PPD 306 Visual Methods Martin H



REVISED: PPD 306 Visual Methods Martin H. Krieger krieger@usc.edu RGL 317. Office hours by appointment. Tel. 740 3957. Fall 2009. [ , , , and are relevant websites.

Reflection on where we are going: Over the last several years in this course we have focused on media: videos on PPD topics, building a website to display your skills, audio editing for podcasts and the like, 3D modeling of the built environment, and databases describing the city’s past. I still want to have you do all these, but now more directly in service of exploring the city and its residents, as well as urban problems and policies. What turns out to be most compelling is getting up close and personal, as they say. A good way to get experience is to cut out most of the technology and use a still camera (film, digital), where you try to be a photojournalist or documentarian. Or, where you try to produce short programs (1-5 minutes, at very most) in audio or video. In each case, the most important skills are editing and figuring out how to get up close and personal. I want the work to be compelling and fascinating.

This semester, we have a larger number of students in the class. I give each of you individual attention, with lots of feedback. You have to do the work on time, and you will learn from comments I make to classmates. Students who do best in this class are scrupulous, revise often, and spend lots of time on each of their projects. (Having made lots of videos, etc., or having internet skills, does not necessarily translate into strong work. It’s what you do with your skills, and the most important quality is curiosity and empathy.)

Previous videos from PPD 306 are at

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Through a series of exercises and projects, you’ll develop a range of technical skills for visual and cinematic representation of places and problems and people. (I have not ordered E. Tufte’s Envisioning Information, but it is an excellent guide for much of this. You can get it from ) What is required is class participation and attendance, handing in the work on time, and care and craftsmanship that enables you to develop the aesthetic judgment needed to make good work.

Unfortunately, some of the software you’ll need is free-downloadable but only for fixed periods. So we shall concentrate our efforts on GIS and on making a flythrough over short periods of time. On the other hand, your PC or Mac has appropriate software for editing videos and for making and posting a webpage.

There will be three sorts of projects:

Videos: You will make three videos. For each video, we’ll have at least one review point, so that you can make the cuts better. And you are welcome to improve them after you hand them in so that you have an improved video on your website (one that I will see at the end of the semester). The basic idea in making a video is to have enough footage (referring to film, originally), so that you can cut out most of it, rearrange it as appropriate (editing), perhaps improve the sound (this is not at all easy), and add titles and transitions. Your own standards here are very high, since you are used to watching professionally produced videos and movies on television and in cinemas and on your computer screen.

a. A one-minute video on the continuing economic downturn of the last two years.

b. A one to two minute video that is a public service announcement, concerned with a public policy or planning issue.

c. A longer video (we’ll discuss length later) that is either about a project (something you might show at a planning or Council meeting to convince people about your point of view, for or against), OR a more general video as you might see among the videos done in earlier semesters. Go to to see these.

Audio or podcast: Here, I want you to learn a bit about audio formats, and how to edit and improve audio. You might take an audio clip and remix it, or edit it, or just try to improve the sound. If you want to record, and do not have a microphone, use the microphone built into your laptop—it is quite minimal, but it is there. Some of you may want to work in Garage Band or other such. But, Audacity, is a downloadable free program that has all of what one needs:



or

You will want to work with a one to two minute clip.

A Place, Ground Truth, and Spatial Databases: Using the Sanborn fire insurance maps (they are electronic in the USC libraries, and you will need to work from a USC computer or Virtual Private Network on your computer),



choose a one-block long segment of a street. If you go to volume 1, it is just north of USC so that may be convenient.

Print out the relevant map/diagram of the uses of that street.

Then go to the block. Mark up the map with the current uses and structures. Photograph the block, both sides of the street. Also, go to Google maps, and using Street View you should be able to print out similar images to what you have just photographed on site.

(We’ll also explore other such databases, such as ZIMAS for Los Angeles.

)

Now, you’ll need these images to make a 3D computer model of the block using Maya, a very fancy computer animation program. Then, in Maya create a flythrough movie of the model of the block, and focus on your original place. There is a free download of Maya 2010 for 30 days, long enough to get your flythrough done. (Don’t do the download until we are ready to start the project.)



We may also do some experiments in Urban Tomography, using a system we have developed. Video-smartphones, Wi-Fi/3G enabled, GPS, etc. Go to:



to see what we are up to.

“Where’s Waldo?” in Paris

I will give you a ~1870 photograph of a Paris Street, by Charles Marville. (He worked under Baron Haussmann, a propos the reconstruction of Paris under Napoleon III’s direction.) Your job is to go to Google Street View and find the corresponding point of view for 2009 (actually, I believe they are 2008). This is not easy since Paris has changed somewhat in the last 140 years. But it has not changed that much. I will show you in class. What you’ll need to do is to print out the view, and also give me the link in an email.

A Website that you can use for professional purposes. Get webspace from USC. I will give you directions. Then, using Word, design a simple webpage that will incorporate your resume, your videos, your audio, your flythrough, and other materials—showing the world what you can do and are interested in. We’ll use hyperlinks, as needed. (If you want to use fancier programs such as Microsoft Publisher, iWeb, or Dreamweaver, that is fine, but I do not know the latter two, and they are not needed. )

You’ll need a program to upload your webpage to your website:

For PC: Filezilla

For Mac: Fetch

Start at and they will give you instructions and also lead you to the downloads provided by USC.

I also want to show you how to embed into your Word document: videos, audios, and hyperlinks. This is straightforward. Much of the material you will be linking to will be stored in your webspace and I will show you how to use Filezilla/Fetch to do this.

Geographic Information Systems are not at all user friendly, and have steep learning curves. I can get you an ARCInfo one-year trial version, but it would require a whole course to get you up to speed at all. However, you can learn to use Google Spreadsheet Mapper, a way of producing Google Maps that embeds videos or photographs or verbal material or other hyperlinkable stuff into a Google Map (your own Google Map). It’s a bit finicky, but you can learn. We won’t do anything elaborate, maybe a map of facilities of a particular sort (hospitals, coffee shops) in a region of the city. Start at:



For example, the LA Times produced a regularly updated Google Map, using Spreadsheet Mapper, of the Station Fire.

Photojournalism or Documentary Photography: Still photographs remain some of the most powerful ways of showing the world, whether it be about matters of policy or planning, or war and disaster. If you can get to the show at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Century City, you’ll see what I mean:

Or, at the website, click on “view exhibit print gallery” to see the 77 images in the exhibit. Your job is to go out in the world and bring back some photographs (perhaps 5, less than 10) that tell us about the world. You’ll shoot lots of pictures, I imagine. Select ruthlessly (two good ones are much better than adding in five or six mediocre ones). You can print them out on your printer, even though they won’t be too good.

IF THERE IS TIME I will talk about Photoshop and other image/pixel-based programs, Illustrator and other vector based programs (such as Flash).

MORE: Not in the course, but…For those with PC’s: GIS Maps: There is a free-downloadable (for 60 days) Microsoft Streets n Trips, to do some basic GIS.



Unfortunately, this is only available for PC/Windows. It won’t be part of the course, other than I may demonstrate how it works. But I think it is worth knowing about.

Game-Maker allows you to develop video games and is comparatively easy to learn (but it is not a sophisticated gaming engine). A good place to start. I believe only for PC



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In sum, you’ll do:

Three Videos

One Audio

One Flythrough, and the accompanying photographs and Sanborn Map

One Where’s Waldo in Paris

One Website on which you will display many of these projects

One Google Spreadsheet Map

One Photojournalism exercise/exhibit

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I will cover all the computer programs you’ll use. You’ll need a digital camera that also makes videos, and it could even be your cell phone. Your video editing software must be compatible with your video files. (Mac has iMovie, PC has Moviemaker) The course is demanding, but if you follow through (and you must!), you’ll have a kit of tools and aesthetic judgments that will enable you to practice in the media-saturated age.

Schedule: Given my past experience, we should be able to fit all of this into the semester. But that experience has been with much smaller classes, so I will adjust the schedule and requirements if need be.

Grade guidance: In general, A is for excellent work, B good, C fair. I do not have a rubric for grading, but I try to be fair and will be glad to discuss your grade with you. I work hard with students so that they do good work. Excellent work is a matter of your perseverance, your carefulness, and your talent.

The usual boilerplate about academic integrity, and special accommodations also follows.

At the end of the semester, you must post on your webpage: your three videos, your flythrough, your audio, your Spreadsheet Map link, a resume, and your photojournalism work. You may also want to put up enough materials (from other courses or internships) so that your webpage becomes an advertisement for yourself. As for weighting of your work in grades, it seems best to give each exercise equal weight. You must have the materials on time as we go through the semester, you must show me the intermediate work so that it can get better. If you must miss class, let me know.

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