World of Wall

Communications Media 10: Soundscape

rjw — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:19:24 +0000

For your first assignment you will create a soundscape – an audio production that uses music and sound effects to express a theme. The theme can be a feeling, a place, an event, a time of day or year, etc. For the assignment you should:

use a variety of sound effects from freesound.org and music from ccmixter.org (but using 1 or 2 effects or music clips from Garageband is OK).
try to use more than one music piece
use a variety of audio production techniques such as varying sound levels, fading sounds in and out, panning sounds from one side to another
be 1 to 2 minutes in length

Make sure you are saving all your work in a folder called “soundscape” in your folder within the “Documents” folder on the iMac.

Before you start putting the sounds together, I’d like to see that you have a plan and you’ve done some amount of pre-production. I’d like to see a list of sounds and types of music that you want to use. If you want to do a little exploring on freesound or ccmixter to start out, that’s fine, but you should get an idea of what you’re going to do before you start collecting audio clips.

Tips for taking great photographs

rjw — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:27:31 +0000

Here are some tips with examples of some techniques for taking great photographs:

Photography Compositional Tools

View more presentations from Melanie Mason

Use your camera to take pictures that illustrate each of these techniques.

Communication Media 10, 20 – Final Self-Evaluation

rjw — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:14:17 +0000

In addition to the final project, there is one final assignment for the course. You are to write out a self-evaluation of your work for the course. The self-evaluation must include:

A description of each project that you worked on (including help on other people’s projects).
A description of your contributions to the project.
An evaluation of the best parts of the project. What were the best things you did during production of the project? Why do you think they were well done?
An evaluation of the parts of the project that you think you could have done better. If you could go back and change things in your project, what would you do differently and why?
A list of what you learned during the creation of the project. What skills – technical, organizational, personal, etc. – did you use and develop during the project?

The self-evaluation can be hand written or typed in a word processor then printed. Unless other arrangements have been made, the self-evaluation should be completed by 3:30 p.m. on January 24.

Communication Media final projects

rjw — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:01:44 +0000

Communication Media final projects (for both the Comm Media 10 and 20 classes) are due at the end of the day for which the class final exam is scheduled (i.e. January 24 for Comm Media 20 and Jan. 26 for Comm Media 10).

Science of Motion 5 – calculating using acceleration

rjw — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 14:22:49 +0000

Knowing some basic concepts about displacement, time, velocity and acceleration can let us do some pretty powerful calculations to describe an object’s motion, like how long it takes for an airplane to accelerate to takeoff on an aircraft carrier:

Science of Motion 4 – acceleration

rjw — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:22:33 +0000

Not all motion is at a constant velocity. Objects will speed up or slow down as forces act on them. A velocity can change slowly (think of a ball rolling down a long, low ramp) or quickly (like a Corvette accelerating down the road. The rate of change of velocity (how slowly or quickly it changes) is the object’s acceleration. The ball rolling down the low ramp has a much lower acceleration than the Corvette.

Here’s an example of calculating the rate of change of velocity of a car as it accelerates to 60 miles per hour:

Living Skies Film Festival

rjw — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 16:19:41 +0000

I recently received an email that might (should) be of interest to some Communication Media students:

The Regina Film and Video Student’s Society at the University of
Regina is preparing for our annual film festival: Living Skies Student
Film Festival, and we are actively and enthusiastically seeking
submissions from both high school and post-secondary students across
North America. Submissions must be under 15minutes in length and the
deadline is January 10th 2012. Submission forms can be found on our
website www.livingskiesstudentfilmfestival.com
This is a three day Film Festival, running from February 10th to
12th 2012, that showcases student films from across the country and
northern United States. It is an important opportunity for up and
coming filmmakers to get acquainted with the work of their colleagues
from other film schools across the country.
This event will be taking place on campus and combines screenings
of student films with seminars presented by highly respected and
renowned filmmakers, such as NFB filmmaker Donald McWilliams, Filmpool
artist in residence Chrystene Ells, and local special effects artist
Emersen Ziffle. Friday night is a meet and mingle in the 5th parallel
gallery on campus, where you can let loose and mingle with upcoming
and successful filmmakers. We will be having a red carpet awards gala
on the Saturday night to celebrate the winning entries and all who
participated in this year’s festival. This student organized festival
is a cultural event as well as a learning opportunity for students.

For more information, please visit the website at
http://livingskiesstudentfilmfestival.wordpress.com/about/
Also check out our promotion video at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQtb1Ac0Hek

If you check out the website, you’ll know just as much about the festival as I do. If you are interested in entering, let me know and I’ll get you a copy of the submission form. If you have any more questions about the film festival, I’d be happy to pass those along to the festival organizer (who is a graduate of NBCHS, by the way).

Converting units tutorial

rjw — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:20:58 +0000

Unit conversions will, as we have seen, come up frequently in studying motion such as when we are converting yards per second into kilometres per hour. Unit conversions are also an import part of calculations in many other areas of science. Here’s a quick explanation/example of unit conversions:

Science of Motion 3 – solving for time and distance

rjw — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 18:27:17 +0000

Since we know about the relationship between velocity, displacement and time, we can use that formula to find velocity or time or displacement as long as we know the two other variables.

First – finding the time if you know the velocity and the displacement:

And how do find the displacement if you know the velocity and the time:

So, given this information, here’s my question for you. If I leave North Battleford at 2:00 for a 3:00 dentist appointment in Saskatoon (which is about 140 km away) and drive at an average speed of 110 km/hour (I’ll drive very fast in Saskatoon), how long will it take me to get to Saskatoon? How late will I be for my appointment? (Give me the answer to either or both of these questions in class, including showing your calculations, and you will be rewarded, probably with leftover Halloween treats).

Science of Motion 2 – Calculating Average Velocity or Speed

rjw — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:26:32 +0000

You’ll use this type of calculation not only in the motion labs, but also in some problems that you’ll be asked to solve in future classes. It’s also good to know if you want to avoid a speeding ticket.