British Film Institute: BFI - Because Films Inspire - Art

BFI - the British Film Institute website is full of archives, cinemas, festivals, films, publications and learning resources.

BFI Education publishes a growing range of teaching packs, teaching guides (many of which are free)and resources to support the use of moving image media in schools. 4 different categories: primary schools, secondary schools, film and media studies and curriculum online resources are available for educators to explore.

16+ student guides (some available for free). These are student guides that help senior media students with their "research that cover topics from censorship to Shakespeare."

Web or Print Publishing is so easy for any budding Photographer or Graphic Designer

A colleague of mine at work (Richard Wong) will tell you his photography is only a hobby....but his passion, eye for detail and design sense tells quite another story. Very talented person! Check our his new web album it is constantly updating.

Richard created this web album using JAlbum (see below) and the BananAlbum skin.

BananAlbum can be used on its own and was developed by another photo enthusiast (Rudin Swagerman) for personal use....once other people saw the great potential of BananAlbum they wanted to use it as well. BananAlbum is free to use (although you can purchase a license for $30.00 USD....this will give you a "clean" BananAlbum. No intro, no icon on the bottom right hand corner, plus information on how to incorporate audioPlayer functionality. If you want a great way to add an easy album to your website - the $30.00 is a great deal! Note: when registering, you must give the domain (the URL) that BananAlbum will be hosted on.

BananAlbum can be used for any type of image - photography or original artwork (digital or other mediums).

Back in 2006 I had blogged about JAlbum, it has come a long way since then! BananAlbum is now bundled in JAlbum. "With JAlbum you have full control of the look of the generated album, not just color theme and basic layout, still making an album is just a matter of drag and drop + a button click if you prefer to use one of the many existing looks. JAlbum will process your images, make index pages and slide show pages and even upload the final album to the Internet for your friends to see. JAlbum runs on all platforms and speaks 30 languages."

But wait, there is more.....

You can take your images from JAlbum and publish a book in Blurb. Took some great photographs over the holidays, publish them in a book from Blurb. Prices are quite reasonable starting "at only $12.95 for a 40-page softcover, $22.95 for a 40-page hardcover with dust jacket. The bookmaking software is free." Click this link for further pricing guidelines.

The process is easy. Install Blurb BookSmart, choose the type of book you want to make, play around with the photos, stories, etc...and your book is done.What a great birthday, Christmas (next year), or special occasion gift! Work the cost into a school program. Students take their own photographs all year then publish them into a book at the end of the year....great keepsake. Companies want to tell their own story - to be original.

I am going to use Blurb to tell our story since we moved to New Zealand almost 3 years ago. Some of my family members will probably not ever travel from Canada to New Zealand so if I pull a book together for them with pictures of the people and places they have heard us talk about over the last couple of years.....it will bring our new home closer to them.

Web sites moving to Web Television

Since YouTube, there are more and more websites coming online that are offering users the ability to create their own personal web television channels. There is a movement away from "stupid people trick" videos and a movement now into very specific niches and uses for web television.

The first site is Vator.tv. "It is a professional network and marketplace for ideas and businesses. Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video."

Have 3 minutes to pitch your idea, business, skillset or need......What's your pitch?

The hope is that people via Vator.tv can network, exchange knowledge and collaborate with other people who can help those ideas get to the next level. People can use Vator.tv to get their ideas or needs discovered or to find, discover and connect with others in networks of interest.

Classroom....
Interesting idea for young entrepreneur programs.
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The second site is Ourmedia ...."Video producers and podcasters can use Ourmedia to show off their works and create communities of interest. "

You can create your own Channels of interest either as a producer or as a user. Ourmedia allows you to share your user created content, but they'll also host it at the Internet Archive for free as long as you're willing to share your work with a global audience.

Ourmedia also has a Personal Media Learning Center that is aimed to help users create video, audio, and other forms of citizens' media. Presently there are resources for video (how to create a videoblog, video compressions, etc...), audio (how to create a podcast, editing and compression, etc...), multimedia (how to screencast), digital photography tips, and text (how to write for the web.)

Classroom....

A great way to introduce video production for the web. Also teachers will be able to create video tutorials and then create their own channels for their students to view.

The ability to personalize any space on the web is and will become an important factor for the consumers of today but especially tomorrow.

Making Sense of Ads

Making Sense of Ads is a combination of History, Media and Marketing.

Walking through the history of American advertising the website (produced in association with the Visible Knowledge Project) explores questions one should ask about an ad:

• What is the ad trying to do?
• Who is the intended audience?
• What strategies are used to sell the product?
• What do ads reveal or conceal about an era?
• What else do you need to know to analyze an ad?

The last section of the site is full of web resources for further research on advertisements. Great website to explore for lesson ideas for advertising concepts.

Celtx: cross-platform application for the preproduction process

Celtx is a free "cross-platform media application that provides support for the entire pre-production process."

Use it for preproduction for: film, video, theatre, animation....or any media development.

Available for Windows, Mac and Linux, available on or offline. Split into four areas:

• writing tools (storyboard development and scripts)
• pre-visualization tools (storyboarding and media rich breakdowns)
• organization tools (project folders supporting external documents and scheduling/reports)
• web services (collaboration tool, private work spaces, back-ups, and publishing

Working through the preproduction process....this application assists you in:

• getting started - "Location, Character and Scene development tools help you start a dynamic story line"
• writing - with all the features of a document editor to assist with the writing momentum.
• collaborate - features enable teams to work together in the development of a project
• media breakdown - enables you to tag (comment) on props, characters, etc...with notes, pictures and audio.
• storyboard - drag and drop your images into the storyboard to be grouped and tagged. Play them as an animatic to help with the flow of the story.
• scheduling - is a "real-time" feature to help plan your shoot/digital story.
• web services - using Celtx server features allows you to back-up your project, share your project with others, or publish to Celtx central.

Great tool for students as it can be used as a whole or in separate parts (eg: storyboard section). Thanks Mr. Thomson for this link :)

MediaPredict....the online marketing game

Inkling markets key phrase is "none of us is as smart as all of us...." This young Chicago company has brought a unique prediction game to the web for all to play.....MediaPredict.

If you are teaching media, business or just have a love for marketing and the media....MediaPredict might be of interest to you.

How it works:

After your free registration you receive $5,000.00 virtual dollars that you can immediately start using for media investments online. Users are able to scan the market and put their virtual money on media investments that they think might be the next big hit.

"Better predictions help media companies choose the books, CDs, films, and television shows that people really want. That means you'll get media that you like, and so will everyone else."

This online game is quite a hook and is a great learning tool for students to learn about investment, trading and marketing.

Design Inspiration & Resource from Japan - PingMag

PingMag is a bilingual online design magazine that writes about ideas and inspiration by two designers from Japan. This online magazine is full of great articles and content.

LOVE THIS MAG!!!



Storyboard Design: Hey teachers, feeling like you need a little inspiration? Looking at that storyboard unit and dreading it? Check out the article in PingMag. The writers take you through 5 different storyboard case studies:

• TV drama
• Film festival trailer
• Online game
• 2 different TV commercials

With each case study there is an example of the drawn storyboard, discussions about the creative journey of the "storyboarders" and examples of the finished product.

As I was reading through their archives I came across a hilarious and entertaining article they did on the Website Development Process. Using Lego they created a superb visual story of what all web designers have gone through with their clients....from conception to completion of a design project. Great resource to help your students understand what is involved in the completion of a project (plus it will give you a giggle.)

Clothing and Textile teachers there is a huge amount of information on this site for you!

My husband will shake his head when I write about this one....but every morning before work, my husband packs up his eyeglass case, wallet, Tupperware bowl of cereal, spoon, bits and pieces of paper and religiously places them all in a nice plastic grocery bag. I keep teasing him and tell him that I am going to buy him a real man bag.....anything would be better than the plastic bags. Well in Tokyo apparently the fashion IS for a man to carry a fashion "man bag" .....who would of thought.

You really need to check out this site! Some of the categories that are available (which I am sure are growing daily):

• Architecture
• Arts & Crafts
• Conscientious Design
• Events & Exhibits
• Fashion
• Film/Animation
• Graphics
• Illustration
• Internet
• Japan
• Music
• Photography
• Products
• Street Art
• Technology
• Typography
• Worldwide

And in case you didn't pick it up at the beginning......LOVE THIS ONLINE MAG!!!

Epic 2014 & 2015....a look into the future?

Epic 2014 is the original flash online movie made by Robin Sloan for the Museum of Media History. Set in 2014 it charts the history of the Internet, the evolving mediascape and the way news and newspapers were affected by the growth in online news.

A simple flash movie in black and white that has a powerful sensory impact with a interesting story and subtle music in the background.

Epic 2014 coined the word "Googlezon" from a future merger of Google and Amazon to form the Google grid, and speaks of news wars with the Times becoming a print only paper for the elite culminating in EPIC (Evolving Personalised Information Construct.)

Epic 2015 is a new updated vision of the future set in 2015 (website access).

Classroom: A great springboard for discussion. This animation captures a past, present and possible future timeline of media and the impact that the Internet and companies such as Google has and possibly will have in the future.

Storyboarding

Storyboarding is used in Web design, Film and Animation. It is the process of visually planning your story whether it is a website or a full length feature film. The Storyboard Artist interprets scripts or web design concepts to create storyboards.

In Web design, storyboarding helps to develop a clear specification of what the site will do and how it is structured. In film or animation it is a vital tool in pre-production that can spot any initial problems, give the director a feel for the various shots required, helps keep focus on the story, reveals what props might be needed, etc... The storyboard will be referred to throughout the shooting of the film or development of the animation as a point of reference. Storyboarding is a great process for students to learn either individually or in groups.

Anthony Zierhut who is a freelance storyboard artist describes what his job is like and the skills that are needed. Interesting interview if you have students that might be interested in this field.

Tools:

Storyboard Pro by Atomic Learning (free)
While not as flash as some of the retail versions below, it does a great job to introduce storyboarding to students. There are free tutorials on the website as well.
http://www.atomiclearning.com/storyboardpro

Springboard 0.8.0 (almost free) You can download it for free to try and if don't want the hassle of downloading every couple of months just pay the $35 - quite a good little program.

http://www.newfreedownloads.com/Multimedia-Graphics/Video-Tools/Springboard.html

Gliffy (free)
The free online diagramming tool.....would work great for storyboarding websites.
http://brenniesbytes.blogspot.com/2007/02/gliffy-draw-share-diagrams-on-web.html

Storyboard Artist
http://www.storyboardartist.com/
Educational quotes available.

Frameforge 3D Studio 2
http://www.frameforge3d.com/
(the demo version is quite useful)

Smile you're on candid camera.....

Citizen Journalism...
Open-source Reporting...
Citizen-controlled Media...
Crowd-source...

These are some of the new terminologies that are hitting the web for the next online social wave called participatory news networks. Reporters have always had their sources for their stories, now news sites such as NowPublic and Yahoos YouWitnessNews (beta) are encouraging the "average Internet user" to be the roving reporter.

New tools such as video cameras in mobile phones, YouTube, blogs....Web 2.0 have encouraged the average Internet user to participate on the web. We have a new generation of young people that would rather interact through text messaging than a telephone or reading a newspaper.

There will be many ethical and legal issues arise from this new frontier....most reporters follow a code of ethics and standards....how will the new urban reporter be bound to these same ethics and standards? It is human nature to be drawn to a train wreck and the numbers have proven this with "NowPublic boasting more than 60,000 contributing reporters in more than 140 countries."

Problems in Schools....

An interesting report from latimes.com writes about schools that are having to deal with students "baiting" teachers in the classroom by confronting them and then secretly video taping it. These video tapes are then being posted on various websites such as MySpace and YouTube. Policing this can be a nightmare for educators as many of the postings are done outside the school walls on home computers. Other schools report school fights showing up online quite frequently.

Form of free speech or journalism? No - only another type of cyber bullying.

While online websites promote this new open communication tool it is important to discuss in the classrooms the impact on peoples lives that urban journalism can have. Ethics, legalities and other areas need to be discussed.

It is very easy to upload a file and press the send button from the comfort of your own home.....

Video Producion

Kids' Vid is a website to give teacher and students the tools to implement video production into the classroom.

The site is broken down into: scripting, making, editing and showtime.

There is also a theatre area where kids can share their work.

The Digital Kids Club by Adobe is a wonderful resource for teacher and student for digital video and digital photography.

Digital Kids Club is full of lesson ideas, templates, galleries, and collaboration areas where teachers can share and learn about what other media teachers from around the globe are doing.

Videomaker.com has posted an article title "5 Steps to Great Video Production." It lists and briefly describes the steps that students should know that are required to produce a video.

Videomaker.com also has a lot of other topics related to video production. Another article describes what is necessary to setup your videography.