As the post title implies, last night was the second social media surgery for Birmingham based Voluntary Organisations. The first was originally part of Blog Action Day 2008.
There were many people there and enough talented social media experts to help them with their needs. After a few technical issues I helped Zayneb get to grips how to use social media tools. Like many people she had heard about Twitter, Facebook, Wordpress etc but didn’t really know how to effectively use them.
I think that one of the main results of today, as well as introducing people to social media, is that we connected them to a network of people who can help make the experience of using social media a great one.
For the individual looking to learn about how to use software or even learn a language I recommend the Open Of Course website. What’s great about the tutorials on this website is that they’re completely free. What you essentially have are complete courses on a particular topic that are free to use. Another similar website is FLOSS Manuals.
I think what both of these websites lack are downloadable lesson plans. Although these tutorials are great for individuals it’d be great if they could be adapted to teach lots of people at a time. I may have a go at writing some so that the whole community can benefit from open source
I recently finished doing a series of animation workshops. For this we were using Macs and lots of preinstalled software. As an experiment we decided to try out Pencil for doing digital drawings. Here’s what the website has to say about it:
Pencil is an animation/drawing software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source.
I’d stumbled across Pencil earlier in the year when I was trying to find other similar software. What I like about Pencil is a drawing tool is that everything you create is in vectors and the interface is simple and easy to use. The children using the software picked it up quite quickly without much assistance. Another user tried using it in the classroom with great success.
On the other hand Pencil does have its shortcomings. There’s no file format so you have to open files via the program’s interface. It is beta software so there’s always a few bugs to iron out. I think the biggest hurdle to overcome is .jpg export. At the moment I’m getting a few errors and instead have to export to .png.
If you’re looking for a free/open source solution for doing simple animations you could definitely give Pencil a try. If you’re after something just to do drawings try Inkscape instead.
I worked with Somesuch Theatre earlier in the year as their lighting and sound desk operator on their plays at the Old Joint Stock Theatre - Twelfth Night, Volpone, Blue Chameleon and Rough Magic. Now I’m going to be acting is this rather interesting take on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Here’s the blurb:
Caliban’s Island
after The Tempest.
The play is over. They’ve all gone: Prospero, Miranda, Ferdinand, Alonso, the bad guys, the comedians, the courtiers, the sailors. Even the astonishing Ariel - set loose, set free.
But Caliban has been left behind. Alone on his island. No longer a slave. No longer tormented by anyone else. He has the gift of language, and no-one to talk to.
Except for the spirits of the island - earth, air, fire and water embodied in mischievous, musical, playful forms.
And us.
He wants to tell us his story. And the spirits are very eager to help him.
Somesuch Theatre bring you Shakespeare’s Tempest in a delightful, engaging, easily accessible form. We use a carefully edited version of Shakespeare’s beautiful words, and honour his exquisite play. Our inventive production is designed to facilitate understanding of his script; both its content and its craftsmanship.
We aim to stimulate ideas, and fruitful discussion of things that really matter: feelings, behaviour, relationships, the choices we make in everyday life.
If you’re and education institution interested in having this rather awesome play come to visit don’t hesitate to contact Deirdre through her website.
If you haven’t done so already I really recommend watching the Story Of Stuff. Here’s what the Wikipedia entry has to say about it:
The Story of Stuff is a web-based documentary about the life-cycle of goods and services.
The documentary, released online on 4 December 2007, is narrated by Annie Leonard, who has an undergraduate degree from Barnard College and a graduate degree from Cornell University in city and regional planning. It is sponsored by Tides Foundation and The Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, with Free Range Studios to produce the film.
I think this video succeeds in getting the message across about reducing, reusing and recycling materials not by ranting but by relating it to how consumerism affects us psychologically, personally and as a society. I think it’ll go some way to making us all think about the ’stuff’ that we accumulate. Here’s a video of it (though the one on the official website is better resolution)
Yesterday I was at the BVSC talking to several representatives/employees from non-profit organisations about how social media can benefit their company. This was part of Blog Action Day where the theme was Poverty.
I arrived slightly late at the venue but you could clearly see that everyone was already deeply engaged in conversations with the social media expert.
Before I even had a chance to boot up my laptop there was already a table of people wanting advice. I don’t pretend to call myself an expert in social media, just a person who uses it often for leisure and work. The tools are very easy to use and they do have their benefits; They connect you with friends, people who are in the same line of work or share similar interests and help spread word of your cause. This is how I feel social media can help a non-profit organisation, by connecting you with people and other organisations that support your cause.
By writing often, including links to relevant websites, responding to comments from others and generally providing useful information you’ll soon find yourself part of a national or even global network!
It’ll still be very interesting to see how utilising social media affects these organisations and their causes, but one thing it may certainly do is at least raise awareness!
Last week I was visited by a family member, Jordache, who is interested in animation. I’d done a bit of animation with THSH earlier in the year, so I thought I’d try and use similar techniques to produce another animation.
As with any animation the first step was to decide what it was all going to be about. I let Jordache take the lead on this one. He decided to make an animation based on the popular Legend of Zelda game series by Nintendo. After the ideas and storyboard were completed we then had to get all of the elements needed to make this animation. This is where I wanted to challenge him. I asked him to use GIMP and a Wacom tablet to draw out the star of the animation, Link. An outline sketch was found on the Internet and he added the colour. The results are shown below.
It was a great learning process for him and myself. There are many differences between GIMP and Photoshop but for this task we both picked up the basics very quickly. The finished picture took about three hours to complete.
The next setp was to draw the background. For this I wanted to expand his drawing and painting capabilities. We used a mixture of acrylic paint and crayons to create the background.
Finally, with all elements completed we had to film it. One of the problems we encountered was how to keep the camera still whilst filming. Link had to be shown riding across the background and this would prove hard to do whilst keeping the camera still, especially in such a small space. He decided on the different approach of moving the background instead.
To film it we used SMA (newer version available at Brickfilms.com), which is open source but limited in its features. For example, you can’t add music within the program. Editing tools are very limited as well. However, for this animation everything worked as we needed it!
Due to time restrictions we weren’t able to go through adding sound to the movie, so I took on this task. For this I used Audacity. I used audio from the Zelda game available from the Zelda Reorchestrated website. Editing was a very simple process of decding what part of the audio I wanted to use and then where I wanted it to fade in and out.
Adding fading in and out to the movie itself proved a little problematic using open source software. VirtualDub is a very popular simple video editing program but it lacks the ability to add fades. A quick search on Google showed a few plugins available, including one which would be complex to use (but no doubt powerful). I soon stumbled upon FadeFX that luckily has a gui to add fades. One of its limitations is that it can’t fade out sound as well. For this task it wasn’t a problem as I already used Audacity to found out the soundtrack.
With everything now in place I put it all together!
The resolution could’ve been a bit higher and we both have a bit to learn about studio lighting, but we the equipment we had we produced something we’re happy with! Learning how to use the software was quite easy to do for both of us but it would be good if some simple tasks were a bit more simple to do!
This year I was at ArtsFest with two different groups. On Saturday I was doing a workshop with Allsorts where participants made things to do with nature. On Sunday I was doing a workshop with Centre of The Earth. It was a similar workshop though focussed more on mask making and decorating the space.
I can’t wait to do it again next year, and I’m sure we’ll all do something bigger and better!
I’m part of a collective called Allsorts (temporary website) who are running a workshop at ArtsFest today and tomorrow. Here’s some details:
Allsorts present ‘In the Light Garden’ at Artsfest, a series of family friendly activities where participants can explore a wide range of artforms and create a feature for an enchanted garden. Come and join us in Victoria Square on Saturday 13th from 12 - 6 and Sunday 14th September from 12 - 5 and let your imagination run wild!
One of the things about being a visual artist is the amount of materials you need to buy. Early in August I went to the Play Resource Centre and spent nearly £60 and all of the materials it bought are nearly used up! That’s when I got thinking about the things I buy on a regular basis that I can reuse and what I can recycle. That’s when I went hunting around the house!
The first thing I found was my hole punch. Although it takes a long time to accumulate very little I’m now collecting the circular pieces for confetti. Not bad for something I would’ve otherwise thrown away
Next I fount butter tubs and other similar tubs. These are absolutely awesome! I first thought about doing this when I used an old plastic container to put paint in. Now I use them for that and to take a small quantity of whatever I need to a workshop. I think this’ll replace using yoghurt pots as they’re more multi-purpose.
Something I did do at the beginning of the year is to save old wrapping paper. Although some of the paper is branded with ‘Merry Christmas’ and similar festive messages some of it can be used as decorative paper. I’ve already had success using it for this purpose many times!
Well, that’s just some of the things I’ve found that I can reuse. What else can anyone else suggest?
I’d stumbled across Pencil earlier in the year when I was trying to find other similar software. What I like about Pencil is a drawing tool is that everything you create is in vectors and the interface is simple and easy to use. The children using the software picked it up quite quickly without much assistance. Another user tried using it in the classroom with 
