Blogging for students part 1.

As part of the Foundation Degree in Media Production we require students to blog as part of their course work. This post explains what blogs are, how they work, and why you have to blog. There is a second post that covers the practicalities of student blogging.

It's important that you know:

1. What a blog is
2. Why you are blogging
3. How to blog
4. What they need to blog
5. How the blog will be assessed

What is a blog?

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

taken from wikipedia.

Commoncraft have produced an excellent guide to blogging.



But blogging is only half the story. It's the filtering and finding of information - the 'broadcasting' or distribution of your blog, that makes up the other half. This is achieved using RSS. Or Really Simple Syndication. Lee Lefever (sounding rather tinny) explains again.



How can I use RSS? There are several ways. The first is by using a 'Reader'. Since we will be using Blogger.com which is owned by Google, its easiest to use the Google Reader since you'll already have a Google ID or email address. Once more (and I tried to find someone else to explain this, but Lee's version was way better an the others.)



Or you can create a web page that updates with the blogs or 'feeds' that you subscribe to. Examples of this are Netvibes, Pageflakes or My Yahoo. Google also offers the Google page. I like Netvibes - here is one I use to share FD Media Production blog feeds. The choice is really yours. Experiment, it's all free!

I favour using the Google Reader. Since I have a Gmail account, I use iGoogle and have set up my iGoogle desk top with the Google Reader widget. That way when I open my browser (its my browser's Home page) and I can see my Google desktop with all recent posts from feeds I follow. I can also see activity on my Facebook account, Gmail account, Twitter etc etc.

(Here's more about iGoogle, using a portable version of Firefox installed on a USB stick, and getting the most from Firefox. OK its geeky but its useful I think. The only way to 'get' this technology is to use it. Take it bit by bit. You don't have to get it all immediately!



Why blog? The best way to answer this is to think of the short term and the longer term. Here's the short term logic to using blogs rather than essays.

Traditionally students write to show that they have understood what they have been taught. It's also part of the way we assess and qualify the student. As part of the course we could ask you to write an essay. However with the Internet we have (arguably) a better way of you presenting your work and ideas, since you can embed media and link to items that have informed, inspired you or support your ideas. These elements are drawn together by your reflection on them. A key part of that is to show your work as part of similar work that has or is being done (placing your work in the context of others). Reflective writing, and practice, is necessary in order to develop 'learning autonomy'. This is where you take responsibility for your learning and development. Students usually find reflective writing difficult if you need extra help, learning support is provided at university and colleges.

Since we are working in an area (the Media), that's currently undergoing radical and constant change, you need to be part of that! Utilising the web, like this, is the most effective way of being up to date and part of the zeitgeist. There is an employability issue underlying this too - you need to understand the theory and practice of this way of working - Web 2.0. It's likely to play a large part in the way you consume and create media now and in the future. Your blog might well morph into your online portfolio and therefore become part of the supporting material for a job/freelance application. It might say more about you than a traditional CV. Here are some interesting comments, taken from the Film and Digital Exchange website, about creating an online portfolios from Chris Martin an animator and motion graphics artist.

Part 1.
Part 2.
Part 3.


The history of Web 2.0




Some interesting thoughts on Web 2.0 and where it might take us...



In part 2 I cover the practical aspects of writing your blog as well as explaining what good reflective writing (blogging) entails.

Mike J

31 outlines in 31 days

The aim was to write the outline for a short film each day of the month - for the whole of July. I got the idea from doing the Bath Photomarathon. A sort of writing challenge - a' writeathon'. I wanted the outlines to be for a short film of 5 - 8 minutes in duration that would be easily producible. I largely stuck to these criteria.

How did I do? Well if I'm honest, I didn't manage 31 out of 31. Life got in the way several times. The 10th to the 15th in particular - as I tried to clear the decks before my leave!) But looking at the 21 outlines I did write, I notice several things:

1. I never failed to write one when I started
2. Sometimes they came easily but mostly they didn't
3. I never spent more than 45 mins writing any of them
4. I wrote several a day at times to 'get back on track'
   
5. Some are boring, some are obvious, and some might have potential (in that proportion)
   
6. I got better at it and worked out ways of doing it more easily
   
7. The repetition and process helped. Sometimes 2 different ideas ended up in one outline
8. I enjoyed it and laughed a lot
   
9. I was pleased with some of my ideas
10. I was pleased to get to the 31st

I found a number of ways of getting going:

• save up ideas during the day (this felt like cheating)
  
• taking any idea and thinking it out. Any idea will do...and like waiting for a bus, a whole bunch tend to arrive at once
• sitting somewhere different
• listening to music
• pretending to be someone else
• start with an object, image, character, a story, a line of dialogue
• taking something that already exists and re imagineering it
• doodling
• what ifs...
• moving around
  

Was it worth doing? Yes I think it was. Leaving aside some of the ideas that are worth developing, there is definitely something to be gained from really immersing yourself in an activity. It focused my mind on lots of issues around storytelling. There are some re occurring themes - the film-making process (constructed reality if you want to be fancy), mundane things behaving oddly, and strange romances. In the future I would like to write some outlines that are more associational than linear. I think that the time constraint defines the type of film. The short film is almost a genre of its own. (One of the outlines is about this.)

Would I do it again? Yes, but not for a while. I think that I might apply the idea to photography or songwriting. I intend to develop some of the outlines too. Again I think that applying a pattern to their development might be interesting. Do 1 a week? Pick 4 for a month? I might try that next. First comes a weeks holiday.

Using Youtube or Vimeo?

YouTube is a great service and I use it alot. But there are some advantage of using another service called Vimeo. The main one is that you can upload videos and control the people who have access to it. So that rough cuts and work and progress can be shared or collaboratively worked on , privately. As far as quality goes I thinks its about even. YouTube has improved recently with the addition of HD and more importantly support for 16:9 playback. I, personally, find YouTube to stream more consistently. But then I think my home ISP (Tiscali) is to blame for this!

The basic account at Vimeo is free with limits on the number of HD files you can upload a week and the max weekly data upload. Thats 1 HD video and 500 mb respectively. Plenty for normal use. The video that you upload is converted by Vimeo and then the orginal is deleted after a week, leaving the compressed version to view and download. So its NOT a storage service for your videos!

You need to compress the video, initially. This is to maximise your data useage, mimimise the upload time and create the best looking online video. There are a number of ways of doing this. Here are the vimeo guidelines:

Codec - Choose H.264 for the video codec. Choose AAC for the audio codec.

Frame rate – 25 per sec. If there is an option that says "current" just go with that.

Keyframes - Every 25 frames. This is basically how often the compressor references your uncompressed video.

Data rate - 1800 kbits/sec for standard definition 4:3 video , 2500 kbits/sec for widescreen DV, or 5000 kbits/sec for high definition. Making these numbers higher will increase both quality and size.

Size - 720 x576 for standard definition 4:3 video, 1024 x 576 for widescreen DV, or 1280x720 for high definition. It is also best to export 1920x1080 or 1440x1080 video as 1280x720 too.

Deinterlace - Yes. If you do not deinterlace, you will often get weird-looking horizontal lines in your video.

Sound sample rate - 44.100 kHz

Audio quality - 128 kbps.

To convert SD DV use the free handbrake application. Instructions here. If you have FCP here are instructions. If you want to use Compressor (from the FCP studio bundle) instructions are here with a downloadable 'droplet' for you desktop to make it even easier.

I have also been trying QuickTime Pro and MPEG streamclip as ways of compressing the footage. I'll post about these soon.

Good luck.

Mike J

Bit torrent - all piracy?

We are all aware that people are using the Internet for the illegal distribution of music, films. software and documents. The Bit torrent technique has added greatly to this activity. What is it and is there a legitimate use for it?

Bit torrent is a way of overcoming the problem of asymmetrical connections to the Internet. It is a communication protocol invented by Bram Cohen in 2001. We all talk about 'broadband' as being a download speed of 1 megabits per sec or more. ( I'm with Tiscali and the service stinks. Speeds vary, often stopping for short periods.)

In order to cut costs the ISPs have reduced the upload speeds, prioritising the download speeds. So uploading a film takes ages. What bit torrent does, is share the upload of a file by co ordiating its upload and download from a number of people who have the same file. This is called 'seeding'. Once you have downloaded a file, its etiquette to let it seed to others. By using your limited upload bandwidth and that of other peers, the downloads can be (for a very popular file) extremely quick.

In order to use a bit torrent you need to download a small bit torrent file and open in an application (Bit torrent client) that will handle the upload/download. There are a number of freely available ones. I have used Transmission (Mac only) in the past. It works well and is simple to operate.


There have been 2 occasions when I have used it.

Last summer Director Bruce McDonald released all the rushes for his latest film - Tracey Fragments . He made 36 gigs of data (Quicktime) files available for an edit-yourself- competition. It took me 4 days to download the lot! More recently I wanted to download the film, Good copy- bad copy, a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture. Its a quicktime file of about 700mb. I found this is a film from the Open Source Cinema movement's website.