The Beginning of My Movie Career

I've been practicing what Todd Boss preaches (see my previous post), i.e., sitting at the computer and making a video with audio of me reading my poem, "The Fruitful Woman," from my book, Eve's Red Dress. I decided to begin with a short poem so I'd get less frustrated when things bombed and I had to begin over. But really, the whole thing was pretty easy.

I also decided that for this one I'd make a video from photos that fit my poem. So first I had to round up a boatload of photos. In the end I ended up with many more than I needed and had to do some strategic cutting. I'd previously used an external microphone to record myself reading some poems, but with my new iMac I now have a good quality internal mic so thought I should learn how to use that.

I first put the photos in what seemed like a sensible order. Then I did a voice over which could not have been easier. I wasn't satisfied with my first several efforts—frog in throat, AC kicking on in the background, too fast, etc. But that was no problem. Just delete the voice over and make a new one. Once I had one that I thought was decent, I fiddled around with the order of the photos and the length of time each would be displayed. Again, very easy. Added a credit page at the beginning and end. Sent the whole thing off to YouTube.

After I was well into this project, the new Snow Leopard arrived at my front door. This upgrade for the Mac includes a new Quick Time which enhances your ability to make videos and audios. I wanted to see how that worked even though I was already set with my finished project. Again, easy to make an audio. One problem I had, though, was saving the recording to iTunes as an audio so that it could be dragged and dropped into a movie project. I eventually figured it out, but I think that's one unexpected glitch in the new program.

Now my next project is to make a movie of me reading one of Shakepeare's sonnets. I want to send that to the Our Daily Sonnet project.

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