Work in Progress

Before we set up our blogs, we had learned to create musical tracks in GarageBand, then were charged with creating a Keynote slideshow using only words (a quote, poem or joke, for example), and finally added our own music to the slideshow.

I am excited about my slideshow, though it took me a while to get up to speed on using keynote. But I am still a little hung up on the music. I have several tracks I've created using the loops from Garage Band, but I am leaning towards using a track of music that I actually composed and played using a USB connected keyboard. The trick is to get the musical cues keyed up to the action.

A week or so ago, my teenage son showed me how to take my slideshow, which by then I had converted to a Quicktime movie, and place it into GarageBand so that I could edit the music while watching the picture along with it. This would make things so much easier. I haven't actually gotten back into editing it, but I am hopeful about the results. When finished, I'll post it here.

In the meantime, we are continuing to learn so much in this class. Every time I pick up little tidbits from the instructor that are worth the price of admission.

In the past few weeks we have :

• Recorded an audio voice track for a podcast, with each member of the class participating in a short extemporaneous blurb about themselves. Afterwards, we each edited our own parts of the track to get rid of the hemming and hawing. I look forward to hearing the final product when they are all strung together. We used a nice microphone that plugs into the computer. Just getting a chance to try the equipment is a great part of this class.

• Looked at the various media used by the national election candidates for president. As might be expected, Barack Obama's website is playing to a younger crowd and offers more trendy new features, like ringtones and widgets.

• Visited the Media Center to check out available equipment for our use and learn the procedures to access it.

• Edited together a short video in iMovie '06 using video clips provided by the instructor as well as our own. We'll bring in music to add underneath the video. We also learned to use iMovie '08, a later version of the program that has new features but has eliminated some of the more advanced capabilities of the '06 version. Tony shot some video of the class at work that we'll be adding to the mix. We will also try to post some of these video segments on our blogs.

• Along the way, Tony has told us about software that will allow us to convert video files from one format to another (this came in really handy on a project I was working on at home, allowing me to convert Windows Media files for use in iMovie), and a gadget that will allow us to archive old analog movies from VHS tapes right into a portable hard drive, without tying up our computers.

It is this up-to-the-minute, helpful info that makes this class such a gem, as well as all the things we learn from hearing ideas from and seeing the work of other class members. Last Thursday we saw the incredible video Zach has put together using Adobe After-Effects. Many of us are keen to pump Tony (and Zach!) for some instruction in this program after seeing the possibilities.