Tiny Brother- A short video installation made with code

Mice live in the walls of every building in NYC.  I'm pretty sure I can hear one scratching at the interior of the wall behind me as I type this.  These rodents infest all our lives and with that observe what we do and get to know our patterns (when we are active, when we sleep). It's almost like they are monitoring us ;)

I have a mouse problem and so with this assignment I figured I would express my frustration in a short video.  We were assigned to hack a camera and control it with code and then edit the video with code.

I decided to take a surveillance camera and bring it into my home to play the POV of the mice in my apartment.  I hacked the camera using Python and used the face tracking code (tutorial here).

The camera is finding the face in the frame and then zooming in on the face. I grabbed some youtube videos of mice to cut in between and used python to edit the video.

I haven't yet be able to get a good grasp how to edit audio in python, but hoping it will become more clear in the next coming weeks.

Automated Video - Assignment 2 Brainstorm

We were tasked for our second assignment to control an IP camera or webcam attached to an arduino using python to create a video.

In class we learned how to track a face using opencv. Here is the lecture for reference:

For my project, I had two ideas:

1. Take a surveillance camera and program it to blur the faces of the individuals that it captures to keep the identity of that person safe.  We are constantly monitored everywhere, so I wanted to play with the idea of an anti - surveillance camera that blurs the faces of individuals that are not doing any wrong.  I used the code from class and this resource for blurring the face once detected.  Here is my tests:

Automated IP camera control using python

2. The second idea I came up with was to have the camera be from the POV of the mice that are found in NYC apartments.  Are they just annoying rodents or are they placed in the sewers of NYC to track our every movement? Are they animals? or surveillance covered in fur?  I wanted to make a video were the IP camera, in different NYC apartments acts at the POV of the mice.  Once a human walks in the room, the camera, detects the face and follows them in the space through face detection. In each scene, the human sees the mouse and freaks out and runs after the rodent.  I think it would be funny to cut the POV of the human and all you can see if the camera covered in fur with ears --- but clearly it's just a camera.

I have a bad mouse problem in my building and it's so frustrating.  Why not make light of the issue with a fun automated video narrative ;)

Automated Video - Assignment 1 - Everyday Feeling (when it comes to coding)

For our first Automated Video assignment, we were tasked with taking some videos from Youtube and using python to edit them into a short video. As someone who is very comfortable with editing in Premiere and Final Cut, this ended up being a little more painful than I would have hoped.

Because I never really feel like I have a good grasp or firm step on programming, I wanted to make a video that reflects with where the videos are in constant slippage.

Elsewhere In The Wood

Here is the post about this final Project

Elsewhere In The Wood Teaser

Showcase Documentation

Midterm - Presentation for Hedwig

Documentation of Building the Set:

Top Stage view

Front stage view

Midterm Presentation:

The general scene is one of disrepair. This production takes place while the Belasco is being renovated. Old, peeling show posters litter the set, as do leftover and forgotten props, often broken down into pieces of what they once were. Old show programs are used as kindling for makeshift fires. Squatters hang from the rafters and balcony of the theater. White sheets cover lumps of furniture. A broken down baby grand piano is on the stage, as are a stack of amps and some makeshift lights from Hedwig’s band.

As the theatre has been abandoned, sheets cover furniture and boxes. Some of these sheets are pulled up to form flat projection surfaces (billboards in Times SQ)

Sheets that douple function as drop clothes/dust covers and projection surfaces

A makeshift setting is shown in a sickly green hue. All the sheets are covering the stage elements.

We imagine squatters are sitting on the scaffolding and help raise the pallets to create a more intimate and focused area for the kitchen scene.

While no projections or video are used in this scene, we focused on the lighting.

We’ve decided that the necessary ‘lens’ that the story must travel through, and that ultimately makes the beginning of the play look so different from the end of the play, is the Wicked Little Town reprise. It is here that Hedwig ultimately realizes her own autonomy and is able to “let something go, by leaving something behind”

Abstract representations of Times Square, on panels or blocks. We used snow- weather to indicate both a change in place (times square, tommy outside the theatre) and an emotion that builds throughout the song.

Fragmented Face that evolves over the course of the song.

Fragments reference the tiffany stained glass of the theatre.

The effects displayed in our projections are interactive with the performer in terms of sound and frequency.

Walking away and leaving something behind has become redemptive, rather than punitive. Hedwig leaves behind her resentment, the ideas of who she thought she was supposed to be, and is now not only capable of building herself up, but ultimately of building up others.

• • Sheets come back down, a hole in the ceiling has been exposed, providing a focused spotlight on the interaction between Yitzah and Hedwig.
  • The weather that was in the previous scene is now focused through the hole bringing us back inside the theatre.

Here is the documentation of the song (Scene 2)

Wicked Little Town Reprise (Set Design for Hedwig and the Angry Inch) from Christina Elizabeth Hall on Vimeo.