Category: computers

geekiness gone wild

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Is there a Social-Media Fueled Protest Style? An Analysis From #jan25 to #geziparki | technosociology

https://i0.wp.com/technosociology.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Cnn-international-versus-CNN-Turkey.jpg?resize=402%2C404
CNN Turkey shows cooking while CNN international covers the protests.

 Guardian coverage of Turkey is pretty good but this one is from a social-media analyst in Turkey.  Great summary of the history, leading up to the current events.

Is there a Social-Media Fueled Protest Style? An Analysis From #jan25 to #geziparki | technosociology.

“So, let’s get some of the Tahrir/Taksim comparisons out of the way. Turkey’s government, increasingly authoritarian or not, is duly elected and fairly popular. They have been quite successful in a number of arenas.  They were elected for the third time, democratically, in 2011. The economy has been doing relatively well amidst global recession, though it has slowed a bit recently and there are signs of worrisome bubbles. So, Turkey is not ruled by a Mubarak.

But it’s also not Sweden. The government has been displaying an increasingly tone-deaf, majoritarian-authoritarian tendency in that they are plowing through with divisive projects. (I should add that the opposition parties are spectacularly incompetent and should share any blame that goes around)…”

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Parrot Drone crash – SOLVED!… Pic Watchdog Emergency.

Had a crazy crash with my Parrot AR Drone while I was testing some ideas for the Parade of the Lost Souls (you can see my test footage at left).  This is how I assessed and fixed it.

I hit a street light about 25 or 30 feet up. Down it came crashing. Why, oh why, did I listen to the passing child who insisted I try out the outdoor hull? I usually use the indoor hull at all times because I just think it will help the thing last longer. But no, it came straight down on the corner and broke a rotor gear in half, and broke the pin. Continue reading “Parrot Drone crash – SOLVED!… Pic Watchdog Emergency.”

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Parade of Lost Souls 2012

This was my video installation for the Secret Souls Walk at Parade of Lost Souls 2012.

Thanks to Nahid Karimaghalou and Reza Shahidi-Nejad who were my awesome volunteers!  Without them I’d be wetter, and would have had far more TV’s short-out in the rain – there were enough of those as it was! More of them were working when the day began… Andrea Maylone was the awesome volunteer wrangler who hooked them in with me…

Also thanks to Tim Furness, Kat Single-Dain and Ari Lazer for bringing me on board.  It was an awesome show and all kinds of fun.  Yes, as the hippies said, it was cool to see so many people having fun and freaking out, getting spooky etc in the rain.

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Parade of lost Souls 2012

The TV at the bottom of this one actually burned out in the rain:

video installation for the Secret Souls Walk at Parade of Lost Souls 2012

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Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic

(found this via the Frameworks listserv.  In other words, through Dark Social.)

Dark Social: We Have the Whole History of the Web Wrong – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic.

Here’s a pocket history of the web, according to many people. In the early days, the web was just pages of information linked to each other. Then along came web crawlers that helped you find what you wanted among all that information. Some time around 2003 or maybe 2004, the social web really kicked into gear, and thereafter the web’s users began to connect with each other more and more often. Hence Web 2.0, Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I’m not strawmanning here. This is the dominant history of the web as seen, for example, in this Wikipedia entry on the ‘Social Web.’

 

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Video Journalism workshops at VIVO

Learn on-camera reporting, off-camera interview skills, documentary shooting techniques, polished journalistic writing skills, and documentary editing.
Participants will develop a documentary concept (or bring one you have in mind) and shoot footage that will be analyzed and edited over two workshop sessions.  You are welcome to use VIVO’s video cameras, or you can bring your own.

1. Camera Skills & Interviewing
Learn how to set up a great interview with lights, camera, and appropriate questions. In this session we will also cover documentary shooting and sound skills. Homework: Shoot some footage!

2. Documentary Editing
With footage you’ve shot as homework from session one, we will learn to cut together a short news story with a voiceover, on-camera introduction, and develop a solid structure.

Make docs that ring true!

Continue reading “Video Journalism workshops at VIVO”

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Extraction is in the works

Extraction Chinese Character
Extraction Cast and Crew

After two years of research and planning, Theatre Conspiracy is digging into the creation of the documentary-style play Extraction. Our international cast and team of theatre artists are in residence at The Cultch in Vancouver for the next couple of weeks to experiment before a work-in-progress presentation at Your Kontinent: Richmond International Film & Media Arts Festival on July 21. Continue reading “Extraction is in the works”

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The Fine Line: Twisted Angels at Woodwards

I’ve just polished up the multimedia projections on this new dance work for Dancers Dancing.  I’ve been working with Judith Garay for years as a videographer and now as a projections designer.

For this show I’ve been using Isadora with Osculator, to allow Wii controllers in the dancers’ costumes to affect the projections.  I’ve played with a little animation, and I have an infrared camera doing a some motion detection.  It will be an awesome experiment for me and the dance, music, costumes and lighting are beautiful.

Please come and check it out!

The Fine Line – twisted angels

May 23-26, 2012 | 8:00 PM
$25 Adults | $15 Student/Seniors

Studio D, 2nd Floor
Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

Dancers Dancing and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs
present, as part of the SFU Woodward’s Faculty Research Series, the world premiere of

The Fine Line ~ twisted angels
A multi-media dance work inspired by perception, revelation and change

Performed by Cai Glover, Vanessa Goodman and Bevin Poole of Dancers Dancing.

Choreographed by Judith Garay, Artistic Director of Dancers Dancing
Music by Patrick Pennefather
Costumes by Margaret Jenkins
Lighting Design by John Macfarlane
Video Design by Flick Harrison

A PERFORMANCE TALK BALK WILL BE HELD AFTER THE SHOW ON THURSDAY, MAY 24TH.

The Fine Line ~ twisted angels explores in movement, sound and image how we experience, perceive, relate to and react to our internal and external worlds. Ephemeral, sometimes transformative, the moments between perceiving, sensing and cognition create a rich tapestry of somatic images. The work engages with the fragility of our existence and risks the deep and dark journeys necessary to project the internal experience directly onto the stage.

Since 1999 Dancers Dancing has mounted productions both in Vancouver and on tour. The company is known for its passion and technical excellence, and for reaching diverse audiences. The press has called the company “…truly exciting…” and a recent production “Bursting with energy from the moment the curtains open, this powerhouse of a show was a delight from beginning to end…” Artistic director Judith Garay has been choreographing professionally for over three decades starting in New York where The New York Times called her “A choreographer with a sure inventive touch” and more recently in Vancouver where The Georgia Straight said “Garay has an incredible ability to boil down relationships to simple gestures that are loaded with meaning.”

 

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Problem-Solving in Adobe Premiere: Audio Glitches and Sync

(I’ve just made the leap to Adobe Premiere from Final Cut, because I HATE the new FCPX and no, I’m NOT afraid of a new paradigm.  Adobe’s keyboard shortcuts alone are reason enough to be glad I switched.  I mean – tilde (~) expands the panel you’re hovering over to fill the whole screen?!  And then tilde again puts everything right back!  Sign me up.)

SO I had this problem which I solved in Premiere Pro CS 5.5 and i thought I’d mention it here.

I imported a few camera cards full of AVCAM / AVCHD footage from my HMC-150 and edited for a few days.

Then I clicked on one imported clip and found that the audio was wrong.  Glitches, skips, out of sync, weird things happening – all nice sounding, but not in the right places.

I checked the original MTS files on my HD using VLC player.  Sound was fine, everything was in sync.

I tried dragging the files into the Premiere project window, to see if it was a media import problem.  Same thing happened when I did that – the identical glitches, which were the same every time I played the file.

So I started guessing that Premiere had imported it wrong, and had recorded some wrong metadata.  That turned out to be the case.

I went to the “PRIVATE” folder where I’d copied my SD card to HDD.  Premiere distressingly fills this folder up with metadata files associated with each clip, which violates the law of “DO NOT MESS WITH YOUR SD CARD DIRECTORIES.”  But it seems to cause no harm because it only ADDS files, it doesn’t alter or delete any.

For each imported clip in .mts format, Premiere adds a file with the same name with .xmp as the extension in the same folder.  Feeling bold, I quit Premiere then deleted all these the .xmp files for that card – though i didn’t empty my trash yet.  I re-opened Premiere and double-clicked that file.  It was dead silent, as clips often are when first imported to Premiere.  It does some meta-data-ing… and then the sound was all back in proper order, problem solved.

The XMP files had been re-produced in that folder, although this time, apparently, without glitches.

-Flick