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Video highlighting my children's books (all but Ava's Secret Tea Party) on Teacher Tube.

2013 GradeReading.NET Summer Reading Lists

Do you have a new book coming out and you’re dying to try a book trailer, but you can’t really afford it? Here’s a great option.

If you can’t see this video, click here.

This video was created by MadMoo at Fiverr.com At Fiverr, people post an offer to do something for just $5. For promotion purposes, this is fantastic. You might get a video of someone eating fire, then yelling that they love your book. Perhaps your book is about gymnastics; there’s someone one fiverr.com, I am sure, who would do a video of themselves performing a round-off back handspring, then yelling out your book title. You want weird, wonderful, beautiful, off-beat? Fiverr has it.

The price is right. $5.
Of course, that’s the base price for a limited, carefully defined product. And there are add-ons possible for everything and of course, the Fiverr person wants you to add-on, so they make more money. In most cases, it will be money well-spent. Gee. Maybe you have to spend $20 on a video.

In this case, the video came without music, but I popped it into FinalCutPro, an Apple program and added a public domain piece of music for fun. MadMoo would have added video as an add-on, if I had preferred.

SPECIFICS: I used MadMoo on Fiverr.com, ordering the Stop Motion 10-second video. Instead, I got back a great 30-second video in a format that I specially requested. It came back within 24 hours. Will I order from MadMoo again? Of course. I especially like the Stop Motion videos where a hand is writing something out. (Note: I am not an affiliate with Fiverr and not associated with MadMoo, except as a satisfied customer.)

Is this the perfect promotional tool for everything. Of course, not. But it’s a fun way to get interesting video. I uploaded this to my YouTube channel and will use it as an intro to the channel and will post it around on my website. Once it’s on YouTube, it’s easy to embed into any website, especially a WordPress blog like this one.

Here are five ideas for using a video from Fiverr.com.

• Introduce your blog, website or book with a short video. Let this guy do a side flip while holding a sign with the URL of your site.
• Win an award? This Fiverr will shave a congratulations into his hair and video it.
• Want to thank someone–your editor, your illustrator, your publicist? Do it publically with a ShiftyPop song.
• Have a spicy announcement. Here’s an announcement done with Indian spices. Or with chocolate.
• When your book comes out, you want people to think about it often. Announce it with a special ring tone that you offer as a download on your website.

Be aware that some of the offers are indeed very strange and may include adult content. But go and have fun browsing the crazy offers. If you use something from Fiverr, let me know! I want to see it.

Take a look at this hilarious video!  The music is cheesy, the signage is great!  I got a kick out of it :)  Can't say that librarians are nothing short of creative!!

StoryFUSION begins soon, very soon.  Go to the StoryFUSION page for all the details but it is fabulous stuff.

Check my Storytelling page - above - for the Guerrilla storytelling events on Tuesday, April 16th and Wednesday, April 17th.  These events are FREE and out in public places near you.

On Thursday, NCC and the members of the LVSG are offering FREE workshops at Northampton Community College.  I am offering "Story in a SNAP", a workshop that will use improvisational exercises to combat both writer's block and stage fright.  It will be a lot of fun and it would not be possible without the help of Professor Susan Petrole.

Story in a SNAP workshop - Thursday, April 18th at 11 am at Northampton Community College, in Room CC 165.  (CC stands or College Center - the BIG building in the middle of the main campus.) FREE and open to everyone.  Please join me.

To keep us all in the storytelling mood, I must share this video from just a year and a half ago.  Kelly will be telling on Wednesday.  Look for her.

I watched a version of this video several years ago. In preparation for a workshop I’m leading on Thursday with a group of Career Tech educators (think culinary arts and auto mechanics), I… Read More →

Winter is on the way OUT!  I say this as a huge storm is coming into Colorado right NOW!!  No, I did not go to the grocery store in freak out mode stocking my cupboards. Instead, I spent a bit of time today digging in my garden resisting the urge to acknowledge the storm at all!  ha!

Alas, tonight I will hunker down with my pens and paper and continue to work towards deadlines for up and coming trade shows. That is the good thing about storms!  They keep me focused.  I wonder how many artists are like me?

I have one problem.  I can’t seem to go out to my studio to work.  It’s covered with papers, receipts, file folders etc.  It is my new book-keeping system in progress. Eeeeek!  My friend is helping me set up my Quick Books program.  She entered all my checks, deposits etc, and sent me the disk. I bought the program, installed it, imported my files… … then I went to reconcile the two bank statements that my friend did not add and suddenly I am thirty dollars off!  What on earth?  What could I have done?

So, I did what I do best,  I locked the studio door and went in the house. ha!  My right brain is not in the mood for numbers!  Happy Spring everyone!

One of my favorite things is Terry Gross’s show, Fresh Air, on NPR. I especially love the interviews with actors and writers. Lately I’ve been listening to the podcasts while I’m doing something boring, like folding laundry.

Sometimes there just aren’t enough of Fresh Air interviews, though, so I’ve been looking for more conversations with authors and artists. Here are a few good ones I’ve found:

This Creative Life, created by YA author Sara Zarr (who btw also blogs here). There are interviews with a lot of writers and other creatives about how they work and live. I especially enjoyed the one with author Andrew Auseon (who is also a video game designer).

Mini studio-tours with artists at Little Scraps of Paper make me smile so much. The one above is of three collaborators who make these wacky wonderful costumey-snuggie-kind-of-things. Trust me, you just have to watch it. The videos are so beautifully filmed and just the right size for a quick pick-me-up. Thank you to Blair Stocker of Wisecraft for this hot tip.

Here’s a video of young fashion blogger/ Rookie magazine editor Tavi speaking at TEDxTeen about the strong female characters she’s looking for, and not always finding. YA writers, if you don’t know Tavi, you SHOULD!

What about you? Do you have any favorite creativity-related podcasts?

And by the way, are you on Twitter? I’ve been on it for years but am really just now learning the language and getting into it. I’m discovering all kinds of things there, including some of the above links. Meet me on Twitter @emilysmithpearc

A few other random things:

-Speaking of talks about art and writing, if you’re in the Charlotte area, check out the April meeting for the Women’s National Book Association (yes, men, you can join us, too): Monday, April 22, 6:30 – 8:30 PM at Consolidated Planning. The talk is titled “Latin American and Latino Women Writers and Literature in Translation.” More details here.

-Did you hear about the break in the Isabella Stewart Gardner art heist case? Soooo exciting. I used to work down the street from this lovely, one-of-a-kind museum.

-Saw Natalie Merchant the other night with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. Great show. Her new material is as complex and thought-provoking as ever, though I have to admit my favorite part was the 90′s set she did for an encore. The nostalgia factor is hard to beat. Seriously, what pipes she’s got—and what a talented songwriter.

-Lastly, I love this DIY magic potion kit over at Elsie Marley.

What’s got you inspired these days?

(Video link) This seven minute video shows the process for sculpting a hand in water-based clay by Philippe Faraut.

The general thought process is very similar to painting in opaque oils. You first establish the big forms, then carve them down to smaller planes and finally blend and refine the surface and the small details.

The artist's website, with more info on his materials and tools
Mr. Faraut's books:
Mastering Portraiture- Advanced Analyses of the Face Sculpted in Clay
Portrait Sculpting: Anatomy and Expressions in Clay

....and his DVD: Techniques of Sculpture: Geometry in the Clay Portrait

Renn is a brave, little boy spending some not-so-fun time at the hospital this week. Mom and I are writing a special blog post today just for him. You can read about Renn at The Brain of a Jedi.

Mom’s author friend, Susanna Leonard Hill has  links to lots more well wishes for Renn on her blog. Take a look, and while you’re at it, send along some prayers and happy thoughts for a tough, smart little Jedi and his family.

Mom is afraid of Jedi warriors (No, she’s not. I am…). In fact, she’s afraid of warriors of all kinds (No, she’s not. I am…). Light sabers scare her (No, they don’t. They scare me…). And forget about Darth Vader’s voice. She’s terrified of that guy (No, she’s not. I am…).

So, we’ll have to work with what we have. My cuteness!!

Here I am dancing like a cute ballerina.

If you want to see how smart I am, here I am solving a problem while looking cute.

If you’ve never seen a dog eat Cheerios, watch how cute I am using my Cheerios machine.

And if you need a laugh, watch me tame the laughing mechanical dog (still while looking cute).

And when it’s time to sleep, stop by my booth for the cutest kiss you can get for a nickel…

Hang in there, buddy! xoxo

USA Today has the jump on the new 'sizzle' for the upcoming picture book THAT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA! along with a fun interview on the project.   I hope you enjoy. Also, Kirkus reviews likes the book, calling it "A new offering of guaranteed laughs" and "Pure glee."   The Huffington Post is also looking forward to it's publication. I hope you agree when it comes out this April.

Guest post by Leslie Helakoski

I drag my feet when it comes to marketing my books. The exception is when it comes to making a book trailer. Book Trailers don’t take a ton of work, they aren’t expensive if you do it yourself, and it feels like play, not work. I’ve just finished making my third book trailer, this one for the newly released DOGGONE FEET! Here’s a short synopsis of how I did it.

1. Research. In order to convince myself what I wanted to undertake was possible, I watched a bunch of book trailers online. It reassured me that many of them were very simple and still worked well. I read up on the subject—blogs, articles, and Darcy’s fabulous book, The Book Trailer Manual, full of helpful information and reminders.
   
   Finally, a friend showed me a few basic moves on i-movie — which was already on my Mac laptop. (Note: For Windows users, look for the free Movie Maker software.)




2. Mood. I know that choosing music often comes after creating the content but in some cases, finding the right music helped me decide how to proceed. (Like when I came across a great chicken squawking song that fit the craziness in BIG CHICKENS.
   
   If you can’t see this video, click here.

So what mood did I want to convey with DOGGONE FEET? I knew I wanted to use zydeco music—zippy playful music from my Louisiana heritage that went along with an underlying music theme in the book. I even used the term ‘zydeco shoes’ in the book as an homage to artist Earl Hebert who has a book about his paintings by that name. It comes with a CD of zydeco music by The Lucky Playboys. With a phone call or two, (I knew a relative of his) I got permission from Mr. Earl’s estate to use the term and the music. The music set the fun snappy mood that I felt matched the book. I loaded the song I chose into i-tunes and then from i-movie, I imported the music into my project.

Doggone Feet! Video

If you can’t see this video, click here.

And now I give myself permission to stop marketing and go back to what I love best—writing the actual story.

There’s a crack in everything – that’s how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen~

There seems to be a crack in the head of my laughing dog. Plus his ear is missing.

I think his head accidentally cracked open because Mom turned on the switch and he started laughing too much. I’ve heard of “laughing your head off,” but I’ve never heard of “laughing your head open so the light can get in.”

Mom is always looking for where the light gets in. She says if her story is tight enough, nothing can crack it open. So she checks it and checks it. She says she’s troubleshooting. I don’t like trouble and I don’t like shooting, so I hope she is just kidding. But she reads her story out loud to herself all the time. She says, “Does the ending match the beginning?” and “Is my character believable?” and “How much does the problem really matter?” and “Where is the laughing dog’s ear?!”

Mom keeps deleting and rewriting sections of her story trying to make it perfect before she brings it to show her writing group named DavidLaurieandOtherDavid. She says, “Am I telling too much?” and “Am I showing enough?” and “I guess I’ll have to sew up the rip in his head.”

Mom might be able to make her story perfect, but as you can see, the laughing dog’s head will never be perfect again. I wonder where his ear went…..

Click the video to hear the laughing dog laugh.

Thanks to our writer friend, Chelsea at Jenny Mac Book Blog for giving us the Sunshine Award and to Bubba and Mumma and the gang at Bumpy Road to Bubba for giving us the Why I Love Thee Award. Click here for our Sunshine questions and answers, and here or here for the story of how Mom and I found each other. We love all our sunshiny blogging friends, so feel free to take an award or two and list your own Sunshine answers or Love Story.

ROBOT ART

Since I know everyone who visits this blog is at heart a very creative person, I thought this contest would interest you.  Not only can you win a large amount of money, but it doesn’t cost anything to enter.

The Looking@Democracy challenge is offering a total of $100,000 in prize money for short, provocative media submissions designed to spark a national conversation about how we can all come together to strengthen American democracy.

Here’s how the competition works:

Create and send us short digital media content that either:

(a) Tells a story about why government is important to our lives, or

(b) Tells how we might together strengthen American democracy.

Your submission can come in many formats such as short videos, audio stories, animation, music videos, public service announcements, infographics, blogs, websites, graphic art, even Facebook and iPhone apps. They all just need to be digital so they can be shared electronically– the rest is up to YOU!

We’re looking to hear from independent media makers, investigative reporters, students, graphic designers, artists – anyone with creative ideas to help engage Americans and shift the political discussion in a fresh and engaging way.

Use your creativity to share your vision of how to make government work to improve our nation, our communities, and our lives.

First Place for Best Entry    $25,000  
Second Place for Best Entry    $20,000  
Third Place for Best Entry    $15,000  
People’s Choice Award    $5,000
Emerging Artists  (7)    $5,000  Intended for students, young people, and nonprofessionals.

Entries must be submitted by 3pm Eastern Time on April 30th, 2013, using the application form on this site.Submissions may consist of a short (generally three minutes or less), creative media piece (video, audio, graphic, animation, photo, data visualization, social media or mobile game). Click HERE for more possible ideas to get you started thinking about your submission.

Questions? Contact LookingAtDemocracy@prairie.org

GOOD LUCK!

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

(Video link) MIT scientists have developed a computer algorithm that exaggerates subtle movements and color changes in videos. First developed to monitor sleeping newborns, the technology reveals changes that are otherwise invisible to the naked eye. It turns out, for example, that people's faces flush red with each heartbeat.

When applied to other small movements in the world around us, such as the wobbling of a construction crane or the micro-movements in an eye, the enhanced motion has a startling impact, a lot like seeing time lapse for the first time.
------
New York Times "Scientists Uncover Invisible Motion in Video"
Thanks, Steve Gibson

(Link to YouTube video) Slit scan video transforms everyday scenes by elongating, compressing, and twisting elements into trippy dreamscapes. This one was made with an inexpensive Mac app.

Kamil Sladek explains how it works on Gizmodo:

You can make your own slit camera out of any video capable digital camera with a regular sensor and a regular lens. All you need to do is the following:
1. record a video of your action
2. extract each frame as an individual image (the opposite to what you would do for a time lapse)
3. extract a vertical single pixel wide line from each image (for example a line from the center)
4. stack those lines horizontally from left to right to form an actual "slit scan" image
This can be automated by tools like e.g. ImageMagick and the longer your initial video was, the wider your image will be. In fact, the width of your slit scan image will have exactly the same amount of pixels as your initial video's frame number.
Now, to go one step further you can proceed for all the other vertical lines of your images and create one slit scan image for each particular set of vertical lines. This will give you a set of as many slit scan images as your initial video was wide in pixels. Combining that set of slit scan images to a video (this time exactly as in a time lapse) your result can look like this.

The Very Short Film competition was launched in partnership with The Guardian in October 2012. The longlisted entries are now available for the public vote which will produce four finalists. After a live final in March, the winner will receive £9000 towards their university education.

By Chloe Foster

After more than three months of students carefully planning and creating their entries, the Very Short Film competition has closed and the longlisted submissions have been announced.

The competition asked entrants to create a short film which would inform and inspire us. Students were free to base their entry on any subject they were passionate about. There was just one rule: films could be no longer than 60 seconds in length.

We certainly had many who managed to do this. The standard of films was impressive. How were we to whittle down the entries and choose just 12 for the longlist?

We received a real range of films from a variety of ages, characters and subjects — everything from scuba diving to the economic state of the housing market. It was great to see a mixture of academic subjects and topics of personal interest.

It must be said that the quality of the filmmaking itself was very high in some entries. However not all of these could be put through to the longlist; although artistic and clever, they didn’t inform us in the way our criteria specified.

When choosing the longlisted entries, judges looked for students who were clearly on top of their subject. We were most impressed by films that conveyed a topic’s key information in a concise way, were delivered with passion and verve, and left us wanting to find out more. By the end of our selection process, we felt that each of the films had taught us something new or made us think about a subject in a way we hadn’t before.

The sheer amount of information filmmakers managed to convey was astounding. As the Very Short Introductions editor Andrea Keegan says: “I thought condensing a large topic into 35,000 words, as we do in the Very Short Introductions books was difficult enough, but I think that this challenge was even harder. I was very impressed with the quality and variety of videos which were submitted.

“Ranging from artistic to zany, I learned a lot, and had lots of fun watching them. The longlist represents both a wide range of subjects — from the history of film to quantum locking — and a huge range in the approaches taken to get the subjects across in just one minute.”

We hope the entrants enjoyed thinking about and creating their films as much as we enjoyed watching them. We asked a few of the longlisted students what they made of the experience. Mahshad Torkan, studying at the London School of Film, tackled the political power of film: “I am very thankful for this amazing opportunity that has allowed me to reflect my values and beliefs and share my dreams with other people.  I believe that the future is not something we enter, the future is something we create.”

Maia Krall Fry is reading geology at St Andrews: “It seemed highly important to discuss a topic that has really captured my curiosity and sense of adventure. I strongly believe that knowledge of the history of the earth should be accessible to everyone.”

Matt Burnett, who is studying for an MSc in biological and bioprocess engineering at Sheffield, used his film to explore the challenges of creating cost-effective therapeutic drugs: “I felt that in a minute it would be very hard to explain my research in enough detail just using speech, and it would be difficult to demonstrate or act out. I simplify difficult concepts for myself by drawing diagrams, often spending a lot of time on them. For me it is the most enjoyable part of learning, and so I thought it would be fun to draw an animated video. If I get the chance to do it again I think I’d use lots of colours.”

So, what are you waiting for? Take a look at the 12 films and pick your favourite of these amazingly creative and intelligent entries.

Chloe Foster is from the Very Short Introductions team at Oxford University Press. This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk.

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The Academy Award-nominated animated short "Adam and Dog" has been released in its full 15-minute run time on YouTube.


(Direct link to YouTube video) The director, Minkyu Lee says, "This is a short film that me and a group of my close friends made. It was put together by artists who work at various studios, including Disney Feature, Dreamworks and Pixar; The animation is done by myself, Jennifer Hager, James Baxter, Mario Furmanczyk, Austin Madison, and Matt Williames. Glen Keane also helped by being a consultant on the film, and also doing some visual development. It is a completely independent film without any major studio involvement. We are really excited for people to see it, and wanted to share.”

Watch this charming and thought-provoking animation, The Girl, the Old Man and the Book by James Rumford – and you can read a bit of background from James’ blog here.

James is the creator of Rain School, one of our 2011 WaterBridge Outreach Book Set – you can read our interview with him here, and visit our online Gallery of his work.

In addition to a note of appreciation to the Geisel Comittee for selecting LET'S GO FOR A DRIVE! as an honor book, I made a little video for them:   Here is last year's video: Thanks, Geisel Guys!

(Direct link to YouTube) Chris Carlson created this chalk drawing animation showing virtual cubes moving in a snakelike fashion as they chase after a sphere in virtual 3D space.


The images are anamorphic illusions projected on the oblique surfaces of a seamless surface. Drawing and erasing the squares took Carlson 30 hours over four days.
Via BoingBoing

I missed my old cat, so I turned a sketch of her into an animated gif.

How to share this gif on your blog:
1. Copy the gif to your computer (make sure the file ends ".gif" and not ".jpg")
2. Upload the file to an image hosting site such as Photobucket
3. From the "Image links" dropdown, copy the HTML code.
4. Paste that code into your blog's composing window.

How to create animated gifs from your drawings:
1. Redraw parts of the pose, such as head turns.
2. In Photoshop, isolate parts of the drawing as independent pieces.
3. Create a Photoshop file with each element on a separate layer.
4. By switching on and off visible layers, create frames of animation.
5. Upload frames into online gif-creator such as "imgflip.com" and adjust settings
6. Upload file to Photobucket, etc. as above.


(Video link) Video: "Animated Gifs: The Birth of a Medium" from PBS Off-Book.
Another video: "Short History of the Gif" 
Thanks, Ben Valentine