Because of the way my computer is configured, I was not able to download PhotoStory 3, so I decided to work with Movie Maker for this project. It was my first time using this program, so I had a lot to learn there. I also had a lot of difficulty with file conversions--I tried out at least 3 different file conversion sites and downloaded 10 or so different types of freeware / shareware (one with a virus attached, I have now discovered) before I was able to convert my files with a Firefox add-on.
Initially I had planned to do a beginning of the year project for my 7th grade Japanese class. We start out the year with a unit on schools and schedules, so I had envisioned doing a project introducing your schedule to the class. My vision was that this would be a multi-layered project, with perhaps some video footage in the background and still images superimposed on top along with keywords and a narration. (If anyone has seen Inanimate Alice that is loosely what I was aiming for.) I collected numerous culturally authentic images to use and started to put this together in Movie Maker. Unfortunately, I soon discovered that Movie Maker does not have the capacity to superimpose still images on top of video, so I started to put my images together in a more linear fashion. By the time I finished period 2 of a 9 period day, I was already working with 8 images, 9 or 10 audio files, and a similar number of titles, and I hadn't even started to contemplate the transition or audio effects I might want. I decided that this type of project did not match the medium I was working with and abandonned it.
As I was working on the first project, it occurred to me that it would not be very interesting for the rest of the class to see a Japanese project, because neither the audio nor the titles would be comprehensible to them. In fact, most people would just get little squares for all the titles unless they happened to have Japanese fonts on their computer. So, I decided to work with something from the English curriculum instead.
I ended up choosing to do a poetry project where students would have to do an audio-visual interpretation of a poem of their choice. I collected images, and sounds to match the poem I had chosen, and put it together in Movie Maker. Halfway through, I ended up with 4 or 5 versions of each audio / video clip I thought I might use on my desktop, and I decided to clean up and move everything to a folder. Big mistake! I had forgotten that once those files are linked to a presentation, you can't move them, and you need to create the folder FIRST!
I re-made my presentation a number of times incrementally, first just replacing all the video, then replacing the video and audio, then starting from scratch by copying the titles, then re-doing the whole thing without referring to anything from previous versions, and I kept getting the same error message: "Windows Movie Maker cannot save the movie to the specified location. Verify that the original source files used in your movie are still available, that the saving location is still available, and that there is enough free disk space available, and then try again."
Having checked all the source files, I then tried saving the movie to various locations, I checked disk space and I de-fragged, compressed files, etc. Still no luck. I did some hunting around on the internet and found at papajohn.org that this is Movie Maker's generic error message. I went through their troubleshooting suggestions, and was still unable to solve the problem.
Finally, I ended up downloading other video software (Nero9) to re-make the movie and save it. The software was similiar to MovieMaker, and it would have allowed me to superimpose narration on music while muting the audio component of the source videos (something I had originally planned to do but had not been able to do with Movie Maker). I decided against it, though, because I liked the reinforcement of using the poem twice, once with text and music and the second time with just the voice and images.
I initially uploaded the project to YouTube, but as I read their copyright policies, I was not sure where my project stood. (Now, having read the Grabe chapter on this, I think I made the right decision. My presentation is OK for use in the classroom, but should not be posted in a public forum because I imported some video clips from external sources.) I then uploaded it again, this time to ImageShack, (I found that the image shack uploading process was actually much more efficient than YouTube's.) and I was done.
I then went back to the advice from Dr. Z to see if I could figure out why the movie maker file would not save. I am left with three possibilities:
- The computer I am working on does not have enough memory to save a file of this size. This is a possibility, because I was getting some memory-related errors as I worked, though not when I was trying to save.
- It is possible that one of the clips I used was DRM-protected (Digital Rights Management; a system of preventing works from being copied or used without permission). I don't know enough about how that works to know whether that might be the case or not.
- Movie Maker makes a temporary file as it prepares to save a document. I suspect that the default location of this temporary file may be in the My Documents folder. My school computer is configured so that the My Documents folder is located on the school network--I can access it remotely, but not with the same address--so Movie Maker was unable to start the saving process. My main reason for suspecting this is that the saving process did not even begin--I got the error message right away.
I am planning on trying to re-save this document again when I get back to school to see if I can get to the bottom of this issue.
So, other than gaining a lot of technical expertise, what did I learn from this process? First, I learned that technical issues can be a lot more complex than we initially expect them to be. I think this will be an invaluable lesson for me as I give my students their own technical assignments. Each computer is configured differently, and the way things work in one place is not necessarily the way a program will work on a different computer. More than ever, I can appreciate the need to work with students to help them with their technical issues. Second, I learned how important it is to have the teacher's support when dealing with these difficulties. As I got increasingly frustrated, it was a relief to know that Dr. Z was standing behind me offering support and advice. Without that, I surely would have given up along the way.
So, in addition to what I learned from the project itself, having all these difficulties was a chance for me to learn other important lessons as well!
For anyone who has read through all this and wants to see the final product, I will link it here for a limited time only: Digital Poetry: "The Spring and the Fall," by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
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