Typing Assignment #3

Wow! What great writing we were blessed to have read with the last typing assignment. We had twenty participants and they all produced wonderfully creative expressions of how typewriters work in their writing process. I was interested to discover how many of those participating had expressed similar reasons for writing with typewriters, yet there were also some unique aspects I hadn't considered. This is another good reason to participate in this project, the interaction with others like-minded as yourself, and the opportunity to learn and grow as a creative.

Of course, nothing is perfect, especially the behind-the-scenes technical aspects of doing this project. For some, there were serious challenges, either with finding the time to write, or snags with posting comments to this blog with the link to their online piece. Unfortunately, one hopeful participant had sent me a broken URL that I was unable to resolve, and couldn't contact him via email in time to get his submission.

I've decided as a backup plan that if you have issues with posting comments to Blogger, please instead post a comment to the Typing Assignment #3 video on YouTube with the link to your piece.

Some other issue of note:
PDF files: Apparently my mobile video editing platform treats PDFs as documents instead of images, and hence won't permit importing them as photos to my video editor. I was able to find a work-around, by capturing a screen grab of their online piece instead.
Evernote: I had saved a document from a person's Evernote site, which appeared in my photo folder as a normal image. But when imported to the video project the image had scrambled letters, unreadable, as if some sort of copy protection were at work. I ended up also taking a screen capture of their online document instead.
The Ken Burns Effect: I used this top-to-bottom scroll effect in the video to make the pages wide enough to be readable. But if there is very little margin at the bottom of the image, then the clip fades out a bit too soon. It would help if you include a bit more margin at the bottom of your images to permit it to be fully readable, otherwise the viewers might have to pause the video.
Google shortcut links: One person sent a Google shortcut link that was broken. I was unable to fix it. And I couldn't notify them in time for the deadline. It's a good habit to test your image links before posting them to this blog or the YouTube video. Paste the link into a fresh private browser window and see if it works first.

If you need to contact me directly about some issue with posting or uploading your image link, email me at: j v c a b a c u s (at) y a h o o (dot) com.

Now! Assignment #3 is to write a one-pager about youthful hang-outs. Write about some place you liked to spend time at when young, and perhaps a bit about the people you hung with and maybe even some special circumstance or story that transpired. The deadline is next Sunday, July 9. Please keep the length of your piece to one typewritten page. Try to make the image as bright and contrasty as needed to be easily readable from inside a video. If you need assistance, contact me. Good luck!