Posts Tagged video
Video: Coffee pavlova recipe
Posted by Angela Brett in Recipes, video on September 6, 2009
I am working on some more writing-related things, and I encourage people who are here for the writing to go to the launch of Offshoots X (which includes my poem, Role Reversal) after the September 19 workshop but since Writing Cards and Letters finished I also have time to play with other things, such as video.
For my birthday this year, I made my favourite dessert… a New Zealand invention called a pavlova. It’s like a giant meringue which is soft in the centre. Since my friends often ask how to make one, I filmed myself making it in time-lapse mode. I also took photographs of the ingredients, mostly in multilingual Swiss packets, which might help people looking for the ingredients in French-, German- or Italian-speaking countries. I then added music and titles to create this video recipe:
Two Macs singing happy birthday to the London Science Museum
Posted by Angela Brett in Things To Listen To on June 28, 2009
A few days ago I got a shiny new MacBook Pro. I’m usually monomacous, so it’s the first time in four years that I’ve had two Macs at the same time. This had me wondering what to do with them, and one of the first ideas was to have them sing a duet. Of course, it’s easy enough to get a single Mac to sing something twice in different voices and then edit them together (as I did with You’ve gotta be happy), but with two Macs I could make a somewhat interesting video. A friend of mine suggested it would be good to do a round, and I agreed.
While I was still thinking about which round to get them to sing, I saw a link to this article, showing a video of three robots humming happy birthday to the London Science Museum. They’re a lot more sophisticated than my own ‘robot choir’, having actually learnt to sing together, but nonetheless I decided to get my Macs to sing it too. Here is the result:
It was easy enough; a short song with music available. I think I spent the most time deciding on appropriate desktop pictures for my Macs to wear on stage. The other challenge was tapping ‘Start Speaking’ at the same time on both computers. As you can hear, I didn’t quite manage it the first time around. I could have done it automatically, with a script starting it on both computers at a given time, but then the video would have been essentially two unchanging computer screens with some singing in the background. This is a ‘live’ performance, and dalrymples are obligatory.
Audio of the successful attempt will soon be available on the podcast.
Update: You can now make your own Mac sing this.
Ace of Diamonds: Fork and Tongs, the play
Posted by Angela Brett in 52 ways to say I love you, Writing Cards and Letters on March 9, 2009
No new writing this week, just a video and mp3 of my reading a love poem I wrote previously. What can I say? I was only following instructions. I chose this one because it’s more finished than the love poem I wrote last week, I’ve already read it for an audience, and I have all the props required.
I didn’t particularly want to put it on YouTube, since it’s my first video featuring me and I’m kind of self-conscious about it, but I couldn’t find a decent host for it elsewhere. So you’ll just have to suffer through it.
There might be a more novel ace of diamonds next week; one of the cards is perfect for a final Thing. In any case, there will be a second joker, and then this adventure will be over. It won’t be my last adventure, though. Among other things, I’ll probably continue making recordings of Things. Let me know if there are any Things in particular that you’d like recordings of, or any of the Things-with-tunes that you’d like to sing if I sent you the tune I had in mind. There are a few Things I don’t think my robot choir can do justice to. To make it easier for people to follow them, I’m setting up a podcast for them and any similar audio I might produce in the future. It’s not up yet due to various technical problems with the host I planned to use, but I hope to get it working eventually.
Eight of Diamonds: The Village of Silver
Posted by Angela Brett in 52 ways to say I love you, Bäume, Birds of Canada, Cadbury Heritage Collection, CERN, Dinosaurier, Discover Ontario, Fische, Flowers and Animals, Holland, Hunde der Welt, Intriguing Development, Ireland, Johnny English, Katzen der Welt, Kräuter, Lyon, Mont Blanc, Paris, Pferde & Ponys, Pilze, Reptilien, Schmetterlinge, St James's Gate, Switzerland, The Best of Switzerland, Tierwelt Europas, Venezia, Wasservögel, Wildflowers of Canada, Wildvögel, Writing Cards and Letters on January 19, 2009
Although many stories end up coming full circle, the first step is always finding a few good lines to lead into it. The steps are too steep for me to climb, I will wait and watch.
All the best pictures have canoes in them. As the boat left the wharf, they did not know that they would soon be the first victims of the biggest eruption in history. They used the clock tower to localise themselves in time and space. The people did not know that the tower would soon fall. It was big.
The butterfly said, “Some creatures are bigger than they have any right to be. The problem with rankings is that the first and second always crowd out the third. I am not going to react to that in the way you expect.”
The butterfly does not know what you have called him, he just lives.
The frog said, “I know a man who collects frogs. Hair brushed back to impress you, he has addled your brains, you no can no longer call yourselves human.
Why do you keep calling me a bull? I don’t wear armour and spikes to threaten you, but to protect myself. Standing on the stump of what was my home, I can’t help but wonder if there is any more of a future for those who destroyed it. After all their adventures, one diamond is still missing.”
A line of spikes separated the riches from the untamed sea. Many colours, reaching to the sky. Each stalk is topped with a permanent snowball. Scientists rushed to tend to the glowing backbone. The crowd rejoiced as they saw their work fall away.
Their neighbour was richer than they thought. A giant living diamond thrashed its way forward through the sea. A single female to perpetuate the genes of a thousand men.
And a gold-crazed fool said, “This is no more possible than a flower growing from another flower. I sent e-kisses over the internet before my first real kiss. I have two pillows, but there is no room for another in this bed.”
The trick in gathering treasure is to leave room for more. They got on like two flowers in a pod.
A village of silver, covered in white snow, one lasts and the other is precious.
Rearranging the components of your point does not make it any sharper.
King of Clubs: Not TOP
Posted by Angela Brett in CERN, Writing Cards and Letters on September 7, 2008
Sorry, I didn’t get time to write a Thing this week, because I was secretly somehow involved in the anonymous collaboration which created this video, a song based on Don’t Stop by Sarah Bettens with assorted advice for people working at CERN. Luckily, it features a king of clubs, so guess what… since I’m past the middle of the project, I’m counting down from kings to aces from now on.
You can download the video in Quicktime format, an mp3 of the song, the slideshow used to make the video, and the lyrics here.
So now you know why I was taking photos of a rubber duck back in April. I took the photo of it with the king of clubs, in the hope that it would earn me a week off.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Please tell me if you do something cool with it.
Creative Output 
