JCHC First Look: 105th Editing

I thought I'd share some updates on my 105th video project on this dreary, wet day in Brookville.  Yesterday, I finally finished doing the last of the video screen captures from Google Earth that will act as the primary focus for the project.  So, today I started sitting down and putting everything into iMovie.  The way I'm editing this is by year; 1861 will be it's own video, as will 1862, 1863, and so on.  I also have separate videos for my title sequence and the credits.  This will essentially allow the viewer to select the year in which they would like to view.

Now that everything is in place in iMovie, I sat down with a pencil and a sheet of paper to write narration for the movie.  Here is a picture of the mess:

While drafting the narration, I realized that there is need for more supplemental visuals in the video.  This will help to break up the monotonous virtual tour of the Google Earth screen captures.  If you take a close look at my narration under 1861, you'll notice I have marked where a "Secession Graphic" will fit into the video.  I searched to find something that I liked and could use, but this was not very successful.  So, I decided to make my own.  Here is what I came up with:

I think that this will work nicely in the video to show the Confederate States and when they actually seceded from the Union.  This is the first of what will probably be many supplemental slides that will be created over the course of editing.

These slides aren't the only thing that I've been working on today.  I also started some music editing for the video.  I found a Library of Congress page with primary sources for Civil War Music.  On it, I found a download for a version of the Civil War era song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home"performed by the Airforce Band of Liberty.  I wanted to see what music would sound like in the intro for the project, so I used GarageBand to adjust the audio levels to fade in and out in the timeframe that I needed:

After the initial editing, I put the newly created .mp3 file into the iMovie.  Take a look and listen to what the intro the the 105th project might end up looking like:




That may or may not be the actual music that I use in the final version of this, but I wanted to play around with some audio to get an idea of what the end product will be like.

Feel free to leave comments or ask questions.

-Nathan

JCHC Kid Days: Starting Wednesday, Oct. 6th

Hello everybody!

I've been hard at work on the 105th video project like always, but I thought I'd take some time to share some news.  Starting next Wednesday, groups of students will be visiting the JCHC.  While visiting, they will tour the museum, take a walking tour down Main Street, venture into the Jefferson County Court House, watch a Bowdish Model Railroad show, browse our gift shop, and conduct a scavenger hunt exploring our exhibits.  Today, I had the pleasure of completing the scavenger hunt myself.  I found it to be pretty enjoyable, and I think the kids will feel the same way.  It takes you on a self-guided tour of all the exhibits, and forces you to learn new things in the process.

I'll be sure to share some of the happenings of next Wednesday on the blog.  This should turn out to be a really fun and entertaining day at the museum, and I am definitely going to have some stories to tell!

On a side note:
If you haven't already done so, check out our Facebook page and our Twitter page.  "Like" or "follow" us for up-to-date news and event info.

-Nathan

JCHC Updates: Facebook and Twitter

I thought today I would share some new things that I've done for the JCHC and the blog.  First of all, you might notice the new header image I added to the top of this page.  I designed the image to give a better overall look to the blog.  I used Photoshop to make the simple image, and I found the fonts that are used at a really cool website.  It's called FontSpace, and it's home to thousands of free fonts for you to download and use.

Today was also spent connecting the JCHC beyond my blog and our website.  Social media is a huge medium right now that only continues to grow.  I thought it would be appropriate for the JCHC to have a Facebook page and a Twitter account to keep our patrons updated with news and special events.  I also added a box on the right-hand side of this blog that shows the Facebook updates right here on this page.  Here are the links:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jefferson-County-History-Center-Brookville-PA/128002143919027?ref=ts

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JCHConline

Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, share us with your friends and family, and keep updated!  Enjoy!

-Nathan

JCHC Fun Fact: Civil War Music

While editing and piecing together video today, I realized this project is lacking music.  I normally work with Pandora Radio playing in the background, so I never really noticed until I paused it to record some narration.  Sure, I could have the narration drive the videos, but that would be boring.  I would definitely be bored watching it, and I'm sure our patrons would also lose interest quickly.  To find a solution to this problem, I did what anybody would do; I searched for "civil war era music" on Google.  I figure putting authentic music in the video would be much more meaningful and appropriate.  On my search, I came across the "Music of the American Civil War" article on Wikipedia.  Reading through the article I found a very interesting fact that struck me.  Take a look at this passage from the article:

"Musical duels between the two sides were common, as they heard each other as the music traveled across the countryside. The night before the Battle of Stones River, bands from both sides dueled with separate songs, until both sides started playing Home! Sweet Home!, at which time soldiers on both sides started singing together as one.^[15] A similar situation occurred in Fredericksburg, Virginia in the winter of 1862–3. On a cold afternoon a Union band started playing Northern patriotic tunes; a Southern band responded by playing Southern patriotic tunes. This back and forth continued into the night, until at the end both sides played Home! Sweet Home! simultaneously, to the cheers of both sides' forces.^[16] In a third instance, in the spring of 1863, the opposing armies were on the opposite sides of the Rappahannock River in Virginia, when the different sides played their patriotic tunes, and at taps one side played Home! Sweet Home!, and the other joined in, creating "cheers" from both sides that echoed throughout the hilly countryside.^[17]"

This amazes me!  Just think, two armies fighting each other by day, both sides suffering numerous casualties and wounds at the hands of one another, and by night, they are engaged in a friendly music competition that ends in a unity.  This, to me, represents the American Civil War very well.  A war fought between brothers, united on many fronts, yet divided and separated by differing views.  It's very poetic.

That Wiki article is also nice because it shows some key songs during the war, arranged by year.  So, I did a search on Amazon.com to see if I could find some of these songs in a compilation, and I found two that I'm going to further look into.  They are:

and

Both look like they'd be useful resources for this project.  I'll have to listen to some samples of the compilations to see what will be the best for my needs.

I hope you enjoyed learning a new bit of information about Civil War music.  I know I did!

-Nathan

JCHC First Look: 105th Menu Setup

A busy day requires two posts :)

I've been working with iDVD to design a format for the project that will allow interactivity through the touch screens in our museum.  What I had in mind was a menu in which you could select a particular year that the regiment was active, and then you would be shown a video of the events that occurred during that year.  I started fooling around with the iDVD program to see what I could come up with.  Here is an early version of what I'm envisioning:

This setup will ideally allow you to just "touch" one of the years and be taken on a visual journey through that year.  We'll see how this all comes together in the future.

-Nathan