[John JonesKeymaster]

The video is unavailable.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Great example. Two points: Notice how the video is sped up; your viewers don’t necessarily want to watch you draw in realtime.

Next, you don’t have to draw this well to make use of this effect. See some of the stick figure drawing at the top of the thread for ideas.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Here’s a tutorial on adding picture-in-picture effects in Imovie. For whatever reason, this effect is difficult to accomplish in WMM.

However, the old-fashioned movie titles effect should be possible in both.

[John JonesKeymaster]

See my notes on the videos above—particularly @jsears3 and @erheyer‘s—for ideas on low-tech animation methods.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  John Jones.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Two things about the style: Poehler’s black clothing and the black background focus all of the attention on her, and make the setting seem nice and designed without much effort (the Silverman video above does something similar, but with black and white). Further, like the Silverman video, there are cuts to different angles the same scene for visual interest.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  John Jones.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Excellent Google-fu, @Jablosser! This is a previous assignment for the course. In addition to your comments, I would point out that the video doesn’t make great use of the affordances of video. The viewer is forced to read a bunch of text and only sees occasional images with no voiceover. If the text were replaced with voiceover and the viewer was given more visual examples—or something with more visual interest, as in the many drawing examples above—it would be much improved.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Very clever. In addition to your notes, I would point out that the video achieves some of its effects by a contrast in styles: The guy in shorts and a tank-top sitting on a set that looks like Masterpiece Theater. The Disney Channel used to do the same thing with a cartoon show called Mouseterpiece Theater.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 1 month ago by  John Jones.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Excellent. You can get some of the same simple animated effects (without learning digital animation) by using cutouts, as in this video:

[John JonesKeymaster]

I notice two things here: First, the video is primarily in black and white. This gives a fairly static setup—Silverman sitting at her desk—more visual interest. Second, rather than just a single extended take, Silverman uses cuts to different angles—still in the same location—to make sure the video doesn’t seem to boring.

[John JonesKeymaster]

You could definitely use this pop-up factoid method for your own videos. Additionally, the green-screen background technique used in this video can now be done at home. Here is a link for Imovie users (it is more complicated for WMM users).

[John JonesKeymaster]

@jsears3, to follow up on @sbloxton‘s post as well, it is important to remember that your videos visuals don’t necessarily need to be museum quality for your video to look attractive and compelling.

Further, notice how the author creates visual interest by not simply showing the sketches, but showing the sketching process, so even though these aren’t animations, something is always moving on screen.

[John JonesKeymaster]

Great example! (But why is a one-minute book report 3 minutes long?) You could do the same thing with pen and paper, if you find that is easier (see the video I posted below).

[John JonesKeymaster]

@Tiffany, really good examples.

[John JonesKeymaster]

@vmadden, re books, I have gotten so that I prefer both a physical book and a digital one, at the same time. The physical book is easier to browse and skim, and the digital one makes it easier to take notes.

[John JonesKeymaster]

@Mike, Good question. My kids aren’t old enough yet for me to observe this phenomenon up close, but I don’t know how I would feel about it. My immediate reaction would be that what they are doing online is being social, but whether that translates to other, offline, social situations I don’t know.

[John JonesKeymaster]

@erheyer, RE boundaries, I think what you describe about yourself here is indicative of a lot of people. We are (hopefully) as a society getting used to managing what we post and how we behave online in better ways.

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