B R A I N S T O R M I N G

In the Communists for Obama thread I posted this pesky YouTube video with the American anthem sung to the tune of the Soviet anthem over a slide show of patriotic images.

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And here's a clip from a Soviet war movie with musicians playing a patriotic war song .

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My idea is to extract the anthem soundtrack and put it over the Soviet war video, at some point inserting images of Dukakis in a tank, John Kerry in Vietnam, Hillary in Bosnia (my parodies), Obama as a war her too (maybe not?), and ending with his Joseph Stalin, presenting him as Obama's uncle. Just a quick thought, could be developed further.

I see the first video as a humorous embodiment of all the "progressive" revisionist history and the ultimate result of "progressive" education - a schizophrenic vision of history that may appear in people's heads if there is no opposition to the revisionist absurdity.

So another direction we could take would be showing pictures of various "progressive" agitators and propagandists, from Howard Zinn to Michael Moore to George Clooney. Who else? Chomsky, Soros, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn...

Any suggestions / ideas?

Is there any way one could merge this brilliant concept with the USSR anthem being played at the start of that Obama rally?

Oh merciful Lenin! I saw the "brainstorming," and suddenly one perhaps hit me. Forgive me Comrade Cube if this has ever been suggested before.... but has anyone ever considered the beauty and elegance of this slogan with perhaps one of those "we want you" fingers.....

"The People's Cube.... We Put the "U" in Gulag!"

Very good, Pup!

Pup, Uncle Sam is a symbol for imperialist running dogs. Instead we should use The Progressive World of Next Tuesdays one and only supermodel, Commissarka Pinkie.

Excellent! But I think we still need the "Put" in the phrase.

How about this.... borrowing from you...

All good effort honoring Pinkie and sisters - but I decided to go for the classic manly look. I liked it so much, I even made a hi-rez image for the shirts and set up new products in the store with it.

<br>

how bout this?




any ideas on a better slogan or quote?

Not that I am one to toot my own beet, but I am proud to have now inspired 2 new product lines for the Party! Surely I must have earned a Medal of Industry by now Red Square? And where is my Purple Wallet medal for my bullet wound from the Chairman's errant shot?

Pupovich - all service to the collective must be rewarded within reasonable limits (as the leader sees fit), but we mustn't forget that all ideas already exist in the collective consciousness and each individual trope is but a fragment of collective thought that was fished out and let go according to the Party's intellectual catch-and-release policy.

Such policies will ensure that no individual achievement can overshadow the collective achievement (unless it's the leader's individual achievement, because leaders are above the truths and policies devised for unsophisticated rank and file toilers).

In view of the above, feel free to pick any two of the awards below, located in our clipart section. You can add them to your signature. Also, considering your growing skills in operating graphic machinery, you are given a license to create new awards that can be added to clipart awards section (you didn't expect to have a monopoly on the purple wallet award, now did you?)

Congratulations, Pupovich! You are the latest recipient of Pinkie's prestigious Beet of the Week Award!

In addition to the bumpersticker, "My Child is Beet of the Week at The People's Cube" for your mom, for the next week you also get your own parking space at Party headquarters (please note you are responsible for cleaning up all oil and grease stains left by your vehicle), and a coupon good for one free hour at your own Pleasure Palace (check the fine print on the back; there seem to be a lot of blackout dates).

Pinkie, the term "blackout dates" has an entirely different meaning in a PPP location; it refers to the patrons who wake up six hours later, naked in an alley with an utterly empty wallet.

Beet of the Week award now has been added to the "Awards" clipart section - where it rightly belongs. So that Pinkie can award us with it more easily.

This will surely raise the number of awards given to our comrades in the next 5-Year Plan by at least 19%.

Okay, back to the original topic of this thread, I might be able to do something like that, if I had a way of downloading those videos. Does anyone know any way to do it, short of using a video capture card and playing it onto a TV hooked up to a second computer?

Red Square wrote:In view of the above, feel free to pick any two of the awards below, located in our clipart section. You can add them to your signature. Also, considering your growing skills in operating graphic machinery, you are given a license to create new awards that can be added to clipart awards section (you didn't expect to have a monopoly on the purple wallet award, now did you?)

Dear Lenin! I am so honored! I never expected such recognition from the Party! I can't tell you how long I have desired this: But for a second....Oh, I had longed for the:

However, in consideration of recent events... I don't imagine this willbe in demand much longer. Of course I suppose it could make aninteresting novelty award.



So perhaps I will opt for [

But one thing Comrade Red Square....You also stated "You can add them to your signature." Hmmmm, was this a test? I know the firestorm that erupted the last time I asked about how to do this.

Just be happy with what you got....

Commissarka Pinkie wrote:Congratulations, Pupovich! You are the latest recipient of Pinkie's prestigious Beet of the Week Award!

*Sob* Oh, I am not worthy! Not worthy! First to get 2 People's medals, and now the Beet of the Week award! Thank you Commissarka! Thank you!

Premier Betty wrote:Okay, back to the original topic of this thread, I might be able to do something like that, if I had a way of downloading those videos. Does anyone know any way to do it, short of using a video capture card and playing it onto a TV hooked up to a second computer?

Your card is not the issue. You need a screen capture program - a tool that records everything that's happening on your screen, including your work, mouse movements, video games, sounds, and, of course, videos.

You can download a free trial version of Camtasia - it's a great program that allows you to do screen capture and further basic video editing with effects, transitions, captions, and soundtracks.

Alternatively you can get a downloader program that allow you to download YouTube Flash videos, and then there are programs to convert those Flash files to whatever format you're comfortable with. Then you'll need a video editing program anyway. It's more complicated.

Camtasia is simpler, but the free trial lasts only 30 days. If you're not finished with the video by then, you'll have to buy the program for about $200-$300.

But if the masses so desire and it may be of use to us in the future, I may just buy it with the Cube funds and we'll share.

Would Camtasia let me rip a clip out of a DVD and insert it into a powerpoint? We've just gotten all of our classrooms wired and I want to start using the equipment to its full potential. I've been using powerpoint before, but only one classroom was wired and I only got to teach in it one semester every two years, so I haven't put as much effort into PP as I probably should have.

In a similar vein, a lot of the film clips I have are on VHS (yes, I am a technological neanderthal). Is there any kind of set up that will let me convert those films to digital?

I haven't tried it with DVDs, but I assume it should work. Of course, the longer the clip and the larger the screen size, the larger the file.

Converting VHS to digital is not hard but it takes a lot of time and processing power. If you have a lot of tapes I'd rather find a video joint that'll do it for me for a couple of bucks.

But if you're talking about a few short clips, you can do it yourself with the video capture card that Betty mentioned above. I don't even know if any VHS camera has firewire, because that would be the easiest way to transfer. But I'm not an expert.

If you make those clips digital, I wonder if we can use some of them for our propaganda purposes. I've been wanting for a while to use the scenes of the 1917 storming of the Winter Palace as a training video. Might even be a training video for the Recreate '68 movement.

I just wish we could do news program like the Onion.... those are great.

Yeah, but that would take acting skills. I think we're more of the backroom worker type persons.

Okay, I definitely won't be able to afford the $200 dollar thingy but I think I might be able to do the whole download the videos... if it's straight forward. I already have several video editing programs (Microsoft Movie Maker, Nero 8, and Ulead VideoStudio) so that part I might be able to manage, but if the downloading thing is really complicated, I'll just the screen capture program.

Which one would the collective suggest?

Okay. Here's the skinny.

Get firefox (if you haven't already) and get the Magic's Video - Downloader plug-in. This will allow you to download the .flv (flash video) file from YouTube (and other video feed sites). Install the plug-in, restart firefox, then go to the YouTube page with the video you want, then click the little reddish arrow in the lower right corner to download the video.

In order to edit the file, you'll need to convert it to, say, an .avi file - or whatever your video editing software will take. In order to convert the .flv file to .avi (or whatever), use SUPER © (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer), it's free, and works really well. [You'll have to click through like three pages at the SUPER © website to download the program, my link keeps getting re-directed. All the way at the bottom of the third page, I think, is where you'll find the download.] You'll probably need to play around with it a little to get the hang of it, but it's a great little program.

After you install it and run it, it may scream at you that it needs more hard drive space, but I'm using it with less than it wants, and it works fine - as long as the video isn't too big.

That should get you started. Let me know if you have any questions.
<br>P.S.: I forgot; if you want to play the .flv file on your machine (to check to make sure that it downloaded OK), you will need an .flv player. A good free one that I recommend is the Riva FLV Player. Simple and functional.

Okay, just downloaded and installed Firefox....

Just downloaded and installed the video downloader....

Just downloaded both videos....

Just downloaded and installed SUPER....

Converting....

The American anthem sung to tune of the Soviet anthem worked, but the other one failed... Ima try to re-download it....

Nope... it keeps erroring.

Attempt = epic fail.

Tried to convert to different formats and still didn't work. I loose.

I got it to go to an .avi file. (1st try failed, but the second worked OK) It's a 9mb file - I suppose I could try to e-mail it. Although I think if you try fiddling with the settings it will work OK for you.

Use these settings:


You just need to try to equalize the format of the output as closely as possible to the .flv file. After you drag and drop the imput file to the program, double click on it to see it's properties. Then just set the output to as close as you can to those properties.

Nope, still error'd. I set everything the same, but it didn't work. Just e-mail it. I should be able to get it fine despite bad my internets.

OK, I sent it out to you. It took like five minutes to upload. I hope I didn't break the Interwebz. If you have trouble getting it, let me know and I'll come up with a different solution.

Thanks.

Okay, here's a rough version. I didn't add any of that other stuff in because the song isn't very long and... um... I might have accidentally forgotten to add them in.

However, I did get it done, which I guess is some kind of accomplishment.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/XwAKSEPgncw&h ... ram><embed src="" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Nice Job Premier!

Thanks, and I definitely need to thank you for all the help. All that confusing evil technology stuff would have just made my head asplode if you didn't give me the instructions.

OK, I am lost, What did you add to that video? I tried all the downloads suggested, but so far have found that the flv downloader for Foxfire while it seems to have workeed, only downloaded that video as a compressed file, The FLV viewer didn't work at all on my computer.

Uh, I'm not sure what to tell you. I just tried it again and the download of the video from YouTube worked fine on my end. Make sure to download from the YouTube site directly, and that the file extension is .flv and not like .zip or something. Double check and try to play it again.

About the flv player, what do you mean "didn't work at all," do you mean the program won't start, or that the video wouldn't play? If the program is screwy, try uninstalling it then re-installing, or if it's throwing errors let me know what they say and I'll try to get it working for you.

Let me know how you get on, I'm happy to help.

P.S.: You're welcome, Betty. I know full well how confusing all the goofy programs can be. The only reason I know how to do it is because I've effed it up so many times.

Actually, I did exactly as you suggested, The file extension did say flv when I downloaded it. But would not open on my computer. I have Vista, is that what you have? When I said the flv player didn't work at all, the program would not start at all, saging there was an error. I deleted the program and downloaded it again. Same response.

But what did Betty do to the video? I didn't notice anything different from the original.

Er... I finally did manage to get that file changed to an MP4 format.... much bigger file though.

Yeah, I've got Vista as well (sounds like we have some terrible disease). I don't know what to tell you, it should work. Maybe try running the program as an administrator (right click on the program's .exe and choose "run as administrator") - I've got the user account control turned off, so I don't know if that may be it or not. Make sure you are playing the file with the Riva VideoPlayer, not the Riva FLV Encoder. That may be the problem.

Betty's video blends the two videos together - sound from the American/Soviet anthem (the first video in Red's post at the top), and the video from the Soviet war movie (the second video in Red's post).

Keep me abreast of any changes...