Procrastination Studios

Soundsnap has a large selection of sound effects conveniently organized by categories. You can download the sounds in wav or mp3 format. Check it out!

Here are two great links to have a look at. Please share your thoughts after you watch them.

J.J. Abrams on TED Talks

Abrams is a director of film and tv. His resume includes Lost, Alias and Mission Impossible 3 to name a few. In this entertaining presentation he discusses the source of his creativity and points out some great examples of mystery in other films.

Life After People

The teaser trailer for this show includes an explanation of the planning and storyboarding. Interesting to see how they came up with the ideas and the visuals for this show.

We will start shooting our music videos when we get back. In the meantime, here is a creative video from an Argentinian site. The quality is better here.

Here are some ideas that I have found creative:

Flags as graphs

This graphic was compiled using statistics. It was originally created for a Portuguese magazine but someone has translated the various images here. I thought it was a very original idea to use the colors of a country’s flag to represent data about that country.

Innovative Architecture

This is a conceptual design for a possible building in Dubai. The idea is that the structures at the top of the towers would be covered by condensation emitted from the building itself creating an artificial cloud around the building. You can read more about it at the New York Times.

Internet Geography

A web design firm in Japan are designing a Web 2.0 map based on the Tokyo subway. This is actually the plans for the latest version which will have different layers of information about the sites on the map.

Image source: www.nowsourcing.com

For today’s class, we will start by answering these questions on your blog:

What is creativity?

What part of the brain focuses on creativity?

What are some examples of something you find creative?

How does your group come up with ideas? (e.g. discussing, drawing, showing each other examples on the web)

After answering these questions, we are going to try and re-examine our storyboards with a hands on approach. We will need scissors, marker, paper and some imagination.

A special thanks to Mr. O for stopping by to help us brainstorm ideas for our music videos. Here are some ideas and videos that illustrate the points we were talking about. Keep posting your reflections and ideas on you own blogs. Next class we will share our ideas and start to draw up the storyboards.

This first video is the talk from Larry Lessig. He shows 3 examples of videos that have been mashed together using existing footage. The focus is on merging existing content to create something new. The examples begin at about the 8 minute mark.

We also discussed where bands get their inspiration. The Verve’s video for “Bittersweet Symphony” was based on Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy”. There is actually an interesting story behind the Verve’s song.

Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy

The Verve – Bittersweet Symphony

Happy New Year, I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday. We will begin by reviewing the videos and ideas that you came across over the break so be prepared to share what you have discovered. Then we will discuss the concept for the upcoming Music Video Project.