andrewvs

Making Cinematic Quality Home Videos

How do you take the crummy home videos your husband shoots and turn them into cinematic masterpieces? I'll tell you how...with the help of two little software applications (and a decent book).

First, let's fix that problem where everyone who watches his videos gets queasy because he can't hold the camera still and he refuses to use a tripod. iStabilize ($29.95) removes unwanted shaky motion from movies with respect to translation, rotation, and zoom. Take a look at some of the "before and after" movies here. Pretty amazing, huh?

Second, let's make the video footage look cinematic with CinemagicX ($29.95). The features in CinemagicX were developed after researching the techniques editing professionals use to improve the look of their video footage. Many editors use an ecclectic combination of filters and multiple overlays of the same footage with various transfer settings to get their desired results—CinemagicX gathers these film-look techniques under one plugin.

Finally, you should buy a good book—and get your husband to read it (Father's Day is coming up, remember?). I recommend Movie Making with iMovie. It covers everything you need to know to plan, shoot, and edit a home video.

Paper Toys

Just a few days ago, I pointed you to Howtoons—projects to build with kids that produce a lot of action and noise. (The kinds of things that make your mom say, "If you going to roughhouse, go outside.")

The Toymaker is just the opposite—a website that provides templates for paper toys that are best made and used indoors. All you need is a color printer and you're off and running.

If you think paper toys are fun, go here for more.

Howtoons

I've never been a comic book fan. I've enjoyed reading some comic strips like Calvin & Hobbes and The Far Side, but I've never really been interested in reading a Spiderman, Superman, or other superhero comic book.

Well, if they had Howtoons when I was growing up, you couldn't have torn me away from them. Howtoons are one-page cartoons that show kids how to build lots of fun things. The project was started at MIT and follows in the footsteps of OpenCourseWare—free online educational resources for adults. The creators call Howtoons "OpenKidsWare."

Their projects include a Shockwave Air Cannon, Duct Tape Body Double, and Marshmallow Shooter. Neat stuff. Where to start?!

Here's an idea: when your kids (or nieces/nephews) are bored this summer, making one of these projects with them might just elevate you to the "Cool" category—and maybe they (and you) will learn a little something along the way.

Computational Aesthetics

Here are a couple of interesting articles on how researchers are using computers (and some clever reverse-engineering techniques) to crack the aesthetics of piano, singing, wine, and writing. Are you aware of any others?

With a souped-up reproducing piano and some ingenious learning machines, AI maestro Gerhard Widmer is discovering how performers unlock the art in Mozart.

Singing synthesis software

A biochem company called Enologix says it's cracked the code for making fine wine.

The debate on automated essay grading

A Logo of Letters

Let's say you need a logo for your company or for a project you're working on. And let's say you don't have the budget or time to hire some fancy black-mock-turtleneck-sweater-wearing graphic designer. What do you do?

Do it yourself, of course. How?

By following the online tutorial provided by the folks at Before&After magazine. In 25 screens, they take you through a number of examples of how to start off with a few letters and end up with a logo that's every bit as nice as those used by CNN, AOL, eBay or any number of BILLION dollar companies.

I like their approach. There's not a whole lot of talk about color theory or composition—just no-nonsense tips.

Information Design::Tufte Forum

If you are interested in information design, then you probably have heard of Edward Tufte. You may have read some of his books such as The Visual Display of Quantitative Information or Envisioning Information. If you can't get enough of this stuff, you should stop by the online forum that he hosts. Lots of questions are asked and he participates regularly.

Color Names

Whites
  –alabaster, cream, ivory, pearl
Reds
  –carmine, cerise, cherry, coral, crimson, damask, pink, rose, ruby, salmon, scarlet, titian, vermillion
Oranges
  –apricot, copper, peach, rust, tangerine
Greens
  –chartreuse, emerald, lime, reseda, forest, kelly, olive
Browns
  –beige, bronze, chocolate, cinnamon, coffee, ecru, fawn, hazel, henna, khaki, mahogany, sienna, tan, taupe, umber
Blues
  –aquamarine, azure, bice, cerulean, indigo, sapphire, turquoise, midnight, navy
Yellows
  –amber, buff, canary, champagne, eggshell, gold, lemon, ocher, saffron, xanthic
Purples
  –fuchsia, heliotrope, lavender, lilac, magenta, maroon, mauve, plum, violet
Black
  –ebony, raven, sable, silver, slate

My favorite: cerulean (suh ROO lee uhn). The name "Cerulean blue" comes from Latin caelum = sky.

Check out this page to read more about pigments used in paintings.

LetterJames

Ok. I have no idea who or what the phrase LetterJames refers to...but this site is fun. You are presented with a series of pictures—all of which contain writing of some kind. There's a billboard, a Scrabble board, a bowl of alphabet soup, an airport arrival board, a birthday cake, etc. Select a photo, type in your own words, and then click on Get to work, James!. A second later, the photo is refreshed—customized with your own words. You could copy this picture into an e-mail or use it in your website, or whatever.

For the more ambitious of you, the company that build the "LetterJames" site, AlphaPicture, provides a service where you can customize the picture on a postcard, add a message (in a choice of handwritten, computer, or typewriter fonts), and they'll mail it off to whomever you would like it sent to.

Mr. Picassohead

Mr. Potatohead goes cubist.

Create beautiful and strange works of art by clicking and dragging (and rotating and resizing and coloring if you really want to be creative). Even with such a flexible tool, I found myself trying to recreate the image in my photo.

I just can't let go of reality.

Try it out for yourself at Mr. Picassohead.

VinylVideo

Ok. This one takes a little explaining...hang in there.

VinylVideo is a fake archeological relic of media technology—a revision in the record of technological progress that bridges a gap in the history of consumer technology. An Austrian artist named Gebhard Sengmller created a technique for storing and reproducing video signals (moving image and synchronized sound) onto conventional analog long-playing vinyl (LP) records with a running time of approximately 8 minutes per side. A "black box" transforms the audio signal back into a video signal that is played back on a standard turntable with an ordinary diamond needle and a conventional black and white television set.

The historical background for this video disk technology is the discontinuity in the development of electronic video technology. While the electronic transmission of images has been possible since the late 1920s, the reproduction of such stored images only became possible with the invention of the videorecorder in 1958 and recording for private use only became available in the 1980s with the mass introduction of the VCR. This technology fills in that gap and is presented as though it actually existed.

Abstracted from A Short History of VinylVideo—A Collective Memory.

I think the artistic concept of "discovering" and presenting products that were technologically possible long before they were actually developed is interesting. For instance, ancient Egyptians had all the materials needed to construct gliders large enough to carry a man. Suppose someone "discovered" paintings on the wall of a burial crypt depicting Egyptians hang-gliding off the pyramids 5,000 years ago?

Looking deeper... Most technologies precede the science required to understand them (eg. aspirin). So here's the $64,000 question: What invention could be produced right now with ordinary materials and know-how, and is just waiting to be discovered?

Ok. Back to reality.