This is what I've been up to this week - updated

In 1955, the yearbook staff at the University of Houston produced a vinyl 45 record to go along with the yearbook. They had a sleeve made in the cover of the yearbook and everything.

As we were scanning the yearbook we found it. My first thought was "AWESOME, let's digitize it." This may have been accompanied by happy dancing and maybe some fist-bumping. All in a totally dignified way, of course. I am a librarian. After I settled down I got on the phone to the music librarian to ask about whether she had the equipment to convert vinyl to digital. The answer was "Hells Yes!" In a dignified way, of course. She is a librarian.

While the music librarian and I were digitizing it I had another brainstorm; let's make it into a video to go with images in the yearbook. Once again, the music librarian was on-board with the idea. More fist-bumping and happy dancing may have ensued. In a dignified way, of course. We are librarians.

So yesterday morning for 3 hours we produced 3 minutes of video. More fist-bumping, a couple of high-fives and some happy dancing in our chairs could have happened. All very dignified, of course. We are librarians.

Side A is 6.33 minutes so we are only half done but I am so in love with this thing I just had to share. (we as directors have made the decision to cut the last 30 to 40 seconds for artist reasons. Okay, not artistic. It is the orchestra playing White Christmas and we didn't want to get sued)

We finished the whole thing.
Here is your sneak preview of:

Birth of an Idea
images produced by the 1955 UH yearbook staff,
audio and vinyl produced by KUHT, KUHF & Universal Recorders, INC.
Music by Ed Gerlach and his orchestra,
Voice of: Jack Bailey (I'm pretty sure this is the same guy)
Audio Digitizing and technical editor: Katie (the music librarian, she knows how to use the Mac software while I'm stuck using the crappy PC software. No more! I will learn it if it kills me)
Image digitizing and choice, directing, producing, and promoting: Yours truly



We have time set up to finish the remaining 3 minutes today. We'll upload the whole thing into Youtube this afternoon. It shouldn't take 3 hours because we have all the images already chosen, loaded into the software, and I've got a quasi storyboard thing going. See, how I threw around a technical term. (Gretchen? That is one, right?)

I, now, know how much work Ken Burn's goes through, though to be honest, once you have the images lined up and the text recorded a Mac computer can kick out a bitchin' video in no time. Or in our case an hour for one minute. So never mind, it's nothing like what Ken Burn's does.

I hope you enjoyed it. If you want to watch the whole thing let me know and I'll post the link.

Love,
M


PS: this will be produced under a creative commons license. Cuz, we are all about sharing.
Side B will be done in about a month or so.