Apple and Modest Mouse Video Contest

Apple and Modest Mouse have created a contest open to students to create a music video for the single “Missed the Boat.” Provided on the site are 13 videos of various angles of the band playing the song shot in front of a green screen. The footage is great if for nothing else than archiving it to look at on a rainy day but will cost you 9.4 GB of disc space. Contest ends May 22, 2007.

Link.

Photo booth: the result

The party is over, the cheering gone but everyone is going to remember this one. The photo booth turned out to be a smashing success at the birthday party where I unveiled it.

We discretely set it up shortly after dinner in a quiet corner of the house where the party was. Last minute preparations and it was officially open for photos. We seeded a couple of people with the knowledge of what and where it was. The rest evolved on it's on over the course of the night, landing us with a total of 248 VGA-resolution monochrome images in about 3.5 hours.

The sound of people in the booth laughing & shrieking and the sound that the software Photo Booth made filtered through the house. Away from the action, I discretely left my laptop on, open and with a custom Quartz Composer composition that would poll the photo booth machine few it's pictures, displaying the most recent 16 images. This too drew a crowd of on lookers waiting for the next image to appear. One guest said it best, “The sound of the photo booth counting down causes a Pavlovian response to see what the next picture will bring!”

Equally amazing to me was the use of the curtain to enter/exit the booth. I figured that no one would close the curtain once they were inside but the curtain was slung closed by every person that entered. You really get a sense of being private (even though just down the hall everyone would see your picture in about five seconds).

The making of a photo booth, part 4

For the structure of the photo booth, I need something that is light weight, easy to carry, comes apart easily, is sturdy and packs very flat. The obvious choice for this is always the adult version of the erector set– PVC pipe.

Thanks to P. for suggesting PVC for this project and for also introducing me to it a long time ago as building materials for use in photography (hold lights, backdrops, etc).

We chose to go with 1″ schedule 40 pipe for this project because of the weight of the fabric and to improve overall stability. The size of the booth will be 6' tall, 2.5' wide and 4' long. We tested the size and it “feels” boothy.

The fabric will drape down 4' from the top but will not cover completely. All photo booths leave the bottom open so you can see if the booth is occupied.

Inside the booth we plan to use a simple chair or a stool for seating.

For lighting, we plan to use simple clip lamps attached to a dimmer so we can control intensity and get good exposures. The iSight doesn't reveal exposure settings, opting to do it automatically.

The making of a photo booth, part 3

To control the photo booth (i.e. the “shutter” button) I decided to use the I-Pac VE. It's original intent was to use for another arcade cocktail table. It's a small breadboard with two rows of screw terminals that sends a keystroke when the pins are grounded. It's powered via USB and sends the events as “keyboard” strokes. I've wired a switch to the player 1 start button (sends a “1” key).

In order to make the application Photo Booth take a picture, I've had to modify the shortcut key of the “Take Photo” menu item. This is accomplished by using the developer tools (Interface Builder) to modify the .NIB file. Now whenever I press “1” on the keyboard or close the switch on the I-Pac, Photo Booth takes a picture.

Link

The making of a photo booth, part 2

We bought some fabric that will become the curtain of the photo booth. Hancock Fabrics are going out of business so I got 10 yards of a black fabric that hangs really well– on sale at $6.29/yd.

Also, we picked up plastic grommets to use when hanging the fabric on a rod so it can slide open and closed. They are two parts and snap together sandwiching the fabric. An X-acto blade cuts the center fabric out well.

The making of a photo booth, part 1

Having a photo booth at your party has been vogue for a few years now. Celebrities often rented a booth for a shindig and rigged it for free pictures for their friends. Books have been published from the pictures; Andy Warhol used it to make his art. It's a trendy icon that never goes out of style.

I'm looking to create something of a photo booth but with an updated feature set. Apple unleashed an extremely useful tool called Photo Booth when they began including the built-in iSight with their iMac, MacBook and MacBook Pro.

With a little imagination, bits of hardware and some Applescript to hold it all together, I think I can make a memorable piece of installation art that will be a big hit.

I'm going to try and document the building of it but as everyone who knows me, I tend to forget about taking pictures of the progress of my work– I'm so focused on the end result.

Stay tuned.

Top 10 most influential Amiga games

Wired Gaming has a slideshow of some really inventive and original games that really shined because of the unique features of the Commodore Amiga. I'm a long time Amiga fan, dating back to my first Amiga 500, and I've played most of these games for hours when I was younger ( especially “Beast” and later “Shadow of the Beast” ).

Link.