Multimedia Encyclopedia

We had a small group today but we got a lot of work done!  Really proud of everyone's creations!

Movie Time!

Here's the first batch of finished video clips we got from our editors today!

More to come in the coming weeks, but our video project is primarily over.  We'll have to wait until later next month our editors will have a chance to get back into their projects.

Post Production Reduction

We had a big reduction in numbers today.  Less than half the class decided to show up, but luckily everyone who was making a movie had their footage already in the can.

So editing continued to go and some of our editors almost have a finished product to showcase!

We'll fix it in post Pt. II: Electric Boogaloo!

Today we finished filming two of three groups and began digital film editing in Adobe Premier. Things are looking pretty good so far!

Plus, we were graced with the added blessing of having two (COUNT 'EM: TWO!) of our veteran/aged out/prospective high school student/former PNG participants: Abdo and Christian (The Knight) come in and be mentor assistants (see third photo).


Here are some photos of today's work:

Shoot 'em up

Despite some serious storyboard issues, we actually got a few of our groups to start shooting their movies today.

I have a lot of hope that these directors are going to produce some awesome movies, but we're already running over schedule.  The producers are upset, but hopefully we'll make it up in post.

Stop! Camera Time

Today the students dipped their toes into the world of shooting and editing video.  We've got 3 different projects going on today.  A fake movie trailer, a short scene from a murder mystery and a Star Wars parody.

I can't wait to see the end results.  I hope some of these groups haven't bitten off more than they can chew!

Before they can film and edit anything they first have to come up with a plan and planning everything out is the hard part.

PNG Painted

We got to see some really awesome results from our new crew of PNG students.  Their faces were shot, printed, traced, scanned and painted.  After they were finished we went back and created backgrounds for them to be placed on.

Turned out really well!

PNG Summer Start!

Today was the first day of PNG Summer 2014!

We introduced ourselves to each other and we got the kids introduced to the computers.  We have a bunch of students who are eager to be here and get started working on cool projects and making cool things! Exciting!

We started off the list of projects with our tried but true Paint Your Face project where kids take a selfie, print it, trace it, scan it, and then paint it!

We'll keep going next time, but we got about halfway done this time around.

Next! PNG Summer is Almost Here

School is almost out, but don't let you brain go to mush this summer!  Sign up for 8 weeks of fun (and free!) technology classes for 6th, 7th and 8th graders at the Elmwood Park Public Library!

Project Next Generation starts Tuesday, June 3rd and runs every Tuesday and Thursday from 12pm to 2pm until July 24th.

This time around we've got 10 brand new computers for the students to use and we're taking 3D printing to a new level with our new Makerbot Replicator!

Our classes will teach students about video cameras and video editing, music making and audio editing, Photoshop, electronic circuitry, 3D design and printing and more in a fun and relaxed classroom atmosphere.

Sign Up Online and join Ahren and Brian for class on Tuesday June 3rd!

The Final Countdown

Today is the last day of PNG!

With most of the videos finished (see the last blog entry) we let the kids have free day!  Work on any project you want that we have already covered.

Most of the focus today went to tracing images and TinkerCAD 3D design website.  He made a pretty awesome Mega Y-Wing!

making posters again.  That was a big hit.  But Kevin even made a design using the

Editing Editors Edit

The kids were editing machines today.  We had a much better turn out than last time and some motivated film splicers!

Of course we weren't actually splicing film, we were using non-linear video editing software Adobe Premiere Elements to put together our newscasts.  We were also pulling in MP3s and Youtube videos and adding them into our projects.

One student even went so far as to make an original composition with Acoustica's Mixcraft software to add as a soundtrack to his video.  Impressive stuff.

The green screen got used to it's fullest potential as the students placed all kinds of ridiculous backgrounds behind their footage.

Looking forward to the finished product hopefully on Thursday!

Trustworthy Noobz

The PNG kids got their feet wet with video editing today.  It was a bit slow going.  They had a lot of fun watching the clips they had shot of themselves horsing around.

We got into the basics of video editing, and hopefully some kids will return on Tuesday to keep at it.  I think in the end there's a possibility we could end up with one good video.  Here's hoping!

Trustworthy News

After a brief intermission last Thursday we are back on track recording an excellent news broadcast today.

Hopefully will finish shooting today and we can start editing on Thursday!

Have You Heard The News?

The news is about to be delivered!  The PNG Lab transformed into a newsroom today as our editors furiously wrote the next PNG News Broadcast.

Filming starts on Thursday (news moves a little slower around these parts) and you can expect to see some results by next Tuesday or Thursday depending on how well the students transition from being copy editors to film editors.

News.

Mixing it Up

We spent more time mixing it up today.  We're getting closer to being finished with our songs.  The students could probably keep working on them forever and never be finished.

Towards the end of class Brian explained the concept of audio mixing to the class and now we are hard at work trying to master these songs and make them sound better by adjusting the audio levels for each instrument track.  If we finish soon perhaps we can post a few of them to our SoundCloud page for you to hear!

Getting Crafty With The Mixes!

Today the students tried their hand at making their own song mix using the samples in Acoustica Mixcraft's sound library.

This particular challenge was to use only sounds from the sample library and to construct a song using a specific tempo and key.

The results were pretty impressive.  We also had a few students who used the Instrument Track function of Mixcraft to play notes on a virtual instrument using their keyboard.

We're going to keep working on this next time and maybe we'll even start recording some live sounds to add in to our songs!

MixCraft it up!

So today was like garbage truck full of highly sensitive plastic explosives falling off a cliff into a densely populated minefield with an atom bomb in the center for good measure.

There was a lot of noise... I guess is what I would want you to take away from that.

But the UPSIDE is everyone got comfortable with MixCraft, our music creation, remixing, editing and recording software and they all seemed to have a good time with it.

Next class we begin getting serious with our beats and constructing full songs with a set of qualifications and parameters.

Its going to be great! See you then!

Ko-du Back Again!

We continued to our Kodu levels and some even attempted to branch out into multiple levels. The designs are becoming more sophisticated and the game play more complex. I don't know why but everybody was incredibly quiet during class. I was beginning to get paranoid. Not gonna lie.

Next class we begin music and perhaps we'll have time toward the end of the semester to complete more Kodu.

Big ups to Microsoft.

Peace!

You Do Kodu!

Today we totally shifted gears and the kids tried their hands at Microsoft's free programming software for kids from their Research Lab.  It's called Kodu.

The kids are able to create their own world all the way down to what kinds of trees and rocks are in the world.

Needless to say they took to it instantly and got busy creating their own worlds and programming the behavior of the characters in those worlds.

We're going to keep going into the next class.  Who knows what they'll come up with.

Poster Session

We got some actual results today.  Lots of posters printed.  There's always room for improvement, so the kids started new posters after the old ones finished printing.