last day I would show the students, if they didn’t already know, how to put everything up on to the internet on Snapfish or Youtube for example. The texts that I would be using would be the Dummies Guides to imovie, Photoshop, digital art photography and computer animation. They really would only be used as guides for the student for when I wasn’t around or if I couldn’t answer their question well enough. There are also a few magazines one for digital animation called Animation Magazine, which has all of the latest news and advice on digital animation and another for video technology, which also has advice and even a chat room. Both of these magazines have websites as well, their URLs are http://www.videotechnology.com/new0606.html and http://www.animationmagazine.net/. They wouldn’t really have to do anything special with the texts or with the websites just to use them as references if they need them. I would hope that the students would correctly learn how to use all of the programs that we use, to be creative and how to produce good works of art.

Comments this week.

kelsey and dylan.....for now

if you build it they will come....

So I am a bit behind on the reading of Blink and I am up to my nostrils in work, so I have chosen to take another route with this post and kill two birds with one stone. My spanish teacher recently gave us an assignment for an oral presentation that we have to do before the end of the year and I have decided to let you all in on what it is that I am going to be presenting on. The assignment was to come up with one book for my teacher to read, one movie for her to watch and one "nota cultural" ("cultural point" for those of you who are spanishly disabled) and to talk a little bit about them and to convince her to watch/read what we suggest. As some of you may know about me, I have a very difficult time choosing favorite books or movies because there are just too many good ones to pick from. This has created a bit of a problem because I can't just talk about my favorite book because I don't have one. I think that what I am going to do is pick a few different kinds of books for her to think about. The first that is one of my favorites is The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass which I read first semester this year for World Literature. In all honesty it is a really creepy book but I find it to be very good for just that reason, because it extends the boundries set by common and popular literature and society itself. The book raises many diverse questions ranging from sanity to love. I would also recommend the trilogy by Toni Morrison, Beloved, Jazz and Paradise. This trilogy is straight from the list of best american fiction. I am reading Beloved now for Chris and I love the writing and the story. The only problem is that this book, along with The Tin Drum, also falls under the creepy but good catigory. I think that she will like them anyway. I have also started to see that Chris and Liz pick really good books. Anyway, Beloved is set in the few years after the civil war and follows a young woman and her hodge-podge family through their pasts and current thoughts and feelings. The story deals with many major topics but the one that I find the most interesting is the way ex-slave women were treated by men. Toni also weaves a paranormal aspect into her writing and does it in such a way that one can not tell if it is meant to be real or imagined.

I have not yet decided what movies I will talk about but I think that they will probably end up being Across the Universe, the new Beatles movie, and Atonement because it is sweet, and probably Bull Durham because it is one of the best baseball movies ever. Field of Dreams. Crap. Too many to choose from.....

Me & Mr. Britney's stalker

I have no problem with CNN doing what they are doing. As a matter of fact I think that they are doing something that is truly innovative and different. They are doing what all people do to make money nowadays: sell things that people don't need. I buy tons of stuff that really mean nothing, most of which are impulse buys, candy, is one of the biggest and my personal downfall. But this is, sadly, how we roll. It is one thing to buy a couple of extra goodies on your way out of the store but when people start buying garages to store their 20 some cars that is where I would draw the line. I have ranted about consumerism and how that makes the our country and most of the rest of the world work. If CNN is trying to make a buck by selling their boring headlines for people to wear, more power to them because they are probably saving our economy. I would never see myself in one of those shirts and I might die if i saw someone else in them but, on a different note, what would the world be if we didn't have some crazy dude with a "Police: Spears has minor accident in Mercedes" tee? The more variety in the genepool the better right? (but I would never recommend having children with this man, they might grow up and try to kill you) This tee-shirt is nothing more than a money maker a wardrobe disaster and an annoyance to everyone.

Does this really need a title?

I honestly don't know what to think about this issue. Not that it is really an issue at all. These men were wrongly accused and put in jail beacuse of it. I do feel bad for them and all but I don't think that there is much to write about here because the issue is being solved by the Innocence Project. Maybe if there were something for me to do or think about doing this would be a little more productive. As bad as I feel about this there is not much that I can do for these people, I am not a lawyer and I don't live anywhere close to Texas. All I can do is give money and that is something that I try not to do to often if I can help it. It is pretty sweet that these people are being freed but after so long what would a person do if they had no family or much schooling? I am quite sure that they will get along very well on the outside. Now I'm not saying that they would be better off in prison but rather, that they might be lacking in social skills and necesary job training. I don't know if there are any programs or funds or anything to help these people succeed if they are having trouble getting off their feet. That would be a cause that I would rather donate money to. That way I would know that the money was going straight to the people who needed it as opposed to the lawyers who are trying to free them. All in all freeing people is one of the best things ever but my view on this is that we never should have put them in there in the first place.

Comments this week.

commented on Miriam and Kathryn..

Autopilot

I too have been seeing a slow decline in blogership in the past few weeks. For some it may have lost it's glamour and for others, like me, it may just slip through the cracks. Between everything that has been going on the past few weeks it has become harder and harder to keep up and I find myself wishing that I had an autopilot setting. That is really what Malcolm is talking about; the way that our bodies and minds find ways to run on their own. I think that it is something that comes and goes. When we are concenterated our minds are at attention and ready to make a good decision but when we are inattentive our minds must jump start and catch up quickly. It is the same way with fact recall. When you have to know something in a split second and say it quickly you have less time to second guess yourself; you don't use logic to make your decision you use pure memory. I think that the room matching the personality thing is bogus. He is just taking ideas from MTV and using them to make him seem smarter. I have no doubt that what he is saying is true but it is just quite unoriginal. Everybody knows that what you own represents, at least a little, who you are. Way to connect the dots man but just try to be a little more novel next chapter.