Summer's Over

We're back from a week's vacation in Grand Marais.

I made a video -- my first -- using Apple iMove, and uploaded it to a brand-spanking-new YouTube account. The video is our family vacation, in the form of a music video for Jonathan Coulton's song "Summer's Over" (Thing a Week #51).

Here is the video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVuCYOYYKM

I find Mr. Coulton's lyrics to be simple but beautiful; the song has been stuck in my head for the last few weeks.

Summer’s over
You’re going back to school
I’m staying here
Where else would I go?

Watch the leaves turn
Close up the swimming pool
Winter comes in
Sooner than you know

Nights get cold
And the flowers let go
Bide their time
Under the snow
As they go down they say
Goodbye
Goodbye

Summer’s over
Because it has to be
Just like before
Around and around

It’s a circle
Bringing you back to me
Stay where I am
I’m lost and found

When you go
You come back again
Close the door
The cold’s getting in
As I go down I say
Goodbye
Goodbye

The only thing I'm unhappy about is that it looks much worse after export, upload, and processing by YouTube than it does in original form; I'm not sure how to improve the video quality. iMovie gives me two file size/resolution options to upload; the bigger one didn't look good, so I"m trying the "mobile" size. It doesn't look significantly better or worse at first glance. At some point I'll upload a higher-resolution version to my web site for anyone with the patience to download it.

It occurs to me that the last time I did any extensive video editing was when I worked for the Office of Instructional Technology, about 16-17 years go. Back then I would have been editing using two 3/4" videocasette machines, on a dedicated system with several external monitors built around a Macintosh IIfx with some custom NuBus cards, and it would have taken me days to work through my edits. If I recall correctly, I'd have spent extra effort making sure my transitions were between frames and not fields (NTSC half-frames) which would produce "tears" (jagged transitions).

And, of course, a few years before that, the gear would have been even more unwieldy and expensive.

Today I did it in just a few hours in Apple iMovie, a program I've never used before. I did not need to pull out a manual, and was only slowed down by a recalcitrant hidden feature or hidden option once or twice. That's progress. iMovie has a user interface that is, for the most part, very "discoverable." I'm favorably impressed with it, and with the integration between the parts of Apple's suite.

I recorded a lot more still photos and a bunch of nifty audio on this trip, which I'll talk about later!