Class Notes #12
The User Interface - Defining visual space in information systems
Using iMovie and iDVD
The iLife products from Apple include two powerful but easy to use applications for making movies and dvd's - iMovie and iDVD. While there are many compromises with these largely automated programs, they allow the user to get up and running with little or no training. Much like GarageBand, there are many presets that work "out of the box". For experienced or more demanding usage one would go from Garage Band to Logic Pro (or Logic Express). Similarly, for more refined digital movie production one would use Final Cut Pro (or Avid) and DVD Studio Pro. These programs are shipped in one bundle called Final Cut Studio (not including Logic Pro). Of course, there are other high-end products for the PC world, most notably those from SONY Media such as Vegas + DVD and Acid Pro. In fact, there are more products with a wider price-range for PC than Mac but in the wealthier countries Apple seems to prevail in the media production industry.
Here is an animation clip using Final Cut and other products from C-TRL labs. This clip mixes modeling with animation (still photography) and electroacoustic music to make a kind of dreamy futuristic statement about cyberlife or some such.
Your Project (see project #3 notes) Due date: Thursday, November 9 at end of class.
I have made a some photocopies of the the iLife06 book by Michael Rubin (that I showed in class) . This book comes with a DVD-ROM providing a set of examples to work with much like the Photoshop Tutorials from Adobe. While you do not have these examples, many of the key procedures in iMovie and iDVD (less so) are clearly described. At all times you can open the "Help" windows to see how to operate any aspect of the program. (Admittedly the Help Manuals are not always fully explanatory but they do "help".)
This project is intended to get you thinking about visual space and how current softwares permit rapid and fairly painless use of digital visual media systems. Ideally we would make movie clips but there is no means to provide all of you with a dv-cam in the this class. But there is much to learn from still photo animation such as:
- picture composition - what is the point-of-view of the camera? what is in the frame? where are primary elements of your image placed in the frame? what is the background and how does it contribute to the primary material?
- sequence design - how are the individual images related? what is the increment (time/movement) between each individual shot? how will the primary visual elements move within the set? is the set static?
- lighting - how have you illuminated your objects? what happens to the set with this lighting? how will the lighting change (if at all) throughout the sequence? how does the lighting contribute to the overall plan and story?
- distance - the distance from the primary objects in the frame is a powerful expressive force. closeups suggest and intensifying of the viewer's relationship to the primary objects while distant shots are more generally more reflective. how will you use the "zoom" feature of the camera to modify distance? what happens when you zoom out, in ?
- pace - just as there are sections and phrases in music that help articulate the structure of the piece, the animation should have an overall timing scheme based on sections such as "intro, action, resolution, closure". within these sections how does the pace of the individual images develop? how does manipulating the duration of each image and the rate of change of images effect the overall impact? how does this fit into your story?
About Photo Settings....
You must import your photos into the iPhoto Library as jpgs before they are loaded into iMovie. The reason is that the iMovie "Media" folder turns all images into "DV" format and importing these into iPhoto (which I learned you can do) does not yeild the correct format for the Photo Settings operations within iMovie. This confirms that entire iLife package relies on the database formats of each program to be intact.
While the Photo Settings is not all that useful, it does provide some zoom features that you may want.
Loading MP3 or AIFF into iMovie
This is simple drag and drop OR you can access your iTunes Library from the Media window (like iPhoto). Again, your audio clip would have to be imported into iTunes for this method to work.
Class Demo - I will build part of a new movie using my cyclops images and a choral track to demonstrate most of the features of iMovie.