I use Gallery to post and organize photos and media on this site. Gallery can also display flash videos, but I was never happy with the flash player that is installed by default with the Gallery software.
Instead, I wanted to use the very popular JW Player and searched far and wide on the Internet for instructions on how to replace the default player. Despite the power of Google, it took some time, but I finally found a solution through Krunk4Ever!’s blog, for which I am immensely grateful.
However, with the latest releases of the Gallery software, those instructions no longer worked for me. Again, a long search ensued, but to no avail.
Though I am not a programmer, I know enough to break stuff often, and fix stuff sometimes. After a lot of breaking, I finally fixed it!
So here now I share with you the changes I made to my Gallery flash module in order to use JW Player to display flash videos. I should point out that these changes are in addition to the changes applied by Krunk4Ever!
All of the changes outlined here were made in the FlashVideoRenderer.class file found in modules/flashvideo/classes within the Gallery folder.
In October I visited Grand Rapids for a weekend during which I met a handful of the fantastic folks from Super Happy Funtime Burlesque. I haven’t been able to catch their show in person yet, but from what I’ve seen in vidoes and heard on the street, their show is not one to miss. The weekend I was in town happened to also be the closing weekend of Art Prize, an open art contest.
GiGi Animalicious & Mr. Happy Pants
The first night in town I met up with Mr. Happy Pants, GiGi Animalicious and Velveeta the Cheetah for some tasty eats and then headed to Original Cin’s place for a shoot with her and her son Mike. She also introduced me to her pet snakes and her hilarious chinchilla. If you’ve never seen a chinchilla bathe itself in volcanic ash, then you are really missing out.
The second day was a full one as I worked with GiGi Animaliscious, Vivacious Miss Audacious (who was suffering from a sinus infection and had to put up with me for a little while – oh, and we had to kick out her boyfriend’s band so we could finish the video interview. Sorry guys!), the lovely Rita Ambrosia Schuvitinitcsz & Velvet Dan, and producers/performers Mr. Happy Pants & La La Vulvaria. The latter shoot was momentarily interrupted by a homeless knocking on the window shouting, “Don’t be makin’ it sexual!” Don’t worry, Mr. Homeless Man, it was all on the up and up.
Balloon Monster
In amongst that busy day I had the opportunity to consume some delicious Spanish tapas and peruse some of the art work around town with GiGi Animaliscious as my tour guide. As with all art there was some good and some…well…different. I especially liked the giant jellyfish made of hundreds of balloons as well as the portraits screen printed on salt.
Sunday, my last day in Grand Rapids, started with a lazy morning during which Original Cin’s fiance whipped up a yummy egg & bagel sandwich, a tasty surprise. That afternoon I had the pleasure of working with Velveeta the Cheetah in her beautiful and bright loft space. She happened to be holding a rummage sale in her space at the same time, but we managed to get our work done before the crowds swarmed in.
The return drive was a beautiful sunny day, quite the opposite of the rainy weather that accompanied me on the trip to Grand Rapids. Michigan is known for its beautiful fall foliage and I got to experience a bit of that view on the ride home.
In 2008 I had the opportunity to photograph artist Verna Sadock’s court room sketches of the Chicago 8 trial of 1969 for use in a film. The film is a documentary about the life of radical civil rights attorney William Kunstler by his daughters Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler.
WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE is coming to the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago January 22-28. Join me and the filmmakers in a showing of this film on Saturday, January 23 at 7:45pm, or check it out on a night that fits your schedule. Just don’t miss it!
In WILLIAM KUNSTLER: DISTURBING THE UNIVERSE, filmmakers Emily Kunstler and Sarah Kunstler explore the life of their father, the late radical civil rights lawyer. In the 1960s and 70s, Kunstler fought for civil rights with Martin Luther King Jr. and represented the famed “Chicago 8” activists who protested the Vietnam War. When the inmates took over Attica prison, or when the American Indian Movement stood up to the federal government at Wounded Knee, they asked Kunstler to be their lawyer.
To his daughters, it seemed that he was at the center of everything important that had ever happened. But when they were growing up, Kunstler represented some of the most reviled members of society, including rapists and assassins. This powerful film not only recounts the historic causes that Kunstler fought for; it also reveals a man that even his own daughters did not always understand, a man who risked public outrage and the safety of his family so that justice could serve all.
For my birthday this year I received tickets to Banana Shpeel. I saw it last night at the Chicago Theater in downtown Chicago, making this the fifth Cirque du Soleil show I have seen. My list thus far includes:
Cirque is billing Banana Shpeel as “A theatrical mix of comedy and dance” and “A new twist on vaudeville.” It is most definitely not like the rest of the Cirque shows I have seen.
Things I liked:
Cirque du Soleil shows always exceed my expectations and imagination when it comes to production quality. The stage, the costumes, the lights, the music – all top notch. It reminds me of my time as a stage manager, ensuring that the inner workings of concerts flowed as smoothly as possible, hiding the chaos of backstage from the audience, and only showing them the final, polished product. I’d love to peek behind the scenes at one of these shows.
The solo acts were fantastic and inspiring. They were what I’ve come to expect from Cirque (talented, mind-blowing and high quality) and although I’ve seen some of them before either on stage or on TV, they are still thrilling to watch again. The acts included a hat juggler, a foot juggler (she juggled umbrellas, not feet), a tap-dancing duo and one of the most buff and graceful pole-dancing/balancing contortionists I’ve ever seen.
There were a number of group dances throughout the evening, the most fun of which was the black light number. I couldn’t help but think, though, how any of these dancers could just as well be backing up Britney Spears. So was it Cirque-tacular? Not really. Fun to watch? Definitely.
Things I did not like:
The “Shpeel” was apparently the vaudeville aspect of the show and I feel it missed the mark a little bit. The bits seemed to drag on too long at times, and there wasn’t really a compelling story line to tie the whole show together. I also expect more character development from the comedy relief, and each time I thought there would be a new revelation or climax to one of the characters it would turn out to be more of the same. I would break the show down as 60% Shpeel, 20% solo acts, and 20% group dances. I would have preferred more from the latter two categories.
The parrots behind me. There was a woman and her boy/friend that repeated nearly every punch line that was said on stage. It was quite a distracting and unnecessary quirk for someone to exhibit in a theater audience.
I do recommend seeing Banana Shpeel, but with the warning that you will not receive the full Cirque du Soleil show experience by doing so. It seems like Cirque might be feeling the effects of the relaxed economy and decided to produce a light-budget show that will still sell well simply because of the reputation behind the brand. Even then, the theater was not sold out, but nicely populated nonetheless.
Last week I created a giant cupcake to be used as a prop by Natasha Minsk. Inside said cupcake there is a place to store a real live cupcake that is revealed during the performance.
[Tech Details: The cupcake creation portion of this video was captured by a Canon G2 camera tethered to a PC with interval timer shooting, the rotating cupcake was captured by a Canon 5D Mark II with a 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens, the music was written, programmed and recorded by me, and the whole thing was assembled in Adobe Premiere Pro CS4. And though you're seeing this presentation as a Flash video, the final output is HD 1080.]
Ever since I mostly eliminated caffeine from my diet in December I only get headaches when a major storm front passes through. And that would be tonight. My head feels like a Mac truck is running into it, over and over and over.
I spent the weekend in New Hampshire to see my mother-in-law walk across a stage to be “hooded” with her PhD. 3 days, 2 flights, 320 miles driven. Considering all of the travel involved, everything went quite smoothly.
So I’m back, and once this headache works its way out of my system, I’ll be back to work and full steam ahead on my projects.
