In January 2009, I posted my favorite iTouch/iPhone apps for use in the art classroom. Since then, I've found several new apps to be incredibly useful and engaging for the students in a number of different ways. Note: I have deliberately not included any iPhone apps that require use of the camera. Although some of these products look fantastic, I don't have an iPhone, and thus can't rate them. The apps listed below are free, or a few dollars at most.

One of the most useful tools I've found is Air Mouse Pro. This allows me to turn my iTouch into a remote control for my computer- complete with a trackpad and mini keyboard. Mostly, I use it for presentations; it frees me to walk around the class during class discussions and demonstrations. However, anything you can do on your computer, you can now do from anywhere in the class. This works much better and is a huge improvement over Remote Pad , which I had recommended last year.

The Oblique Strategies is a digital version of Brian Eno's card stack for overcoming creative blocks. Simple and universally applicable phrases help you think of ways to approach your projects in new ways. When I've been discussing ideas with my students, I've occasionally pulled out the Oblique Strategies to help them dig deeper into their ideas. Sometimes it falls flat, but sometimes it provides an eerily helpful perspective. An alternative to this is an app called Methodology which is basically the same thing (and might even be a rip-off of the Oblique Strategies, but the one advantage to it, is that it randomizes the card stack responses.

Yet another version of this is the Creative Whack Pack. This has a nice design and explanation of the suggestions it makes, but overall hasn't generated as interesting responses for my classes as the Oblique Strategies has. The suggestions are more general ways to think creatively.

Do you have any projects that include storytelling? The Idea Generator (mentioned here before) also has an itouch app, great for coming up with writing prompts. This has worked very well with my film and video classes. There is also a Movie Idea Generator, but I've found the suggestions here too convoluted to be developed into workable ideas.

Although Brushes is David Hockney's painting app of choice, I've found that Autodesk's Sketchbook to be a much more intuitive program and easier to manipulate. Similarly, Layers has an interface like Brushes, but has a great visualization for looking at layers as stacked glass slides. This is a fantastic way of helping students understand how layers work in programs like Photoshop, Flash, or Final Cut.

If you can't get enough of painting programs, Asian Painting is also a neat app. The interface is made to resemble an ancient calligraphy desk, and the brushes all fade appropriately.

If you are participating in our Paint the World with Light project, then Light Painting is a must have app. This app allows you to flash different colors at different speeds, or simply create a constant colored light brush.

Also for photographers, DOFMaster allows you to quickly check your depth of field range for an SLR or DSLR camera.

For film students, Grat's Slate is a great application that turns your iTouch into a movie clap board. Even though syncing sound and image might not be critical for us (since we mostly record both onto the same digital media now), this is a great way to organize your shots and easily identify your takes in post production. Plus, it makes your students film shoots seem more professional.

Although there are too many Museum Apps to mention now, its worth downloading these, especially if you're planning a visit. For example, the Brooklyn Museum's app allows you to find basic information about its collection. Who knows what goodies can be found in the apps for the museums in your neighborhood?


Finally, I feel compelled to not recommend Photoshop Mobile, because of my extreme disappointment. This application bears nothing that resembles Photoshop except in name.

As a film teacher (or probably more relevantly, a film geek), I watch just about as many films as I can. I often mean to include suggestions of films to watch in class here (including a constantly changing list of films about artists that every art class should have). Long story short- I was reading an interview with Danny Boyle when he came here to host the Shanghai International Film Festival last year. In response to a question about his favorite Chinese film, he mentioned Devils on the Doorstep as one of the best films to come out of China.

I'd never heard of it, but as the serendipity gods are always looking out for me, I happened to spot it at one of my favorite DVD stores just a day or two after I'd read the interview. Then it sat on my shelf for a few months. I just got around to watching it recently, and I have to say that its one of the best films I've ever seen.

Its also one of the most surprising films I've ever seen. The movie that you end with is so far from the movie that you started with, that its an incredible feat of creativity and vision that the director is able to pull of such a transition. The hard thing about recommending a film like this is that I can't say too much about it- what you will appreciate most about this film is the unexpected directions that it takes. That being said, understand that it is not for the faint hearted; taking place during the Japanese occupation of China, this film does quite graphically depict some of the horrors of war.

That being said, it is a fascinating film from a cinematic perspective, as well as a historical and contemporary socio-cultural perspective. Director Jiang Wen has been banned from making any more movies in China. Although he is married to a French woman and can work outside of China, he refuses. His stories, he says, take place in China, and that's where they are meant to be filmed and shown.

A Rant

The other day, I was catching up on some of my news podcasts which are always a day or two late for me (hey, how'd that election in Massachusetts turn out)?

One of my favorite podcasts is NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook, but my one big beef with his show is that in the interest of being 'fair and balanced' (now there's a loaded phrase), he often lets some pretty nutty folks say some pretty nutty things without too much challenge. I often wonder if they do this simply to prove that they don't have a liberal bias*.

The show I was listening to recently was one of those shows. In an episode titled "Where the Web Went Wrong", author Jaron Lanier was on the show promoting his book "You Art Not A Gadget**", the central thesis of this is that participatory communities online create a 'hive mind' in which we are sacrificing our creative energies in the service of companies to which we owe nothing.

In this discussion, he lambasts 'Web 2.0 proponents' as religious cultists who contribute their time and energy, not for their own personal gain, but in the interest of creating a god-like singularity of utopian participation. To me, this argument reeks of the conservative fear of the commons. I like to share my thoughts about art education with the greater community for my own personal interest, and all of a sudden I'm handing out flowers at airports and promoting a socialist agenda.

Well, I do live in China, after all. I can see how that could be confusing to some.

While some of the points that Lanier makes are just plain wrong and some just plain silly (and quite often both), some fall into the realm of the "wha...?" One of his most awkward points is that people feel free to "mash up" the creative efforts of others, but that the ads that regularly appear on the sides of the webpages that these mashups appear are somehow sacrosanct, and 'above' being modified for creative use. This idea is based on two false premises: (1) That ads are not mashed because we hold them with some sort of respect, and (b) there is anything useful in these ads to 'mash'. Sidebar ads aren't seen as 'holy', they aren't even seen as 'useful' for a creative endeavor. At most, I'd say they were seen as a minor inconvenience or annoyance. In fact, I'd argue that they aren't even seen at all. I don't have ads on this site and if you think back to the last site you were on, what were the ads for? Do you remember? I don't either.

Further, it shows a fundimental misunderstanding about the purpose of a mashup, which is to celebrate or satirize the derivative work in a way that creates something that we haven't seen before.

With a nod to the serendipity gods, I happened to find this wonderful Mashup of the movie UP over on the always fascinating Learning IT on the same day that I listened to this podcast.



I could just listen to that song all day.

If there is any doubt in your mind that mash-ups are somehow by definition 'less creative' than their derivative works, this video should dispel that notion. It also should dispel the notion that the creation of projects like this one are in service to some corporate monolith that feeds off of our creative juices. Pogo, the 21 year old creator of this mash up is now being wooed by corporations to make Mashup videos for them... the one above was commissioned by Pixar itself.

My friend Kate McCormick Torres recently organized this great student project, called Share Your City. Students from around the world submit images of their cities to her project, which she will then display on a Google Map, linking artwork and geographic location. This promises to be an exciting way to experience a global display of student work.

I had my IB students work on this project in the medium of their choice. In their workbooks, they described what they love and hate about Shanghai; what they think is amazing about the city, and what they think is bizarre. They thought about what medium would best express their ideas, and how to show the city from a perspective that was uniquely their own.

Busy preparing for the Paint the World with Light project? Maybe you saw that it was mentioned as the best new student art challenge of 2009 and want to get involved?

Check out this great 'behind the scenes' video from Freezelight:



Now that you know how its done, you'll still be amazed by their Magical Forrest:

Much apologies for the slow posting here recently... I guess everyone was right about the whole association between new babies and sleep deprevation. Who'd have guessed? I'll be posting more shortly, but in the mean time, here is an excellent list of readings in Photography.

Link via Photojojo

...and here's one more good article to take a look at: Seven Ways to Create Powerful Photos with Color. Nothing surprising, but a well organized explanation for students.

This is not your ordinary flip book:



Flip-Ball anyone?

Thanks to Claire O'Neill for the article on our light painting project, Paint The World With Light on the NPR blog.



An update to the project: We will be publishing a book of student work at the conclusion of the project, with all proceeds going to benefit the Jacaranda School in Malawi. Submission deadline for our project is March 1st, 2010.

For more information, please check out our website!

Now if we can only get a shout out on Car Talk!

Although the look on this kid's face alone speaks volumes for keeping the arts in schools, I'm just posting it because it made my morning. Enjoy:




Happy Friday!

Welcome back to Unintentional Film Sound week here at the Revolution. Our president of the film club presented a couple inspirational videos she wanted to share to get some creative juices flowing today. She pulled a bunch of short films from the show On the Lot, and in doing so, introduced us to a short which would be another great way to introduce a unit on foley:

Some of my favorite photographers (or for that matter, artists in general) are those who are able to tell a compelling story in a single picture. Every year we do a 'narrative photography' unit, and find inspiration from artists like Annie Liebovitz, Cindy Sherman, and Sandy Skoglund. To me, the stories that are only suggested in their photos ask more interesting questions than could be answered in a narrative that has a begining, middle, and end.

However, I always find inspiration unlike any other from Duane Michaels who uses sequence in a way that I haven't really found from any other photographers. This has always struck me as a little odd. Either I'm looking for love in all the wrong places, or not enough photographers are taking cues from Scott McCloud. Happily, I stumbled upon a sequential project at Digital Photography School, which is always a great resource, especially for finding project ideas in their forum. Take a look at how readers responded to their own sequenced photography assignment.

Speaking of movie music...

When I used to teach in New York, every year we'd take a trip to the American Museum of the Moving Image. AMMI is a great museum for learning about film, and being just around the corner from my apartment in Astoria, it was a great neighborhood place for a film geek like myself.

One of the interactive exhibits which I love there, allows you to replace the music in one scene with a soundtrack from another film. It really shows you how music can alter the tone of a scene either subtly or drastically.

Here's a great mashup of 2010 with music from Raising Arizona.



This would be in the 'drastic' category.

I especially like how the banjo's segue into "Ode to Joy" really creates some ironic tension at the end of the scene.

While I've been away on my paternity leave, I've been super lucky to have my classes covered by my friend and colleague Jeff Thompson. Jeff is a musician and has a great deal of knowledge about audio engineering. I am functionally tone deaf and don't know my treble from my bass.

So while I'm away, the students are getting lots of great information about how to get the best sound recordings, and they're also doing their unit on creating foley sounds.

As serendipity would have it, I just came across this excellent article about how Wes Anderson uses music in his films. It includes clips from his films, including this one from Rushmore, one of my favorites:



I'll have to watch that again to hold me over until I can get to see The Fantastic Mr. Fox!

Here's a great short. Terrific example of how to create an entire world and tell a story about it in just a few minutes:

One of my IB Film students who is working on her video portfolio for college found this great font called Steel Tongs. As you can see, it quickly creates production credits that you can use for generating professional looking movie posters or title sequences. If you haven't found this site yet, there are lots of great fonts to be found at dafont. Thanks Cailin!

Hey photography teachers, have we got the project for you!

Matt Cautheron, Mike Skocko, and myself have put together Paint the World With Light: an international light painting extravaganza.

The idea is simple: wherever you and your students are, use light painting to tell a story about where you live, or reveal something magical about where you live. We'll compile your images from as many communities from around the world as we receive.

Please welcome to the world my very own little revolutionary, Amaya Zoey.

As mentioned in the last post, our students recently returned from the farthest reaches of the Middle Kingdom, armed with nothing but their cameras and their wits about them*.

I just got one of the best photography tips ever from a student in class today.

Our students came back last week from our "China Alive" field trips. The 9th and 10th grades travel in groups to various locations around China. I gave my students a 'photography scavenger hunt' to do on their journeys. Today was our critique, and one of my students came back with this shot:


I asked him how he got the shot- he has his own DSLR camera, but didn't have a Macro lens, as far as I knew.