Category: My Videos

Caveat: Spagga & La Raza – Nueva York (with a digression on manhattany density)

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / My Videos / Science & SciFi

What I’m listening to right now.

Spagga & La Raza, “Nueva York.”

Well, I managed to run across a novel problem, for this new Background Noise “feature” of mine: I couldn’t find a youtube for the particular music track I was listening to. So, being the resourceful type, I made one. I can’t find the lyrics for this song online, either. I might try to transcribe it at some point, I think it’s pretty interesting for Nuyorican Rap.

pictureThe pictures I added to the video are lame – I was in a hurry, and I just slapped in a few pics I found via the goog. The last picture is something I found that’s not even in NYC, it’s in Chile, but it seemed like a good picture to put on at the end.

To change the subject a little bit, but still on the topic of Nueva York, I was thinking some more about my entry the other day about “all the world’s people in one city” – questions of density. Here’s the fascinating thing. Paris was the densest city mentioned in that graphic I posted at that last entry.

But I thought to myself, surely there are places more dense than Paris. And of course, listening to Spagga & friend, this evening, I thought: Of course! Manhattan!

I ran the numbers. If all the people in the world lived in a city of Manhattan’s density they would fit in an area almost exactly the same size as… get this… South Korea.  Interesting, huh? Can you imagine this entire mountainous little republic covered in high rises? It’s pretty easy to do – they’ve made a heckuva start on it already.

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Caveat: Karmic Commute

Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Videos

This is my latest installment in my efforts to document what it's like to go to work.  My commute in Ilsan is just a walk to work, but not so short as the walk from my last Hongnong place to work, and not so far as to require a bus trip like my previous Yeonggwang apartment (which required several installments to document).

I call the commute karmic not because of a reference to Buddhism but because that's the name of new place of work:  Karma Academy.

Caveat: The Too-Short Commute

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Videos

In the spirit of my previous "commute" videos, I decided to make one more before leaving Hongnong.  Here is my current morning commute, shot this morning at 8 AM.  Note that it is so short, I had to "pad" it out with some still pictures at the beginning, in order to fit the 3 minute soundtrack.  So be patient with the slow start.

I leave my apartment, I walk to the school gate, I walk across the school yard.

Caveat: Flat Stanley Comes to Hongnong

Kids / My Videos / Teaching & Methodology

My nephew James made a Flat Stanley and sent him to me. I brought the Flat Stanley to my 2nd grade after school class and we gave him a small tour of our school.

I didn't edit the video much at all – I took out a bit where a kid had a stunningly disgusting runny nose, but other than that, it's just as it happened.

Caveat: Building Models

Kids / My Videos / Teaching & Methodology

I meant to post these videos several weeks ago.  Having momentary access to broadband, in Atherton, Queensland, Australia, I decided to finish the post.

My students built "model classrooms" – 3 dimensional models of schools and other things – for my 3rd and 4th grade English "winter camps" during the first and second weeks of January.   I made a pretty thorough video record of our work, and I think it's a good example of "what I try to do in the classroom" when I'm at my best.  The full video is about 30 minutes.  I didn't do much editing, but the camera was mostly in the hands of the students, and there were a lot of starts and stops and goofing around, some of which I tried to cut out.  I divided it into 3 parts in order to post it to youtube.  Here are the 3 parts.

Caveat: I have been led to believe this is very funny

Kids / My Videos

Here is a video I took last Thursday.

My student Seong-un seems to be an up-and-coming Korean comic genius.  I really only understood about 10~15% of what he's saying here, but even his deadpan delivery and timing seemed incredibly funny, and he had his peers all crying with laughter with this little narrative.  So, I post it here, unedited.  Let me know (if you speak Korean) if this is really as funny as it seemed to me.

Caveat: The Commute to Work, part I: highway 23 and the market

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Videos

Now that I know I’m not much longer for my current apartment, I decided to finally finish my effort to make a video record of my annoying yet also always interesting commute.  The commute logically divides into three parts (and, out of order, I have already posted parts 2 and 3): 1) highway 23 and the market, walking from my apartment to the bus terminal; 2) the bus ride from Yeonggwang to Hongnong; and 3) the walk along Hongnong’s high street to the school.

So here is part one, taken on my walk to work last Wednesday morning, January 5th. I made a “real time” recording and only did the most minimal editing, with jumps only for starting/stopping the camera. The music I added is what actually shuffled onto my mp3 player as walked. So it’s an effort at “shaky-cam” video realism, I guess. It’s probably kind of dull – but for those interested, I think it offers an unvarnished glimpse at the more banal aspect of life here.

 

Caveat: Peter & Wolves

Kids / My Videos / Teaching & Methodology

We've been working on it for a long time: my 3rd graders and a little 7-minute musical I put together, using some songs from a curriculum book and my own amended script for the talking parts.

We tried during summer session, but the motivation at that time was low.  Then we started again last month, and this time the motivation was high, because we were slated to perform in the school arts festival (학예회).  That was today, and we did it.  Not perfect, due to poor sound system, among other things.  But it was successful as far as the audience (parents and kids, mostly) was concerned.  And they were very cute doing it.  Here's a video – poor quality, I admit.  I didn't take it – I had to hand it off to one of the staffroom ladies, because I had to supervise the sound guy to make sure he started the songs at the right time based on the kids' dialogue.

I'm very proud of them.  I'll make another video sometime soon with some other random footage from festival and from our practice times leading up to it.

 

Caveat: The commute to work, part III: High Street

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / My Videos

I don’t really know the name of the street.  It’s one of basically two streets that make up Hongnong town.  There’s a “High Street” and a “Low Street” – I mean these literally, because one street is farther up the hill than the other, and they run parallel to each other, with little alleyways between, for about 10 blocks in length.  The bus terminal is on the southwest end of “High Street” and the elementary school where I work is on about two-thirds along the same street, toward the northeast end.  Beyond the elementary school is the middle school and the fire station.

Here’s the little video I made – all shakey and walky but whatever… it sorta captures the town.  Although that morning I didn’t run into any of my students, like I normally do.  The music is “Fractured” by Zeromancer.  Awesome track.

(Sorry the resolution is so poor – I’ve been having nightmares with uploading large files from home, so I cut the video output filesize way back, to make it tolerable on upload – it still took 25 minutes to put it on youtube.)

Caveat: Dramatic Arts… or Not

Kids / My Videos / Teaching & Methodology

After more than a week of practicing, 35 minutes a day (minus weekend, of course), I've decided to try to benchmark the progress (or lack thereof) of my third graders' effort to make a little musical play.

I'm feeling the pain of my own lack of experience in teaching / directing a dramatic production, definitely.  Especially with a bunch of only marginally focused, limited-English-speaking, hyperactive 8 year olds (Western age counting – Koreans call them 10 year olds).

We're doing a little 7 minute-long musical production I found on one of the kindergarten curriculum DVDs, where I've added some characters and dialogue to accommodate the larger group, but kept the songs, which are simple and the kids seem to like them.

Here's some video I made of where things stand.  Pretty rough.

Caveat: 티처 좀 외계인처럼

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Life in Korea / My Videos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

A student said this to me today:  티처 좀 외계인처럼 [ti-cheo jom weh-gye-in-cheo-reom = teacher a little like an alien].  She was talking about me.  I was flattered.
Sometimes I’m definitely an alien.  Or among aliens.  Or something like that.   This seemed very true when I walked down the hall to the 4-1 classroom, where teachers were seated on the floor playing Korean percussion instruments:  사물놀이 [sa-mul-nor-i].  They were practicing for the school concert that was later this evening (I attended, and may post some video from that, later).
I really like 사물놀이.  Here’s some video.

Caveat: Zina’s Musical

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / My Photos / My Videos

Last year around this time, I went to see my student Zina in a musical production. I blogged about it. This year, I had the opportunity to go again, even though she’s not now my student anymore.

pictureThis time, I had my video camera with me. Here are some clips from the musical. I’m still working on figuring out the plot (I bought the CD and the words are in the extended program, so I can spend as much time as I want deciphering it), but the basic idea is that some kids who live in a futuristic “ecologically sustainable” village get bored and decide to go to visit the big, dirty, polluted, future-city, and have some interesting and scary experiences. It was pretty cute, although I liked the plot of last year’s production better (nothing is better than the idea of mosquitoes bringing lawsuits!).

Note that although the kids are lip-syncing during the performance, I’m pretty certain it’s their own voices, that were pre-recorded so as to raise the production value a little bit – Zina’s voice defintely sounds like Zina’s voice to me.






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Caveat: Utah, Unedited. [The Herbaliser – The Next Spot]

Background Noise / Hiking & Travel / My Videos

I drove across Utah.  It was covered in snow.   Here is the most boring video imaginable:  driving, real-time, no editing.  This is part of one of the longest stretches of interstate with no gas station that I know of: I-70 west of the Green River crossing.

So… it's a 7 mile snapshot of my 14,000 mile cross-country experience, second-by-second.  Unedited.  Mostly, it was an excuse to post a cool soundtrack: The Herbaliser – The Next Spot.

Caveat: Long-promised [임형주 – 행복하길바래]

Background Noise / Hiking & Travel / Life in Korea / Life is a Dream / My Videos

I’ve been saying I would post a video from my visit to Ulleungdo [울릉도] for a while, and I finally have. It’s not as carefully edited as the ones I made before, but it’s a glimpse of what I saw when I was there. The music is 행복하길바래 by 임형주 [haeng-bok-ha-gil-ba-rae = “I hope you are happy” by Im Hyeong-ju]

Caveat: “The Bullet Train from Tokyo”

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / My Videos / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

This is the other video I made where I started with the song and added the video bits I'd recently taken.  The lyrics to the song ("Hammering in my Head" from Garbage's 1998 Version 2.0 album) include the phrase "the bullet train from Tokyo" and I'd always imagined, someday, I would be on a bullet train from Tokyo, and lo, last Saturday, I was.  So I made this little video, and, fortunately, this time, youtube allowed my "third party copyrighted content" — so you all can see it. 


It's funny, because youtube communicates with me in Korean (not always very successfully, I might add, but I can get the gist).  I can't figure out how to change the setting that makes it do this.  Here's what it told me about this posting: 

caveatdumptruck님,

회원님의 동영상 "The Bullet Train from Tokyo"에 UMG님이 소유하거나 라이센스 권한을 갖고 있는 콘텐츠가 있을 수 있습니다.

별도의 조치를 취할 필요는 없습니다. 그러나 회원님의 동영상에 미치는 영향에 대해 알고 싶으면 계정의 콘텐츠 ID 일치 섹션을 참조하시기 바랍니다.

Sincerely,
– YouTube 고객지원팀

I like the "caveatdumptruck님" [honored caveatdumptruck].  And the "Sincerely" in English — what's with that?  I wonder if it's going through some kind of automatic translation software.

I'm still puzzling about what to do about my other, disabled video.  I'm searching for a different song that I like that I can match to it, that youtube might allow… but, since I deleted the raw source footage that I used to make the video (to make room on my hard drive), my options are limited.  Ah well.  It was no big deal, really.

Caveat: Mayhem in the park (no external soundtrack required)

Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / My Videos

I was walking back to my inn and had about a block to go, and came across some highly organized mayhem in a little park.  I think everyone was practicing for an upcoming parade or cultural exhibition.  There were kids, moms dispensing drinks and pointing kids to restrooms, men drinking water from large plastic buckets and giving each other commands, and lots of mayhemical musical instruments.  I'll let you make what you want of it, yourself – I was entertained.  When it ended, I walked back to my ryokan.  And here I am.

Caveat: DRM and antifandom

Banalities & Journaling / Internet & Blogging / Media (Texts/Music/Movies etc) / My Videos

So, I made a video and tried to post it, with a song that I really like.  I didn't really think about copyright issues… I've seen so many homemade videos to preexisting songs on places like youtube, that I really thought the issue was resolved as a sort of "fair use."  Obviously not.  Youtube disabled the video I uploaded because it detected "copyrighted material" – ie the soundtrack to the video I made. 

My reaction:  1)  I have to find a different song.  2) I'll have to rethink adding songs to my videos, in general – but, my life has always had a soundtrack, and I was thinking how totally cool it was to be able to "share" that life-soundtrack with others, and now I can't always do that, which leads to 3) some weird, residual anger at the artist in question – why can't I use her song to show the feeling or mood I have associated with my homemade video?  Do I have to go through the rigmarole of getting permission?  It's not even a matter of money – I'm sure the money is insubstantial.  It's the inconvenience.  Do I want to remain a fan of an artist that makes my life annoying and inconvenient?  Maybe not.  Now, when I hear that song, instead of thinking the reflective, deep, philosophical thoughts I previously associated with it, I'll be getting grumpy thinking about DRM and why she wouldn't let me use her song on my amateur video, in what I thought was a thoughtful, respectful way, including crediting the song at the end (as I've been doing).  So I doubt that song will remain on my mp3, either.   Maybe that artist just lost a fan.   Is that what DRM (in all its manifestations) is supposed to do?

Youtube offered me the option of replacing my audio track.  But the whole point of the exercise was that I thought I'd come up with a video that matched the song in question in mood and atmosphere.  What are the chances I'd find such a song in their weird random library of "licensed" tracks?  Further, as youtube notes, "Note that advertisements may be displayed on videos that contain soundtracks from the AudioSwap library."  Oh, goody.  Not that I have anything against advertising… it's what makes most of the internet free, after all.  But, I just don't feel like attaching random advertising to this video.

Outcome:  the video won't be posted.  Sorry.

Caveat: Tokyo

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Hiking & Travel / My Videos

I'm not really happy with this video, but I didn't spend much time on it.  I had trouble syncing the music track to it, but I really wanted to use that song.  Anyway, here's some random shots of Tokyo over the last few days.

Tomorrow, I leave on the shinkansen for Hiroshima.  I'll post from there, I guess.  I hit a few art museums, today.  Definitely worth it… I love art museums.  The visits got my mind working.   I'll see if I can write some thoughts or observations… but no promises.

Now I'm resting in my little hotel room and watching bad Japanese TV and trying to rememorize my kana.  It's weird, because over the past year I've been working on learning Korean hanja, which are the equivalent of the Japanese Kanji, and every time I try to read a sign, I pronounce the kanji in my mind in Korean, which doesn't work well with Japanese endings.  Not that I've really got that huge a vocabulary… I probably only have a hanja/kanji recognition of around 50 characters at the moment.

[Song with the video is Japanese Punk group Last Alliance's "Shissou"]

Caveat: The Kids

Background Noise / Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Life in Korea / My Videos / The Wonders of Work

I finished putting this together, this evening, lurking in my hotel room in Tokyo. It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty happy with it. It will help me remember my 14 months at LBridge pretty vividly, I think. Great kids!
The song is from the children’s musical that Zina was in, that I went to see six months ago. Keep in mind that I “lengthened” the song by looping the 2nd chorus about 4 times so that it would match the length of the video – so don’t be alarmed if the thing seems a bit repetitive. Thematically… I’m not sure it’s a great match: I think it’s about about a mosquito who’s bemoaning the current environmental crises in the world. But I like the song, and I think it goes well with the kids, especially since one of the kids in my video is actually one of the voices performing the song.

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Caveat: We have a Skywalker in this class too

Kids / My Videos / The Wonders of Work

The backstory to this is that we have an eccentric (but fun) student in our class who insists his English name is "Skywalker."  Peter apparently did some research on his background, and delivers a speech that provides a summary of the Star Wars story.    Speeches that summarize stories are not easy at this level, and I think Peter does a truly excellent job, using no notes and without just coming off as a memorizing robot-voice.  I was really impressed with this — it was one of the best (absolutely best) low "Goldrush"-level speeches I've ever heard.

Caveat: My mother stole my money

Kids / My Videos / The Wonders of Work

I'm recording some debates and student speeches in class with my new video camera.  I think that it will take a lot of editing to put together anything that looks like a "real" debate.  However, there are some short segments that will make for good excerpts, I think.  Here is Candy, telling a short anecdote about how her mother stole her money and went to Hong Kong.

Caveat: Trip to the bookstore

Banalities & Journaling / Life in Korea / My Videos

I played with my new video camcorder today, and took a trip to Seoul, and then spent the last 4 hours trying to learn how to load and edit.  The result is my first edited video, ever!  Of course, very amateurish.  But you can see my world "through my eyes" as I take the subway into Seoul for the afternoon.   I can see how playing with this stuff can become addictive.

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