Video project

Making videos is infinitely more difficult than one would expect!
My idea was simple - let's not "bite off more than we can chew" and do a simple technique! I'm not particularily technologically gifted so from the get-go I had challenges, plus computers shutting down on me unexpectedly, files mixing up or disappearing, and what not...
But let's go back to the beginning...
Originally when we were introduced to this project, I had the immediated idea to do an AIDS theme. AIDS has been something I've been focussing on a lot lately, especially around World AIDS Day (December 1) and looking forward to Stephen Lewis' visit here at Redeemer on January 22. AIDS is also incredibly significant, since it affects the lives of over 33.4 million people in our world...how can we not pay attention to it?
I wanted a simple yet poignant way to express the scope and size of this disease so I decided I would fill up a map of the world with red (the official 'colour' of AIDS) dots. Glancing through tutorial after tutorial on making animated movies, I decided that a simple enough method, would be to take an outline of the world, get rid of all the colour (black background, white outline) and then add one dot at a time, saving the file as a new one after each dot. This way, when all the files were lined up and set in motion, it would created the illusion that the world was filling up with red dots! Well, 500 jpeg. files later and I was done!
What a tedious process! It looked very effective, though...
I chose to have a black background because I wanted everything else that went on top of it to stand out. The text is white as well, which I was unhappy about, but there were no better alternatives available that I could find.
The fun did not end there. Importing the pictures to iMovie proved a lot more difficult than I expected, the files would not transfer in order and a actually had to go through file by file with only red dots as my guide, to put the stills in order.
Once the stills were in place, I had to add music and text. The song I chose is called "Ur" and it is done by DJ Tiesto featuring Aqualung. The words are very applicable to the theme and I love the way the music sounds and how it rises and falls. I tried to capture the best parts of the song by imserting the clip three times and trimming it to get the good parts. The transitions are a bit rough but it is close. I learned a lot about iMovie, watching tutorial after tutorial, but many were not specific enough and I was getting frustrated.
Over all I am fairly happy with the end result. I wanted people to be aware of AIDS, of how many and how far it reaches. As the dots fill up the screen more and more. I hope the viewer feels a sense of urgency, because the time to act is NOW...we've been sitting around too long, people continue to get infected and die at alarming rates - adults and children from every country and continent. Now is the time we must act if any difference is going to be made.
I hope you enjoy the video!

text-based art

The scope of text-based art is pretty incredible. On one hand, this is great! On the other hand, there are just so many things that you could DO! I started thinking about words - how and where they are used - and two things popped up: crossword and word search puzzles. I love both of these things; looking for words, patterns, trying to solve puzzles, trying to “win the game,” and this made me think of Redeemer's theme for the 2009/2010 school year: The Truth Will Set You Free.
Putting two and two together, I thought of searching for the truth and how finding it will set you free, and this is why I decided to create a wordsearch. Wordsearches are like multiple choice tests: all your answers are there you just need to look hard for them to find them, and once you do, you will have great success. The same is true for our lives, God has given us the means to live lives that are honouring to him, lives that will warrant us a place in Heaven with him forever, yet sometimes it is not so clear what we must do or things get in the way and we are distracted. I wanted my wordsearch to express this struggle between the voice of truth and all the other voices that distract us.
To show this, I have hidden the words of John 3:16 in the puzzle at random. I kept the letters of the verse simple and unembellished to portray how the message does not disguise itself in any way but simply is what it is. But, I have embellished all the letters around the words of the verse with bold and dramatic fonts. These other letters represent the distractions that get in the way of our search for the truth. I chose John 3:16 because it is a basic yet profound truth for Christians. This is also a very familiar verse for many Christians - from memory work as a child or what not. And it is such a beautiful verse.
The simple letters of the verse font speaks to me of rigidity and unshakability. The message, the Word of Truth, is like this; it never changes or pretends it is something else, it just stares you in the face until you take it as it is on faith or you push it away and run the other direction. Our lives are filled with metaphorical ‘fun fonts’ – so many cool and crazy things that do a much better job of catching our attention than something like the stuffy, ancient words of the Bible. But all this is part of our calling to search for the Truth. It really comes down to this: if this worsearch was a visual representation of your life, it is absolutely imperative that you find all the words because this will earn you the prize of eternal life. But, if you get distracted by the other fonts, the more exciting and varied fonts and fail to complete the puzzle on time, you will spend eternity in Hell. So this is one wordsearch you want to get right!
16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3: 16 NIV)