Like many folks, I was interested in comic guru Nick Sousanis’s call for participation in a week of Grids and Gestures Quickly, have a look at your ceiling tiles or other grid-ish things around you. If you then imagine putting these features to music, you might have regular long notes on the tiles, some shorter […]
Some of most jaw-dropping breath-stealing moments are when I see/hear how someone has used a tool, medium I have had in my hands many times, and completely does something I never even imagined possible. Creating within constraints is some of the best stuff you can try. The other day, Bryan Alexander tweeted a link to […]
I am but one among millions that get a TED experience by sampling the videos they freely share. I did get a faintwhiff of a TED halo experience as the NMC 2009 Summer Conference was held in the original TED venue at Monterey Bay, so I stood on the stage where TEDness happened.. What I […]
Thanks to a curious click form a Tony Hirst tweet, I briefly whizzed by xtranormal an interesting web app for creating/directing/producing/gaffering your own virtual movies:
Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century and its democratization is a massive business opportunity. Our revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill””typing. You type something; we turn it into a movie. On the web and on the desktop.
And all of this rang as 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story material. As I am preparing to do a remote online intro for Dean Shareski’s class this Monday, I am spiffing up the site and re-acquainting myself with old and new tools.
After an hour’s play, I am amazed as this little app, which almost belongs n a category of its own. Again, it’s tagline is “If You Can Type Text, You Can Create a Movie” which is not quite true. You also have to know how to click your mouse. So when you create a movie, you get to choose if it will be one or two characters, pick a set, music, and avatars for the characters. Now at first reaction, you are going to find it limiting, because there are fixed choices for everything.
But step back- this is another example where limited tools (being boxed in) should make you dig deeper into your creativity, of creating something inside the box, rather than whining about the box.
I love this 3 minute TED clip of Rives telling a love (or not) story played out in emoticons: (sideline complaint- I installed a new version flash and now about 20% of the web sites, including my own, cannot load the content, WTF?) You know how the motivational thinkers trot out the “thinking outside of […]
I can’t stop going back for more GraphJams. I am wearing my GraphJammies eating peanut butter and GraphJam sandwiches. But I am waiting for my own submission to be portrayed, based on a recent blog post of my own. But for now, cue up that CD track that starts with scratchy vinyl sounds and get […]
