This weekend marks the 2 year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. I’m a big believer in freedom and democracy, and so support Ukraine’s independence. I made 2 videos that tell Russia to leave Ukraine.
First, Video: Explode Head
Let me say first that when making something we must think of tools and output, rather than simply saying what medium we work in. I had a vision, and then needed to think how I would accomplish it. One key breakthrough has been the availability of ScreenPal, which lets us make videos of various programs running on our computer. I knew I could make an interactive web page and record it. Thus, I was free to use a tool I am very familiar with: jQuery and jQuery UI. Perhaps I could have accomplished my vision with AfterEffects, but I followed my train of thought based on my experience, which tilts towards webpages.
My vision? A map of Ukraine with a picture of Putin atop it. Pressing a button would initiate Putin’s head shaking and exploding and being gone from the map.
I quickly made a bare HTML page calling in jQuery and jQuery UI assets via CDN (so I wouldn’t have to download and manage the assets myself). Now empowered, I gathered the ingredients I would need by searching for images of Putin and Ukraine’s map. Luckily, there was a fine transparent image of Putin’s head which fit the bill.
Then I arranged the layout including the placement of the button on the map. In play is the jQuery UI effects. I used “bounce” and then set a callback function to explode the head, before removing it from the DOM. I thought of revealing a flag or some pro-freedom sentiment text but figured the animation was enough.
Finally, I recorded the screen of me pressing the button, initiating the animations. This gave me a .mp4 to share on Instagram.
Here is the HTML page.
Here is the video:
Second Video: Amplifier Announcement
I had an idea of video recording my small guitar amplifier. I think it’s a good visual, and I’ve been experimenting recently with showing the operation of simple machines (such as a toaster). But now I had a message I wanted to share, and thought the amp would be a good way of doing it. My vision was an amp being turned on, emitting an announcement, then me turning the volume up, and the announcement repeated but louder.
How I did it:
I recorded the amplifier and me interacting with it, on my phone. Then I sent it (via Dropbox) to my PC. On the PC I used Voice Recorder to make the message “Russia, get out of Ukraine” first at a conversational volume, and then a bit louder. I opened up a new Adobe Premiere project and brought in the video and audio. I dragged the amp footage into the timeline. Then I dragged the clip of the first announcement. Then I moved to the timeline where the volume is turned up and brought over the second audio clip. This time, I used the Gain effect to raise the gain / volume further.
I exported the media as .mp4 and was able to share on Instagram. The total work took me about 20 minutes, and has been a popular reel, garnering 220 views in 16 hours (popular for me, who has few followers and no buzz).
So.. let’s say it one more time:
RUSSIA, GET OUT OF UKRAINE!
Here’s the Instagram Reel.