Living in Utropia

RIP Filmkamp... Helllooo Premiere Pro

Sat, 01 Sep 2012 21:57:23 +0200

The keyword for the moment is “NEW”. New semester, (some) new editors, and most important… new computers with NEW SOFTWARE.

And not just any software mind you. We got the Adobe Master Collection CS6! That’s right, fawn over us here at Utropia; I can hear you salivating. And while the list of programs is near endless, it doesn’t put me off. I plan to make use of everything there. And I’ve started already with Adobe Premiere Pro. It is certainly a step up from the iMovies that I was using before. Though lots of frustration trying to understand how it all works. But that didn’t stop me from editing our VERY FIRST VIDEO INTERVIEW for utropia.no. Check it out on our homepage or here on youtube:

http://youtu.be/isDFf3tNHMg

But with all this goodness coming our way at Utropia, there has also been sadness- namely, Filmkamp. Started at the beginning of the Spring ‘12 semester, we made 5 glorious episodes with appalling sound before summer. They were time-consuming, but fun; they denied me a social life, but only because the process was so engrossing and rewarding. I will miss you Filmkamp, now more than ever as we finally have decent sound equipment.

Tumbling from Sally

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 13:41:20 +0200

This week has been super exciting as we now have so many new volunteers on
board and they seem so full of energy, ideas, enthusiasm and possibilities
:) I can’t believe that we now have not just one illustrator but several.
And that this photo editor can be pleased to have so many photographers
attending the volunteer meetings. Wauw! I have this really good feeling in
my tummy for how this semester is gonna roll! And our first issue after the
summer holidays certainly prove that we’re doing great already! Awesome!

Hvordan ansvarlig redaktør tilbrakte påske.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:03:34 +0200

Det var en lettelse å bli ferdig med utgave 6 før påske! Jeg hadde gledet meg til påskeferie, og trengte virkelig en pause. Jeg er dessuten veldig fornøyd med siste utgave som kommer til å stå i 2 uker til nå etter påske og bare innby til gode leseropplevelser, hehe.

Den første helga i ferien brukte jeg i all hovedsak på sofaen. Foran TV-en. Med mat, film, godteri og dyne. Alene. I mørke. I min egen stue. Digg. Høydepunktet kom likevel siste i påsken, på påskemorgen da jeg inviterte til påskefest hos meg og 10 personer dukket opp til en fantastisk fest! Morgenen etterpå var vi igjen samlet til påskefrokost. Et fantastisk måltid med gule påskekyllinger som bordpynt og et helt bord dekket av deilig mat. Med Back på radioen, stiarinlys og venner på besøk var nok dette en av de fineste påskefrokostene jeg har vært på. Vel overstått påske, folkens!

A Week in the Name of Mingling and Debating

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:25:48 +0100

I’ve had an amazing week of interviews, statements and mingling. On Tuesday, I was actually the one being interviewed… A fellow student of UiT was being interviewed by NRK and wished for me to be a part of it too so that she and I could debate an important issue while the NRK-film crew would capture our conversation. It ended up being for almost 4 hours and at 5pm, still trying to make good use of my breakfast, I was pretty done for. Such an interesting and great day! And I’ll be looking forward to seeing if I did actually manage to say something clever when it is being aired in August/September.

Monday and Wednesday, I conducted 8 interviews with UiT students about stereotypes. This was another very interesting and fun experience - and indeed I got to hear some of the things respectively Northern and Southern Norwegians actually think about one another, haha.

Thursday and Friday, I was at the conference Digitale Nabokjerringer and those two days proved packed with interesting lectures and debates, and one of the most important things at conferences: Mingling! I met some very interesting people and had great conversations. It feels so good to do this again; I got acquainted with a fair few influent people within Indigenous Studies when I was studying in Western Australia, and it feels nerdy in a great way to do the same thing here in my own hemisphere :)

But after a week of socialising soooo much, no wonder it feels really nice to sit at home in solitude cos even a social being like me needs a bit of alone time, sometimes :)

Near, far, wherever you are...

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 09:24:03 +0100

This issues Film Kamp is on Titanic. It turned out to be a real treat for Josh, who got an insane (and easy to predict for Utropians) idea. He took our (mine & Kjetil’s) faces & put them on Titanic Leo & Kate’s most famous scene. It took him some time but the result is crazy! first we had to explore other offices in the corridor to find a lamp with yellow light (like a normal light bulb). Then, Sally took our pictures. Josh was holding the lamp & I had to fix my glassless eyes on him. First of all it was more of Josh-pudding, since I don’t see much without the glasses. Secondly, good that it was Josh, since he made me laugh, thus I actually managed to smile. Josh took some time photoshopping it, since the light on our faces was supposed to match the one on winslet’s and DiCaprio. I almost wanted him to add some crazy seagull :P

Just wait to see the results…

—- Barbara L.

Kulturredaktør

Rotoscoping: Welcome to the threshold of He**

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:50:00 +0100

Why hello.

It’s been a while. Allow me to fill you in on what’s been occupying my time as of late. With Filmkamp going online in the form of youtube videos, I’ve been squirreling myself away during the weekends editing these films. They may only be 10 minutes long, but they take two and a half days with little to no sleep to edit to the level that they are now. Especially so with this second episode which has involved some special effects.

As the Filmkamp was about star wars and avatar, lightsabers just had to feature somewhere. Of course, that meant special effects… in iMovies? C’est impossible! Fortunately, I did not take a French attitude towards this challenge and endeavored to find a way. And a way I did find. SaberFX is a program that works with iMovies to create all the greatness of Star Wars: sabers and lightening. And US$30 poorer, I was rotoscoping my way into a new realm of moviemaking. 16 hours later, I amended this view to merely rotoscoping into an early grave.

For those who have not had the pleasure- and I’m using the word quite wrongly- rotoscoping is a way of integrating SFX into your film. Basically, you overlay the graphics FRAME BY FRAME. Now I could not find a working copy of handbrake and therefore could not slow my frame rate any lower than 24fps. So for each second, I had to overlay the effects 24 times. So for a 30 second clip, that’s 720 frames… 720 times I had to draw in a lightsaber… Dear Mother of God, and that’s just ONE clip.

Now it was not THAT bad, I should admit. As long as the characters didn’t move, I could draw the visual effect and copy it over a number of frames. That saved time. And I may not need the saber for the WHOLE clip. But what was difficult was 1) having to draw the sabers turning on and then off; and 2) not having props.

Basically, the hardest part of the visual effects was not just having to go frame by frame and make the swords just a tiny bit bigger, but I also had to calculate ahead of time how many frames to do it for so that the final clip could be synced to the stock sound effects. That’s really key. Figure out how long the audio clip that you want to use is, so that you know how many frames you need the visual effects.

In this case, the clip with the lightsabers turning on and off is 2 sec. BUT, that’s the clip, I then had to analyze within that clip how long it took for the sound of just the sabers turning on was. In other words, the clip was 2 sec. But it only took 1 sec for the sabers to turn on. The other 1 sec was just sound of the sabers being on. Therefore, I knew that I needed to have my lightsaber grow for a period of 24 frames (in each second) and stop right after that. Then I needed to know how long the swords should be. Once I knew that I ruled up a piece of paper with the total length (in this case, 6inches) and ruled up 24 increments.

Why the piece of paper? Because of the second reason why it was difficult. NO PROPS. In order to keep the saber in the same place from frame to frame, I initially started with a piece of paper, but then moved to a bit of scrap plastic, which I taped to my computer screened. Then I would draw the effects using this line as my guide for both place and height. And it worked… mostly. Small inaccuracies, but at normal speed, not that noticeable. There is a small amount of the audio sadly out of sync. But again not too noticeable in the final video- but certainly leads on to the other big problem with this project:

AUDIO SYNCHING. My iMovies must listen to the Backstreet Boys, because it had a real hard time being… N’Sync. oh, *guffaw* indeed. Facepalm humor aside, this latest dalliance with iMovies saw multiple superimposing of audio tracks that not only had to be synched with the visuals, but with each other. And then, it was necessary to duck them with respect to what was going on on camera. (Ducking is a technical word that I have become acquainted with that means lowering the volume of an audio clip in relation to any and all other clips playing at the same time as it is.).

Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that it required lots of patience and incremental .01sec fine-tuning.

But it’s done now. I invite you all to have a look at it online at: www.utropia.no. You can’t miss it.

I have also attached a few photos that highlights some of the work involved, from filming through to post-production work. Enjoy.

—- Cameron T.

Nettredaktør

Photo

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:48:17 +0100

We're all afraid of something…

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:08:03 +0100

I had no idea what to blog about this week but then suddenly it just came to me like a bolt from the blue: Fear.

We’re all afraid of something. Spiders, trucks, avalanches, electronics. Actually, we’re dead scared. It may be of something tangible and everydaylike. It may also be of something unknown and often it is of the future. And don’t even get me started on people’s fear of relations!!

Some are afraid of committing. Some of getting hurt. Or hurting others because they may start expecting too much of us.

And I think everybody is afraid of what other people may think of us.

Now, what am I(!) afraid of? Well, sharks. Fires. Ending up in a wheelchair. And one of my big fears these years is that I may disappear into the pool of ‘the lost generation’ of freshly educated academics who will NEVER get into the job market as there are no jobs for us now, and when jobs become available in some years then the even more freshly educated will take them from us as we have ‘expired’ degrees and still no work experience to add to the resumé…

And I’m afraid of ending up alone.

One of my friends grabbed one of her fears by the throat 6 months ago. She was afraid of heights and started climbing at Kraft. Now, she has overcome her fear of heights. I’m not saying that we should all try to overcome every single fear that we may have. But at least we should ask ourselves this question:

We’re all afraid of something, but are you letting your fear(s) control your life?

—- Sally R.

Fotoredaktør

A weekend of opplæring

Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:15:02 +0100

This weekend has been chock-a-block. Back-to-back kurs: first journalism and then photography. And they were FANTASTIC. So much to learn, I really hope we can organize a follow-up.

We also had a great turn-out, and I just hope everyone enjoyed it. On Friday, we had the journalism course, which was really good for learning how to write like a journalist- always an important skill. And I’ll admit, the first time I did a street interview.

The Fotokurs was just as exciting. We learned so much, but you could definitely tell that there was still so much more to learn. So you can freeze the world with a flash, eh… Tell me more. :-).

—- Cameron T.

Nettredaktør

Journalism and Photography courses is a great way to spend the weekend.

Sun, 11 Mar 2012 18:13:27 +0100

This week we had a journalism and photography course. Friday and Saturday were very intensive.

I can’t wait to exercise the slow-sync photos! They’re cool and magazinish and there’s a lot to play with when you take them. As for composition I get it, but I’m usually too impatient to perfect it. Thus, I’m more on Tor’s side. Maybe it’s because I usually take concert pictures and struggle to capture the atmosphere of the gig rather than think of composition. I also underexpose pictures to get the colors of the light show and because until recent my camera had a maximum of 1600 ISO. I know that all the amateurs out there have better cameras, but on the other hand, how many of them managed to take a newpaper-acceptable pictures of Sivert Høyem. And I didn’t have to make them black and white to hide the noise!

I’ll probably perfect my portrait photography and composition now. I like challenges…

—- Barbara L.

Kulturredaktør

Oprydning og mutering

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:22:31 +0100

Denne uge har båret præg af oprydning. Først og fremmest fik vi ryddet godt op på kontoret, så sofahjørnet blev hyggeligere og mere indbydende, og så der kom et bord ind til mig. Nu behøver jeg ikke sidde på lånt tid ved en af de andres borde - og nu har jeg mit helt eget sted at rodde :) Desuden kan man måske sige, at der i denne uge kom eksempler på den løbende oprydning, der må være mellem folk. Alle folk har til tider konflikter eller irritationer mellem dem, og hvis du spørger mig, så er det laaaaaaangt mere praktisk for alle parter, hvis man med de samme rydder op og får sagt, hvad man føler. Laaaaangt hellere dette end, at man går og bærer nag eller er sure på hverandre i ugevis. Så, til de personer jeg har kranglet af (herligt norsk udtryk!) denne uge, vil jeg gerne sige undskyld for, hvis mine rap med støvekosten gjorde ondt, men jeg mener fortsat, det var for alles bedste.

Denne uge har jeg dog ikke været så meget på kontoret i det hele taget, for jeg har haft travlt med at forberede fotokurs. Det føles helt mærkeligt slet ikke at skrive nogen artikel til avisen denne omgang - i mine to tidligere aviser har jeg jo spyttet gennemsnitlig 4 artikler ud - men det var nu nok meget klogt at holde sig væk fra artikelskriveriet denne gang, for powerpointpræsentationen til fotokurset har alligevel taget en hel del af min tid denne uge.

Sidst, men ikke mindst havde jeg den mærkeligste oplevelse i går, da jeg skar en gulerod i stykker til en gryderet: Pludselig viste den ellers almindelige gulerod sig at have to kerner skjult i den ene ende! Den må altså have været en mutant eller måske nærmere en siamesisk gulerod! Haha, forunderlige verden!!

—- Sally R.

Fotoredaktør

Girls on film

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:38:55 +0100

Okay, so it’s actually one girl and one guy (Barbara and Kjetil respectively), not my fault that Duran Duran didn’t write a song that involved genders on celluloid.

It’s been almost a full working week since we started broadcasting Filmkamp across the web. Featuring now on both youtube and our website, it’s the start of a new avenue of media for Utropia. One which I hope will continue. The first shoot did a good job of injecting at least us three involved with a desire to do more, it’s now a question of making the practical side work.

A lot was learned from the first tape. It needs to be no more than 5-10min., the set design could do with an actual design and something needs to be done about the sound. Sadly, the latter case cannot be helped all that much due to the limitations of equipment.

(at this point in the blog entry, I would like to hold out my hat for any donations that’ll go towards buying more video equipment. :-) )

But we’ll try some tricks next time to see about getting around that problem nonetheless.

—Cameron T.

Nettredaktør

Et ord fra Hovedboss- Hva er Utropia og mener det å jobbe der som hovedansvarlig

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 22:29:15 +0100

Ja, det går litt opp og ned. Jeg prøver å lese Kjemi og Biologi på Frisvold Privatskole samtidig som jeg jobber med Utropia. Jeg lærer masse om hvordan jeg skal strukturer tiden min, jobbe sammen med andre mennesker - vi er mange forskjellige personligheter på kontoret! :D Noe som selvføøøøligelig er kjeeeeeempefint!

Utropia som avis er et veldig interessant prosjekt. Det er et konsept og en idé og de fleste studenter har en tanke eller idé om hva Utropia er. Alle vet at det finnes en studentavis, men ikke mange kommer egenhendig for å skrive. Det er kanskje flest mennesker som trenger et sted å være, en tilhørighet i tillegg til studier og venner. Jeg var sånn da jeg begynte. Jeg visste ikke hva jeg ville, og derfor begynte jeg som ansvarlig redaktør i Utropia. Det jeg oppdager nå er hvor lang tid det tar å komme inn i en jobb, en stilling, å komme sammen som gruppe, å få ting til å fungere, å få rutiner på plass slik at ting flyter naturlig uten at ekstra stress er nødvendig. Det tar omtrent et år før ting begynner å bli bra. Så Barbara spurte hvorfor det liksom skulle være slutt når det først er blitt bra… Ja, hvorfor? Ikke alle slutter til sommeren, men noen. Noen blir. Hvem som blir sjef vet jeg ikke. Hvordan gruppen endrer seg vet jeg ikke. Men det blir veldig interessant å se og følge med - litt fra sidelinjen. Utropia har utroolig mye potensiale og hvilken retning vi velger å bevege oss i, kommer an på de som utgjør gruppen og de ønsker og evner de har. Jeg skulle av og til ønske at vi var litt mer samkjørte på den redaksjonelle linjen, at avisen skulle hatt en klarere profil, eller at vi sammen kunne bli enige om hvordan vi vil at Utropia skal fremstå. Kanskje vi skulle ta et møte…. ? ;-)

A blog about a vlog.

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:12:12 +0100

This issue had to be the incest to work on. I had a lot in before the weekend and on Wednesday I could actually plan the next culture section. I’m proud of both the layout and the cover. We’ve already had some positive feedback.

On Friday, 02.03, a historical event has taken place. Cam, Kjetil and me have made the first Utropia podcast. I have to admit that my role has been a bit passive. It was Kjetil’s “baby” – he had an idea of doing some kind of cinema video-blog since last semester. I guess he’s found an advocate in Cam, that apparently is not a novice in this domain. My role was to give them green light. Believe me – it wasn’t easy, because I knew it meant that I would have to leave the cozy desk and allow myself to be exposed. however, it’d be stupid of me not to notice that vlogs are the future of journalism. Especially a student newspaper like Utropia should be on the cutting edge.

Have I mentioned already that I’ve never watched any vlogs? They bore me, at least the ones I’ve seen. I’ll have to explore a bit.

Video is a new medium to me. It’s fascinating to work with it and see how expressing your opinions verbally is different from writing them down. I have to admit that I was always more of a writer than a talker. Challenge taken!

Moreover, after a few “takes” I entered into the role of a speaker/announcer and started enjoying what I was doing. I also understood how much more comfortable I felt with a script. Point taken! My only fear now is, except seeing myself recorded, that I behaved like a TV-persona from 90’s, because I think that this is what I was channeling! Crap!

—- Barbara L.

Kulturredaktør.

Women's issue about women's issues.

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:04:01 +0100

Alex left us to a better place. She went to Oslo. It was for the first time she wasn´t in the office 24/7. For the first time in a veeeery long time, we managed to keep the deadlines for Jåshua. The new issue is good and funny. But I have shown it to a male, and he said “no, thanks”. I think we achieved what we wanted - it is about women and only for women, hmmmm….. JK. Ok, we drank some hjemmebrent slivovice with Alex, so we will end this now. God helg.

—- Magda B.

Nyhetsredaktør

En liten dikt fra Økonomiansvarlig

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:02:22 +0100

Uken har vært hektisk, redaksjonen har tilbragt to netter sammenhengende på kontoret. Utgaven ble åsåm, men distribueringen bør finpusses. Dugnad på kontoret coming up, det var på tide. Hva som skjer med økonomien vår blir konfidensielt, haha. Apropos behind the scenes, what’s up med filmingen?! :D

Jeg var i Oslo,

Fikk nostalgi
Sivende sinne

I travleste by

Solen de hadde

Var stjålet fra nord

I Karl Johans Gate

Kun snøens spor

Skyer av eksos

Blålys som stjerner

Tigerstad omfavner

I blodige armer

- Over og ut.

—- Alex T.

Annonse- og Økonomiansvarlig

Så vanskelig å skrive på norsk

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:49:00 +0100

Denne uge har stået lidt i socialiseringens tegn. Udover at det altid er hyggeligt at snakke med de andre Utropister på kontoret var jeg nemlig til to events med avisen.

Tirsdag var jeg med Barbara og Josh på Disha Iris Lundbergs udstilling på G (https://www.facebook.com/events/216975278399947/), hvor jeg blandt andre fik en fin snak med Tor Farstad, som skal lære denne fotoentusiast endnu flere tricks til Utropias fotokursus (finder sted lørdag d. 10. marts). Det er altid fascinerende at snakke med andre passionerede fotografer og lære endnu mere.

Torsdag skulle alle vi Utropister, ansatte såvel som frivillige, fejre, at vi er så forrygende - og ja, at vi har produceret ikke bare vore almindelige fænomenale avis, men derudover en valgavis for studentervalget. Så efter redaktionsmødet gik vi til lidt forfriskninger (læs: øl) i Grillen/Kroen/the-place-formerly-known-as-Grillen-but-now-burdened-with-a-totally-out-of-context-name-as-what-was-it-uhm-‘Babinga?’ og derefter til lækker pizza med MASSER af hvidløgsdressing på Yonas. Den hyggelige, festlige aften sluttede først, da Flyt og alt andet var lukket, og vi 5 mest udholdende vikinger havde skabt et dansegulv på Flyt og i øvrigt havde danset på begge sider af ruden samtidig :) Jo, Utropister forstår at ha det sjovt!

P.S. Mine evner til at skrive norsk er åbenbart elendige. Jeg fik fornorsket min store niqab-artikel af Tarjei, eller rettere: På bedste skolelærermanér fyldte han siden med så mange røde rettelser, at denne dansker følte, hun godt kunne droppe at komme op i 2. klasse… :-P Så denne blog forbliver på dansk… Og jeg bliver ved med at drille nordmændene med deres mærkelige troldesprog 0:-)

—Sally R.

Fotoredaktør

Photo

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:45:23 +0100

Utropia Spanderer alle!!!

And everyone is happy about that

Photo

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:42:00 +0100

Why so serious?

Utropia is made up of special bonds

Duck Face. Even done right, still Fail.

Photo

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 00:39:47 +0100

Pizza gone. Everyone is content

A fantastic evening, well earned by all