Archive for November, 2007

Uglies: The Movie

November 10th, 2007

I just found out about this by reading an interview with Scott Westerfeld.

Uglies is being turned into a movie.

Okay, so we knew it had to be coming. (I mean, How to eat fried worms?) The interesting part, though, is the production company behind it. Davis Entertainment. What have they brought us? Oh, Predator, I, Robot, and AVP-R (coming out this Christmas).

This actually makes me excited. The hoverboard scenes will actually be pretty intense, then. The Specials will be rough and violent, just like they are in my super-charged imagination (complete with explosions/slow motion and a rock soundtrack). I loved what they did with I, Robot. Yes, there are no car chases in Asimov, but instead they put a short story in-between two from the book. An I, Robot supplement. The other thing that helped me was that when Will Smith was on David Letterman he was able to recite Asimov’s three robot laws. The main actor actually is a nerd. Yeeha.

  1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
  2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

But the thing that makes me laugh about Davis entertainment is their 2009 project:

The Sims

Here is an excerpt from the script:

Sim 1: Jooba jooba hurba

Sim 2: Hoo hoo nee do. Ree hee hee!

with a picture of a plane in Sim 1’s thought bubble and a flower in Sim 2’s thought bubble, crossed out. And then the Sim takes a drink from the espresso machine that they had to work three days worth of Simoleans for.

If they speak English in The Sims movie I will boycott it.

By the way: Davis also made the Garfield and Daddy Day Care movies.

Legal and free music

November 9th, 2007

The musician Moby has just released free music to use in independent and student films (like, oh, an iMovie). At the site http://www.mobygratis.com/film-music.html
you have a chance to log in to access the music. If you ever start to make money from your film projects, there’s an easy royalty plan where you donate some money to the Humane Society. Kinda cool!

Snakehead by Anthony Horowitz

November 9th, 2007

Terrorism. Human smuggling. Drug running. Toymaking?

snakeheadn. – an organization controlling many different parts – including moneymaking schemes and crime

I was very excited when I received an advanced reading copy of Snakehead, but I had a couple of other books to read first (like when Frank Beddor visited my library, I probably needed to read his books). Now, with Snakehead coming out next week, I have the great opportunity to review the book.

Along for the Rider

  1. Fans of the series will not be disappointed in the action department: homemade kayaks in whitewater, magnetic coins from Smithers that remote detonate, and muay thai pitfighting. Yeah, baby!
  2. If you need to brush up on your geography, you’ll visit Bangkok, Jakarta, Darwin, and an oil rig.
  3. The return of Scorpia! (cue dramatic spy music and dancing silhouettes)
    I have to admit, Ark Angel was kind of a let down compared to the gripping drama of Scorpia. Who better to complement MI6’s finest than an organization of merc spies bent on world domination and chaos? That’s right.
  4. We find out a lot of details about Alex’s family, especially his dad. John Rider, original super spy, coordinated/saved some pretty intense missions. We even learn of the last minutes of his parents’ lives, leading up to the plane crash/explosion.
  5. Actual issues: I get into a debate with the Language Arts chair about the depth of Alex Rider. Sure, there’s helicopters (a must in any book for me) but Alex’s search for his history is something that many of my students can relate to, even if their dad has been present the whole time/not an international assassin.

For your eyes only

  1. This is one of those books that would be tough for a new fan to jump into. I had a student who started the series with Scorpia and didn’t get all of the character development. But, if it gets a struggling reader to read, go for it.
  2. If you are annoyed when spies repeat their tricks, go easy on this book. How many different ways can you explode your jail cell? I mean, really.

Horowtiz does repeat some tricks, but so do Ian Fleming and Robert Ludlum. What I really like about this book is how it shows the deep connection between “light” illegal activity and the hardcore stuff that most people know is wrong.

How do terrorists get money? Check out an article from 2002 from CBS News:

Federal authorities say they have amassed evidence for the first time that an illegal drug operation in the United States was funneling proceeds to Middle East terrorist groups like Hezbollah.

Evidence gathered by the Drug Enforcement Administration since a series of raids in January indicates that a methamphetamine drug operation in the Midwest involving men of Middle Eastern descent has been shipping money back to terrorist groups, officials said.

“There is increasing intelligence information from the investigation that for the first time alleged drug sales in the United States are going in part to support terrorist organizations in the Middle East,” DEA administrator Asa Hutchinson said.

Horowitz shows the connection between drugs and terrorists, as well as Bangkok sweat shops and cheap toys being made under inhumane conditions. Mix your kung fu with your global awareness.

Fans of the series will be very excited, as well as students who are getting into the spy scene through shows like Chuck and movies like Bourne Ultimatum. I predict that this one will do very well in my library.

Uploading Podcasts

November 8th, 2007
  1. In your GarageBand project, click on Share (in your top menu) and then Export podcast to disk. Remember where you save it, because you’ll need to browse for the file later. It should be saved as a .m4a file.
  2. Go to the podcasting virtual classroom by clicking here. (You may need to open a new window (File->New Window to be able to view the instructions here and work in the classroom.)
  3. Log in with the same user name and password that you use to get onto the computers at school.
  4. Fill in the required profile information. This site is closed to only people in our district, so share what you are comfortable with.
  5. Type in the enrollment key that you got from your teacher and click on the Enroll Me button.
  6. On the virtual classroom’s main page, click on the link for your specific hour.
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  7. This represents a student-made database of podcast files.
  8. Click on Add Entry.
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  9. Type in your podcast description title and a short description.
  10. At the bottom of the screen is a place to upload the actual podcast file. Browse for the file and then make sure to Save and view.
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  11. Now you can view other groups’ podcasts.

iMovie Titles

November 1st, 2007

This tutorial is designed for use with the poetry portfolio assignment, but can be applied to other work.

  1. Click on the iMovie HD icon in the dock.
  2. Create a New Project
  3. Name it with the assignment name, your class period, and your last name. (Example: ‘portfolio-4th-guy’). Save it to the hard drive by selecting Macintosh HD->Users->Shared and then click Save
  4. Click on Editing -> Titles to add your text.
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  5. Make sure that your text is big enough to read. You will probably need to split up your sentences into smaller phrases.
  6. Type single words as titles for emphasis.
  7. You can use the slide to adjust how many seconds the animation takes and how long it pauses.
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  8. For pictures, drag your image from the desktop/documents onto the timeline/clip view.
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  9. To change the animation, click on the photo to select it. Click on Media->Photos and then Show Photo Settings
  10. With the Ken Burns Effect on, the photo will slide in/zoom out in many different ways. Drag the top slide bar to zoom in and out. Drag the bottom one to make the animation speed up or slow down.
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  11. Your Preview bar has its own animation timeline. Click on the animation timeline to select which place to zoom in.
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  12. The hand lets you control the position of the photo. Click and drag to move the camera’s focus.
  13. To add sound, make sure that you are in the project’s timeline mode first. Click on the clock to switch from clip mode to timeline mode.
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  14. Click on Audio to view your iTunes library, GarageBand songs, and Skywalker sound effects.
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  15. Click on a song and drag it to the second line in the timeline.
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  16. Click on the triangle and drag it to go to different parts of the timeline/project.
  17. To shorten a clip, click on it to highlight it, move the triangle to where you want to cut it, select from the top menu Edit->Split Clip to make the cut.
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  18. Click off of the clips to deselect both, then click back on the clip that you don’t want. Press the delete key to get rid of it.
  19. Click on Editing->Transitions or Editing-> Video FX to make your presentation more professional.