Magic Realism

I created this video in the "Magic Realism" genre of filmmaking. After finishing my video today, I realized that this video represents how I have been transformed recently: driving through the dark tunnel represents my transformation back into being creative... like a "rebirth" of my creativity... the moon represents the universe that "loves" me and wants me to be creative... the rain and thunder represent my fears and struggles... the tea, rainbow, and cake represent how I long for security, comfort and beauty (flowers on the tea kettle) in my life... the lightning represents creative inspiration... the girl swimming underwater represents that I keep searching and trying to find my way. 

Black History Month (is not over)

If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper that did his job well.

—Martin Luther King Jr., 1954

Some networks and tools to make your social life easier because the last thing most of us want are more sites to scour through. These tools will help you reclaim time in your schedule without missing a beat. See original article here.

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling from Helen Barrett

This is from my Full Sail University Graduate Course in Filmmaking - my favorite course!
More presentations by Helen Barrett can be seen here.


From my filmmaking course:

Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling

by Mike King on 28 June 2011

Prezi transcript

The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling A Point of View Stories are told to make a point and should not be presented as a recitation of mere facts. Define the premise of your story so that all parts can serve to make the point. Consider your audience and direct the point to them. A Dramatic Question You want to capture your audience’s attention at the beginning of the piece and hold their interest throughout. Typically you want to pose the dramatic question in the opening lines and resolve it in the closing lines. Emotional Content Emotional content can help hold your audiences attention. The images, effects, music and tone of voice all lend to contributing emotion to the piece. Try to keep the elements consistent with the emotion of the moment. Voice Most likely the first time you heard your recorded voice you couldn’t stand the way it sounded. And you still can’t. Suggestion….get over it! Your voice is a great gift and even thought you don’t like to hear it, others do. If you “read” your script your audience will not know how to react. Take time to learn and practice your script so you can speak in a conversational voice. Record several takes and select the best one. Trust that your audience will think it is perfect. The Soundtrack Music is a big plus to a digital story. The right music can set the story in time and can convey emotion. Play music behind an image and a specific emotion is generated. Change the music behind the same image and an entirely different emotion isexperienced. Sound effects can add tension and excitement to a piece, but be careful,they can be a distraction too. Economy Plan to leave some of your work on the “cutting room floor”. A compact, fast moving digital story will contain only those elements necessary to move the audience from beginning to end. We know that our brains are constantly filling in (from our own experiences) details from suggestions made by sights and sounds. Don’t give every minute detail to clarify your story, let your audience fill in some of the blanks. Pacing The rhythm of the piece is what keeps your audience’s interest in the story. Changing pace within the story can facilitate moving the audience from one emotion to another. Music tempo, speech rate, image duration, and panning and zooming speed all work to establish pace. Generally pace will be consistent, but one in a while it will pause, accelerate, decelerate, stop or blast-off. Trust your own senses, we all move at our own pace.

More resources for digital storytelling: Kurt Vonnegut at the Blackboard

What would you do if you could do anything you wanted in life?

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this video. I am doing what I want in life. It took a lot of sacrifice, struggle, resilience. I LOVE my life. I look forward to each day... I look back on my life and understand... I don't tell my children what to do, I tell them to think for themselves.

The Moon is a Cookie

In my motion graphic video, I am interviewed by Lyn de l'Eau, a Ph.D. candidate at San Francisco University, for her class on the constructionist theory in learning. If you care to comment, please use the  RISE Model developed by Emily Wray.

Full Sail University - Capstone Media Project

This is my Capstone Media Project (due today) for my Digital Media and Education Applications course. I am currently enrolled in Full Sail University (online) Education Media Design and Technology Master of Science graduate certificate program. I created everything in this video: illustrations, paintings, graphic design, animated doodle-dancers.... everything but the music (which I purchased) and I used Adobe Creative Suite 6 (Photoshop, Flash, Premiere Pro, After Effects) to digitally edit my movie.

Famous, Fabulous Hazelnut Cake

This is my "Famous and Fabulous Hazelnut Cake" instructional video. The cake is a family recipe passed down from my maternal grandmother from Prague, Czechoslovakia. When I lived in New Orleans, I baked this cake in the New Orleans Cooking Contest and won first prize!

I created this video as a course submission towards my Education Media and Design Technology (EMDT) graduate certificate at Full Sail University (online) in Winter Park, Florida. To create the video, I used Adobe Premiere Pro, Phtoshop, and After Effects. All graphics, design, animation, and video editing were done by me; music "My Baby Can Dance" by Carsie Blanton of New Orleans.

Steven Hawking says there is a way out of a black hole...

Into a Black Hole 
by Steven Hawking

This is the most conclusive article I have read on black holes, the event horizon, the Heisenberg Principle, probabilities, and dimensions - yes, all eleven of them!

"The message of this lecture, is, that black holes ain't as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things ~can get out of a black hole, both to the outside, and possibly, to another universe. So, if you feel you are in a black hole, don't give up. There's a way out."
- Steven Hawking

“However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

—	Stephen Hawking

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are

The above presentation describes how our actions, our body language, can become integrated into our personality.

"You must understand the people you're trying to influence or lead by building trust first before demonstrating competence and power. You must be able to show them that you understand them -- and, better yet, that you can relate to them. By doing that, you're laying the groundwork for trust. And it's only then that they can really hear you and be open to your ideas. Trust is the conduit for influence; it's the medium through which ideas travel. If they don't trust you, your ideas are just dead in the water. If they trust you, they're open and they can hear what you're offering. Having the best idea is worth nothing if people don't trust you."
-Amy Cuddy

Apparently, studies have shown how just using more gestures displaying our palms upward can influence not only how we are perceived by others, but also our own behavior:

"...as the open-palm gestures become more habitual, the tendency to tell untruths diminishes." >Read>

New Year Resolution(s)

#1: Vintage Yoga
I think I would exercise more often if I did it with friends;
and if I spent less time commuting.

Suitable Technologies' Beam Remote Telepresence Robot

My "Beam" will be dressed up in appropriate office attire...

I want to "Beam" myself to work - with a Telepresence Robot. And I want my Telepresence Robot to be "Suitable" - meaning, "well-dressed". So I have created my own robot attire for the office. I feel that this will really help the planet, i.e. save fossil fuels and lower air pollution. It will also save me time commuting each day to work. Driving to work is so old school. Currently, I drive 3 hours a day to commute from my home to my cubicle in Emeryville, CA. Once in my little office cubicle, I telework to Washington, DC and other remote Treasury offices. (This equates to at least 3 months of driving 40 hours a week to work per year - bad for me, bad for the environment. Each "Beam" costs $16,000. It costs me approximately $10k per year to drive to work. A Beam is a tax write-off, but my commute is not...)

More employees are working from home, but there's still no substitute for actually being at the office. Enter the Beam. It's a roving computer screen _ with video cameras, microphones and speakers _ that stands five feet and rides on motorized wheels. Read more.