ThingLink - a place to hang your hat! (and photos, and videos, etc.)

Here is a sample

Saints in Shelby: a Visit to the Earl Scruggs Center!

Limestone Communications students exploring spatial narratives at the Earl Scruggs Center. #SaintsinShelby - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

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Limestone College Communication Students visited the sate-of-the-art Earl Scruggs Museum in Shelby on March 20, 2018. They explored innovative approaches to Spatial Narratives, and engaged cultural narratology across the media of museology, screen, orality, music, and instrumental interpellation. See some shots of students in active research by searching for #SaintsInShelby.

Example: Our INSTAGRAM PHOTOS
... and our tweets
#SaintsinShelby Tweets

VR Sandbox

Cameras, Tripods, and Shooting the Vocabulary!

Students will acquaint themselves with their newly-assigned digital cameras, learnign the ins and outs of settings, downloads, footage organization, etc.

Then, they will produce a "Video Vocabulary" consisting of examples of the following shots:

(CC0 - Pixabay.com)

1. Wide Shots (Wide, Very Wide, and Extremely Wide)
2. Mid-shot
3. Medium Close Shot
4. Close-up
5. Extreme Close-up
6. Cut-ins & Cut-aways
7. Two Shot
8. Over the Shoulder Shot
9. Noddy Shot
10. POV Shot
11. Dolly Shot (aka Trucking or Tracking)
12. Pan (left/right)
13. Tilt (up/down)
14. Following Shot
15. Zoom (in/out) 

Examples can be seen here: http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/ 

Shot Lists, Storyboards, and Story-telling in Video

Students will hone their editing chops by producing a "music video" using song lyrics and "freegal" video & photo resources. This will help develop a simple planning process for editing (which can be transferred to shooting video, too.)

1. Students will select a song to make into a video, and will script out the lyrics (with time codes) in a table to create a "shot list."
2. Students will complete the table with a description of what images they want for each lyrical segment, making a "shopping list" for video footage and photos, etc.
3. Students will begin "shopping" for "freegal" visual collateral, saving all assets in a folder dedicated to the project.
4. Along the way, students should keep records of the assets which require attribution, (e.g. CC BY licenses.)
5. Students will revise their shot list based on the images they actually chose to use, making the list into a Video Editing Guide - which will guide their editing in the lab.
6. Students should refresh their knowledge of copyright laws and Fair Use guidelines to discuss how such materials may or may not be used.

Below is an example of a couple minutes of a music video of Mary Chapin Carpenter's "I am a Town"  using CC 0 (Public Domain) image resources from the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons, and video footage licensed through VideoBlocks, and a few CC BY images from VisualHunt (which will be acknowledge in the credits of the finished video.)

The Shot List / Editing List looks like this:

Histories: Editing & Semiotic Media Theory!

Students will review a couple of summaries for discussion: one (video) on film editing, and one (chapter) on Semiotic Media Theory. They will post separate blog responses for each summary - and will discuss in class.

PART ONE, Film Editing: students will view the video, research any connected lines of interest, and post their reflections.

PART TWO, Semiotic Media Theory: students will read the article/chapter, answer a series of questions, and post a blog with their observations, comments and questions.

READ THIS ARTICLE:
"Semiotics of Media & Culture" by Marcel Danesi

Students will answer a set of questions (see below) and will post their reflections, observations, and questions in their blog.

Reading Questions for Danesi’s “Semiotics of Media & Culture”

1.     What is “semiotics?”

2.     What is the “semiosphere” and how it can be both liberating and constraining.

3.     What is the “semiotic law of media?”

4.     The author sees the 1938 Radio Broadcast “War of the Worlds” as a “simulacrum.” What does he mean by that?

5.     What did Paul Lazarfeld discover in a 1956 study on media and elections? What is “Flow Theory,” and why was the 1960 election different?

6.     Describe McLuhan’s idea of the “mediashpere.”

7.     According to Roland Barthes, how can a photograph have CONNOTATIVE meaning? What is “textual pastiche?”

8.     What is the “culture industry?” What forces does Chomsky identify as shaping factors on media production?

9.     Stuart Hall identified three possible “readings” to a cultural media text. Describe them.

10. What is “markedness?”

11. Roland Barthes held that all texts have denotative (linguistic) and connotative (rhetorical) power. Explain.

12. Name some evidence of Levi-Strauss’ idea of "mythic opposition" in Star Wars.

13. How would Mikhail Bakhtin describe and explain the antics of outrageous celebrities in modern media?

Movie Making Magic!

Students in Digital Literacies II have produced an Introduction Title Sequence for a fake TV series on Baseball - and have posted on YouTube, and embedded the video in their blogs.

Next, they will explore the numerous "Freegal" resources available to them via links in their course website (LimestoneDigital - CM412) and through VideoBlocks, a subscription service for video and audio sources. (The subscription fee is paid for access for the class by the department, password will be provided in class.)

Students will produce a short audio-video montage on a topic of their choice using legal-use audio, video and images - and will post the video on YouTube and embed it in their blogs.

Here are a couple examples from their colleagues in the previous year's class:

Shay likes Sushi, obviously.

Brandon likes Summer, it seems.

NOTE: These examples use popular music that is not in the public domain. Our 2018 Students will look for FREEGAL music to compose their productions. ALSO - students may incorporate these examples into their portfolios to show off their editing chops!