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Author Archives: websterwrite2
Opening Doors You Thought Might be Closed
I made this gif with http://makeagif.com/youtube-to-gif Who knew that creating a gif from a downloaded You Tube video could be so easy? I have been working much too hard at this for the past 3 weeks! Sure, the name of the video editor is on my gif, but the video sequence belongs to The Prisoner series, anyway.
Sappho has been planning an escape route out of the Village. and she thinks she has found one! In the “Once Upon a Time” episode, Number 6 is introduced to the idea of a waste disposal unit! Here he is contemplating the words of Number 2.
Time is running out! The long summer evenings end soon, and Sappho needs to break away from the internet before fall courses begin.
She has bought some Village deck shoes to help her retreat, but after watching the final Prisoner episode, “Fallout”, she is wondering whether life can ever be normal again!
At the recommendation of the Village Philosopher, she has taken out Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot” and plans to read it in the next 3 weeks. After all, Nureyev had read all of Dostoyevsky!!
Prisoners, ‘idiots’, Village residents, fairy tales, Burgeron Trailer Blues-all have opened doors to the digital arts for Sappho. It has taken a lot of courageous experimentation on her part and a supportive online community which has tweeted and re-tweeted her work, +1 with comments on G+, a few backchannel emails, and WordPress posts w. comments-all bolstering her to find her own voice, and I think now, she has!
Thanking the DS106 community for opening doors and windows!
Variations on a Theme: “Where Am I?”
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- Sappho, planning her escape
Sappho is up late at night, midsummer, adding some visuals- moving and not- to her repertoire of working on one of the Prisoner themes of “Where Am I?” She is planning her own escape from the Village while working on her art, but is increasingly under the influence of gifanitus, a Village condition of ‘mutuality’. She is eating well and exercising, hoping to become more ‘unmutual’.
Finally, Sappho also put together a small trailer about Freedom and Prison.
And now, it’s time for bed! BCing you…….
Sappho: Languishing in the Village
Sappho thinks she’s been languishing in the summer heat at the Village a bit too long. Her art and design classes have been instructional, and she has had a few conversations with Number 6 privately in his bungalow and over tea at the Village Bistro. Her vision seems to be tainted now with rose colored glasses. Sappho went to visit Dr. M. in her bungalow to help Sappho with the dilemma of separating illusion from reality and was instructed by Dr M. to contemplate a ‘daily create’ challenge. Dr. M. advised daily contemplation of the following adage ‘Interrupt the flowerbeds and finality will follow’. Sappho was able to transpose nouns in this adage and create a mash-up artwork at the Village Studio to help give her a more expansive view of her changing perspectives during her stay at the Village. 
Sappho compared her artwork with that of some of her compatriots over a midsummer Village dinner and found that her ideas differed vastly. She still could not maintain ‘design integrity’, a seeming requirement for success in Village life. Dr. M. had even created a sample artwork to help the many Village patients who were dealing with multiple realities.
Sappho was still mainly interested in still photography and writing; although, Village preferences favored the mesmerizing gif format. She understood the gif persuasion – especially its hypnotic qualities which left Villagers in the trance-like state so advantageous to Number 2. She decided to rent a penny farthing at the Village rental shop by the beach and take a day trip to the Bovine County Fairy Tale Fest. The question was whether she could actually escape the Village for a spell or not.
Credits
All writing by @janweb3
Mash-up art by @janweb3
Second flower mash-up art by Mariana Funes
Jim Groom glasses and penny- farthing gif by John Johnston
Sappho’s Designs
DS106: Capture/Screenshot a scene from an episode of a TV show or a movie and try to make a poster for that episode or movie. Try to make it cool! Be creative!
Here is my gif from the opening and repeated scenes of ‘The Prisoner’. I used Free Video Cutter to make the gif.
I entitled this gif “Where am I?”
Here are some of the comments I received on G+ for this gif.
Jul 19, 2015
It is Awesome!
Jul 19, 2015
Very nice dear. I like the effect you’ve got there of going around-and-around. Although for those of us with motion sickness issues, I’m feeling awfully dizzy.
Jul 19, 2015
Yes, very dizzying. Wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but I’ll take what I can get on my first try.
Jul 19, 2015
I have to say you did a great job on this +janet webster . It looks like something +John Johnston would’ve made. A smooth GIF that tells a story in more ways than one. Bravo!
Jul 19, 2015
Bravo! Well made.
I kinda recognize the fast style of Mariana’s gifs too in it.
I kinda recognize the fast style of Mariana’s gifs too in it.
Jul 19, 2015
Not necessarily intentional 😉
Jul 19, 2015
Well that’s how it works, you get influenced without knowing it.
Jul 19, 2015
Cool! Glad you found a way. It is a lovely one. Make sure you add the tags for the assignment when you do your post so you get credit units! +janet webster
Jul 20, 2015
+Nana Lou thank for the compliment. This looks a bit deeper than me:-) I see the repetitive nature of the series, resign and be dammed again and again. nice stuff.
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Still inspired by the above gif made by John Johnston, I took the still images from my own gif’s clip captured from John Johnston’s blog and made a book-cover or poster for ‘The Prisoner’ series. I wanted to keep the monochromatic scheme of the typewriter and photo still of #6 with the XXXXXXXXXXX across his face. The word ‘Resigned’ is a key word in the themes presented in this series, so I used it as a title instead of “The Prisoner”.
The floating head (a la John the Baptist) is somewhat unnerving, but I wanted to give that sense in my composition. I also like to build in ambiguity to my compositions.
I don’t have a lot of time to devote to these assignments, and I usually do them late at night, so I look for quick and easy technical solutions to my creative ideas.
Sappho’s Many Moving Parts
My summer holiday at the Village.
Gif Camp on Mondays at the Village Studio.
Introduction to Filming on Tuesdays at the Village Pantheon.
Still Photography and Time Travel on Wednesdays at Bungalow # 6.
Poster Making on Thursdays at the Village Rec Hall.
Fridays for Exercise and Workouts Around the Village. Free Day!
Saturday and Sunday: Special Projects TBA
Village Visuals Snapped by Sappho
Sappho spent the day wandering around the Village with her camera and took a few snaps of things she found normal and things she found somewhat abnormal. She was very confused at the end of the day about which was which. She first came across the intercom phones made by National.
The Village, still further illustrated and explained….
Hungry?
Sweeten up your day at the Village!
Organic blueberries at the Village! Why not?
Bovine’s whimsy on everyone’s mind at the Village.
Bovine Fairy Tale’s pixie dust invades The Village at the Bistro.
In case you thought the prisoner idea was a new theme, check out St. Peter’s Chains! Sappho took a quick research side trip to Rome. Somehow Moses got in on the act!
The General’s ‘Generating Whole School Improvement’ Power Point Presentation
Bomb Shelter Location Revealed!!
Her best snap of all! A portrait of # 6.
Last of all, here is a spectacular gif by John Johnston she wished she could have made. Sappho is keeping it in her portfolio as inspiration.
Backgrounder (Summary)
As someone who really did live in the 60’s, the themes of this Prisoner series seem all too prophetic! My art may not be as technically spectacular as some participants in this open course, but I have taken the themes to heart, and I try to allow the art to evolve as I think about the content of the episodes I watch. I am also inspired by the creativity and technical expertise of others as I follow the Twitter and G+ posts. It is good to see that others can also not maintain design integrity! I am having a lot of fun combining the Bovine Fairy Tale Festival with The Prisoner series; although, I think I am now a full fledged prisoner of ‘The Prisoner’!
Credits:
Photos and edits by @janweb3
- Michelangelo’s Moses light- up sign taken in Rome; chains in background are St. Peter’s (Prisoner theme is not a new one!!)
- Bean Stalk Bistro sign taken at Granville Island, BC
- Blueberry Picking sign take at Kraus Berry Farm, Aldergrove BC
- Photos of Portmeirion memorabilia taken from Six of One Society Facebook Page
- The Prisoner with camera gif by John Johnston
Finally, Sappho was able to make a decent gif from the Prisoner film she is calling ‘Where Am I?”. She used LunapPic for the conversion of her snipped film clip to animated gif.
Sappho Visits Bungalow #6
Sappho took a side trip today to visit #6 at his bungalow in the Village. She found the atmosphere electric as he told her about having discovered the secret fallout shelter under the hotel in the Village. He recounted how on one of his attempts to escape the Village, he had accidentally discovered a hatch along the abandoned hedges at the beach. When he investigated further and opened the hatch, he found a network of tunnels under the Village, culminating in a heavily fortified bomb shelter. He described the comforts of the shelter to Sappho, but the one photo he managed to take gave Sappho a good idea of the modern decor afforded to those who would be privileged enough to occupy the shelter in dire times.
Sappho was overwhelmed at this recent revelation, and returned to her more modest bungalow to watch re-runs of ‘The Prisoner’ series on her old black and white TV which she had bought in the 1960’s. Patrick McGoohan was one of her favorite TV stars.
Sappho had read about how Patrick McGoohan had created the series, written 7 of its episodes, had created a 40 page draft of Village life as a backgrounder to the story and had serendipitously discovered that a plastic weather balloon could take the place of a menacing ‘Rover’ which the film crew had originally built out of wood but which sank to the bottom of a lake on its first ‘menacing’ mission.
Sappho had a large collection of books about fallout shelters. Some of the titles were “The Fallout Shelter Handbook from 1962”, and ‘The Congressional Fallout Shelter at Greenbrier Resort”. These titles reminded her of the tensions in the early 1960’s.
The Magic Shoes of Portmeirion
Between Traeth Mawr and Traeth Bach near the estuary of the River Dwyryd, lies the village of Portmeirion in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. Portmerion sits quietly beneath Snowdonia’s majestic peaks in the community of Penrhyndeudraeth . Castell Deudraeth, Castell Gwain Goch and Castell Aber are in the woods just outside the village. This is the story of the magic shoes of Portmeirion, a famous Welsh tale of woe.
Fairy Tale Festival Schedule
Once there lived a beautiful young prisoner in the old Castell Deudraeth in Portmeirion. She had been very rich and proud until one day misfortune befell her. She lost all her possessions in a clash of the clans in this Welsh territory. However, she was able to save one pair of bejeweled shoes, and these she kept secretly in a small bag hidden under the stone bed in her prisoner’s cell.
These magic shoes gave the beautiful young prisoner the ability to visit the future and the past when she wore them. Her grandmother had given these shoes to her as an inheritance, and she was instructed by her kind grandmother to take the greatest care of them. She was able to transport herself out of her wretched prison when she put them on; however, she always found herself back in the dark cell after visiting the future or the past. The young prisoner was able to keep the magic shoes hidden from the constant gaze of the cruel guards. When she went to sleep at night, she would sing her grandmother’s favorite song about the misty hills of Penrhyndeudraeth.
…to be continued (story and art by @janweb3)
Sappho’s Village Greeting
Sappho’s Village Greeting With Sound Effects
The Burgeron Family 