Monday, November 30, 2009

"Star Wars Uncut"

Just heard about this on the radio over the weekend, "Star Wars Uncut," so had to share:

"You and 472 other people have the chance to recreate Star Wars: A New Hope. Below is the entire movie split up into 15 second clips. Click on one of the scenes to claim it, film it, and upload it. You can have up to three scenes! When we're all done, we'll stitch it all together and watch the magic happen."

An example of both participatory culture and remediation, among other ideas we have studied this term --

Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.



What's your favorite scene so far?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Mobile examples

Here are a few examples of how mobile technology has opened up new ways in which we can experience the world:

Amsterdam RealTime, collected over two months in 2002; click on "view map"

34North118w, what about instead of moving around, you just stay still and look at what comes to you?

I Like Frank, or what about if you start talking to strangers, about a virtual quest?

Also, mobile technology can subvert media and government monoliths:

This footage, shot with a mobile phone, of a young woman in Iran, Neda Salehi, protesting the questionable elections there in June of 2009:



Her death, but also this footage, turned her into a martyr around which the Iranians have rallied for dramatic changes in their government.

Technology on the way:

Look past the thin surface of this video promo piece for mixed reality, and what do you see?



And this sort of research is being done at the University of Washington, by Babak Parviz, with computer-enhanced contact lenses:

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Two ways to showcase your audio projects

Please don't forget about these two options to share your audio projects with a wider audience:

The Digital Media Sandbox Consortium (based at Tennessee State University in Nashville) is offering a national podcasting contest. We have entered this before, and if you want, I can help your group post to the iTunes-based contest and complete the submission.

A group of colleges, predominately on the East Coast and in the South (WSU Vancouver had the honor of being the first Northwest college to join the mix) will participate in an annual podcasting competition, which offers prize packages of up to $500 in cash as well as "gear."

Our audio stories could fit perfectly in the category of "creative feature," but those aiming for that distinction will need to keep in mind the theme this year, "distraction" as well as the submission guidelines (such as maximum length of 10 minutes). This might take a bit of editing, or additional credits and such tweaks.

A full set of contest rules and criteria can be found here.

Here are the winners from last year, to compare techniques and quality level.

Besides the Digital Sandbox contest, Jon Tanner also identified a site, Radio Drama Revival, that accepts submissions. This not only would be a great line on your resume, but if you can get your work posted on the site before the end of the term, I will negotiate a few extra credit points as well (for the person, or people, who work through the submission process, depending on what that entails).

Any other sites you have found that might be worth a look? These are good projects, and it's important to share your work with others,

- Prof Brett

Friday, November 13, 2009

Did You Know 4.0, updating "Shift Happens"

"Facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence..."

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Meet in our regular classroom on Nov. 18

MOVE lab demo has been postponed until December. ... We'll start class on the 18th with the quiz.

- Prof Brett

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Podcatchers and examples of podcasts

Here are a few podcatchers of note (which handle your "subscriptions":

Miro

ZenCast

Juice

WinAmp

and, of course, iTunes

And some general repositories of podcasts:

Podcast Pickle

GarageBand Radio Network

Blubrry

Odeo

Podcast.com

Podcast Alley

As well as some examples of kinds of podcasts:

Adam Carolla,
mainstream radio personality and comedian who moved into the realm of podcasts, referenced by Rick Emerson during his guest appearance last week"


"60-Second Idea (to Improve the World),"
rant, then roundtable, produced by the BBC.


Android Guys,
by a couple of Android phone enthusiasts, who also run a web site on the same topic."


"RadioLab,"
experiments in audio.


"Cruising to Otherworldly Antarctica,"
an NPR story of the day.


Block of R.S.S. coding for iTunes:

Written by WSUV student Kerry Mraz

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Participatory culture

A couple of examples of participatory culture (concept from Henry Jenkins' "Convergence Culture") from Rick Emerson's visit to WSU Vancouver on Thursday, Oct. 29:



Rick said he never would have imagined five years ago that listeners to his radio program could and would be creating this kind of content and recirculating it among themselves (creating remixes of remixes). Within days of the original bagel piece airing, he said the first remix appeared followed by other listeners submitting riffs on that, and creating t-shirts, and the like, in what originally was just an off-the-cuff observation about what a waitress said to him at Gustav's in the airport.

And here is a second one, about a news story turned into a tune, created by the same Rick Emerson fan, "Calvin," I think:



Here is a link to the KOUG podcast of the interview:

KOUG radio

Or the direct one

Could (or should) your resume be remediated, maybe into audio or video?

The Aleksey Vayner video (Yale student, 2006, Wikipedia on this), an example of what you don't want to do:



One of the many parodies on this:



A WSU grad, Benajamin Hampton, who created a video resume mentioned in Time magazine on this subject.

Here is a NPR piece on multimedia resumes

MSNBC piece on multimedia resumes

Vault.com and its tutorial on video resumes:



Other links of interest:

JobCircle's VoiceIntro

GigTide

RecruiTV

VisualCV

Zolio