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Introduction
This article documents a project done using Stills2DV, a Linux/GNU based video application designed to turn still images into a moving image file. Here, Ben Green of Bristol Wireless talks us though a project he has completed using this software application.
Making a Film without a Video Camera
 Coming up to Bristol Wireless first demo day, I was compressing videos for streaming. I had been hoping for around 2 hours of diverse footage, but didn't have it. Two major contributors were cutting it a bit fine with getting me the films they wanted me to show. Well, needs must, I had to make a film myself. But with no video camera and no video footage to work with. Go on, guess....
Stills2DV This is a short program that takes some pictures and makes them into a movie. The pictures can be anything, scans, digital camera pics, stuff of the Internet, whatever. You can zoom in, pan about and zoom out. And that is about it.
Using Stills2DV
It is pretty hands on, no GUI (graphical user interface) to help you out. Only the instructions on the stills2dv homepage, http://www.deniscarl.com/stills2dv/ - It is a C file that you compile. You could compile it on any system, and being a very simple program, it would do pretty much the same thing. However, the program makes use of other existing programs, which you would also need to get working on any other computer operating system it was compiled on; Windows or whatever. (Note: There are things about a Linux environment which makes using software such as this really easy; easy if you are comfortable with a UNIX command line as techy people are, as such it makes life easy for them/us. That is why there is so much great techy and non-techy software for Linux.)  Once compiled, you put some pictures in a folder. You write a text file (aka workfile) describing your proposed video. The workfiles are pretty self explanatory, so the documentation is a set of files: see sourceforge.net for more information on this, which has the source and a set of example workfiles.
Then you run it. You don't get a video, oh no, you get a script to run. You run the script and get a folder full of images, numbered as frames in your video, and then, finally, you combine them with a sounds of your choice into a DV video file. The instructions on Denis' website are simple enough, but its the kind of trip where if you're gonna get lost, there ain't no map.
A sample of a workfile. Not an easy to acquire one anyway. I ended up writing my own script to automate the process.
So, I made a films using pictures of Bristol Wireless projects, flats around Easton, bees messing about inside poppies and grass and stuff (I'll try to explain why this was appropriate in a bit). I constructed a file of instructions for were the film was to zoom and pan across my images, having had a quick scan of the demonstration files provided. It is a simple enough set of instructions one uses to move the pictures about. Basically you set point where the point in the image as an x,y thing, and set the zoom level, then set it to move to another point and take a certain amount of time. Have a look at the demo files and videos on the website.
Fitting the Film into a Context
So, bees, poppies, relevant? When bees collect nectar from a poppy they run dizzily around the base of the seed head. It looks great, I snapped them at in my garden. Our wireless network is about communication, and we are going to put an antenna on a block of flats (hence pictures of and from flats in the video). You can see the flat from my garden. So, I am trying to say that, Bristol wireless was about taking the cool things we see and do, quite literally from our own back gardens, and sharing them across the ether with whole of Bristol. There will be more things we want to share than entertaining bee behavior of course, but there was a certain mood to the soundtrack that demanded flowers. I should mention the soundtrack. I choose, Cantelopps by Khonnor. The label who distribute this, 'please do something' do free MP3 downloads from many artists This is such a great idea, there are a good few labels who do the same. However, the specific license they use is: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0/, attribution, no derivatives, noncommercial. Which is a pain, because my films counts as a derivative, and so isn't permitted attached without the authors permission. I could distribute them separately, as film and suggested accompaniment, as they are not really cinch, but it's no quite the same. Anyhow, I shall try to get the guys permission, but in the mean time, I am going to make a new stills2dv film, I will use higher resolution pictures and I may write my own music this time.
Further Information
Bristol Wireless
http://www.bristolwireless.net/
Beginners Guide to Linux/GNU
http://www.linux.ie/newusers/
Stills2DV Info Page
http://www.deniscarl.com/stills2dv/
Stills2DV Source Files Page
sourceforge.net |
