Tag: heritage jam

Archaeology Hack-a-thon! The Heritage Jam, Cemeteries & Audioscapes

Heritage_Jam_upload
Alexis and Sam, hacking away!

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Sure, I knew the basic outlines of what a “Jam” should be in the tech/gaming world–everyone comes together to hack on a project together to see what kind of results you can get with very intense focus for a short amount of time–but how would that play out in the world of interpretation and heritage? I just knew that I was excited to finally have a chance to work on something with other visualizers, some of whom I’d known for years. We started out bright and early at 9:00, went through introductions, got an outline of a plan together, then went to York Cemetery to gather primary data…

(Read the rest of the post written by me and Stu Eve at the Day of Archaeology website)

Heritage Jam Video Series Complete

Over the weekend I finished up the series of short videos for the upcoming Heritage Jam and I’m fairly pleased with them. I have a much larger video project coming up for EUROTAST, featuring the incredible work of the research fellows, and so it was a good way to get back into the video-making groove again.

Each of the videos is a challenge to the participants of the Heritage Jam, as outlined by Dr. Julie Rugg.

Challenge One: Dynamism

Challenge Two: Visibility

Challenge Three: Class

In each video Dr. Rugg identifies some interesting challenges for visual interpretation in cemeteries. I enjoyed learning about cemeteries from her as I edited the videos.

I’m never quite 100% satisfied with the videos that I make either, as there’s always more that can be done. When I teach filmmaking to archaeology students, I tell them that you can pretty much spend an infinite amount of time editing a video, making it as perfect as possible…but I have other projects, so finding “good enough” is not wholly satisfying, but does get the video out there for other people to view. If anything, all of this just makes me appreciate the professionals that much more!

Even if you aren’t participating in the Heritage Jam, the videos may make you look at cemeteries in a different way–they certainly did for me!

(PS: Try to watch them in HD if you have the bandwidth!)

Heritage Jam: Dr. Julie Rugg

What do you think about when you see cemeteries? I had an illuminating session in York Cemetery with Dr. Julie Rugg, and she had some wonderful insights about how cemeteries change over time. Gareth Beale, Florence Laino, and I filmed Julie for the upcoming Heritage Jam, and I threw together a short preview.

It was interesting filming again, and getting up to speed with Final Cut Pro X. I primarily worked with FCP 7, and X had several surprises for me. I also noticed that archaeologists (and people in general) are not putting out quite as much media content under the Creative Commons license that allows me to reuse and remix resources. I really had to hunt around for that burial register image. I’m not sure if it is that people have stopped using Flickr for archives or that newer media makers are not as familiar with Creative Commons. Regardless, please consider licensing your media with Creative Commons so they can be reused for other outreach projects!

Finally, if you have not yet registered, please consider joining us for the upcoming Heritage Jam on July 11-12. Even if you do not consider yourself an artist or a maker, we are pairing people with complimentary strengths to work together to create new, interesting interpretations of heritage. Check it out:

http://www.heritagejam.org/

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