Banner: 2005 Pride and Prejudice

Though it is not my favorite version of Pride and Prejudice, I recognize that there are many of my dear followers who like the 2005 movie of Pride and Prejudice. I had just yesterday gotten a request from Eva-Joy from Between the Covers to do a banner of Keira Knightley's Elizabeth Bennet. Here is what I came up with.

I think it turned out really well. The thing with making banners and using Photoshop is that if you play around with it enough, you run into new techniques that you can use. I think I've found a couple of new techniques with this banner.

So, what do you think of this new banner? Even if you don't like the 2005 movie, how do you think it turned out? Do you like the effects that I used (words behind Lizzy, light glowing effect, etc.)? Feel free to leave a comment!

 God Bless,
 

Vote for me!

Yet Another Period Drama Blog is holding a Period Drama Button Contest and the finalists have been selected! One of my buttons was selected:

You can vote for my button in one of the polls at Yet Another Period Drama Blog. I ask that you vote for me, but vote for the one that you like ;-).

 God Bless,
 

LolPeriodDramas

Years ago, my sister introduced me to Lolcats. I didn't understand it at first, but now I've grown an appreciation for it.

In case you have never heard of Lolcats, let me tell you what they are. Basically, they are pictures of cats with captions. Usually these captions have very horrible grammar that looks like internet lingo (or lolspeak). The captions purposely have misspellings and bad grammar (which could be one of the reasons that I didn't get it at first: I'm very grammar conscious).

People have done Lolcats pictures with non-cat pictures. It really could be anything: dogs, TV shows... maybe even Period Dramas?

I've been experimenting with making Lol captions with period dramas. Let me know what you all think.

Who knows, if these are a success, I may start up a blog about them... but that might not be for a while.


 God Bless,
 

Jane Austen Birthday Week (Between The Covers) Tag

Note: I meant to publish this during Between the Covers's Jane Austen Birthday Week but was unable to. Sorry for the delay.

Evajoy at Between the Covers has a Jane Austen tag for her Jane Austen Birthday Week! And here's another one of her lovely scrapbook pages!

What is your favorite Jane Austen novel?

Definitely Pride and Prejudice! It was the first Jane Austen book that I've read, and I greatly enjoyed it.

Who is your favorite character in that novel?  

In case you couldn't tell by my blog name, Elizabeth Bennet. In all the books that I have read, I've never related to a character as much as I related to Lizzy.

Who is your least favorite character?  

In Pride and Prejudice? Either Wickham or Lydia. Wickham was a scoundrel who lied about Mr. Darcy to make himself look better (not cool!); Lydia was just always annoying and oblivious.

How would you feel if Emma married Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax married Mr. Knightly? 

No! Frank brought out some of the worst qualities in Emma (making fun of Miss Bates, speculating about Jane Fairfax, etc.). And Mr. Knightley said himself that Jane was too reserved for him. No, Emma and Mr. Knightley are meant for each other! (Not too sure about Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax; I do feel sorry for Jane with all that she had to go through with Frank)

How recently have you read this novel?  

Pride and Prejudice? I've read it about four (?) years ago. I usually don't reread books that I've already have read, but maybe one day I will reread all of Jane Austen's books. But as of now, I have too many books that I want to read.

Would you change something about this novel?  

For Pride and Prejudice, absolutely nothing! It's perfect the way it is!

Last question – What’s your favorite movie version of this novel?

Definitely the 1995 miniseries. It is the closest to the book. I've seen the 1981 miniseries, a couple of scenes from the 1940 movie, and about half of the 2005 movie: the 1981 miniseries didn't get a lot of the characters right and came across as too dull; the 1940s movie had the wrong feel to it; the 2005 movie just isn't Pride and Prejudice -- too many parts were changed.

 God Bless,
 

Mrs. Bennet Animated

I don't know about the rest of you, but personally, I feel a little gloomy about going back to school after Thanksgiving Break. So, to bring a little bit of cheer back into your day, I present to you all:

Mrs. Bennet's famous wink!

Hopefully that gave you a good laugh and brightened your day!

 God Bless,
 

Tutorial: How to Make Animated Pictures (Version #2)

I got a request not to long ago from Net Movie Blogger from Its a Wonderful Movie to make a tutorial on how to make animations. I have found two ways of creating these animated images, one that requires software to be bought, the other with free software. The first way that I discovered how to make the animated images, in addition to buying the software, also required a little bit of skill to accomplish, and, if you are not familiar with Paint Shop Pro or Animation Shop, can be a little overwhelming and complicated. This version of the tutorial can be accomplished without spending money and it is easier to accomplish. So, on we go with the tutorial!

Introduction: When creating animations on the computer, think of it as using an artist's flip book: you use a number of sketches that when flipped through appear to be moving. All an animation is is a bunch of pictures that flash before you eyes to create the appearance of movement. This tutorial is also for PCs (or Windows computers).

Programs You May Need: An Image Handling Program (Paint, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc), AnimateGIF
In this example, I am going to show how to use the simplest and cheapest program: Paint. It comes free on all PCs and is very easy to use.
AnimateGIF is a free program that you can download from http://download.cnet.com . Download.com I have used for years. It is supposed to be virus and spyware free, and I never had any problems with it before. AnimateGIF is a fairly simple program which anyone could accomplish easily.

Part 1: Taking the Pictures
First, you will need to take the pictures that you will use for your animation.

Step 1: Find a video clip that you would like to put into a picture. For this example, I'm going to be using this video clip from Pride and Prejudice (1995) from 1:36 - 1:42


Step 2: From the very beginning of your video clip, leave the video on pause and take a screenshot. To take a screenshot on a PC, press Alt + Print Screen. Then, take your image into Paint and paste it into Paint (Edit > Paste). You will end up with something like this (click the picture for a bigger picture):

Step 3: Trim down the picture by going to Edit > Select All, moving the picture so that the upper left corner of the picture is at the upper left corner of the "canvas" of paint. Deselect the picture. Then, go to the bottom right corner of the "canvas" and drag it to the bottom right corner of the picture (if you're using a YouTube video like I am, you may want to trim out a small part of the bottom to get rid of the time bar). Then, save your image by going to File > Save As and save your image in either the GIF or JPEG format. I like to save my images in a folder and number them from 01 to however many pictures I take.

Step 4: Go back to your video. Double Click on the Play/Pause button to make the video advance forward to the next picture.


Step 5: Repeat Steps 1 - 4 until you reach the end of your video clip. BE CAREFUL that you keep your pictures in the same position so it doesn't look like the animation is shaking. You can use any of the Image Handling Programs. It may not be the quickest way in Paint, but it is the simplest and it works. For time's sake for this tutorial, I'm going to use screenshots that I have taken with Photoshop because it is fast, but you can get the same result with Paint.


Part 2: Putting Together the Animation
Step 6: Now that you have all your pictures together (and you may have a lot depending on how long your clip is: I have 27 pictures for a six second clip), open up AnimateGIF. It will be a small window that looks like this:

Step 7: Open up the folder with all your pictures in it. Make sure it is not maximized and place both windows near each other so you can clearly see both.

Step 8: Select each individual file and in the correct order drag the pictures into the AnimateGIF window and drop the images where it says "Drop image files here".

Step 9: Once you have all your images in AnimateGIF, press Animate. Select the spot that you would like to save the new animation to, click save, and let AnimateGIF do it's work.

Step 10: Once it's done, find your animation, view it to make sure it came out okay, and then go back to AnimateGIF and press Clear Frames.

Here is my finished product! You will have to click on the picture to see it move.

Some Small Notes
* If you find that your picture is too fast, you can increase the frame delay number to slow it down. If it is going too slow, decrease the frame delay number to make it go faster.
* I haven't tested this out with this program, but usually for similar programs, if you make a picture/animation of a higher quality, it will take up more space. Keep that in mind if you want to improve the quality of your animation.
* Blogger doesn't animate smaller versions of a larger picture. Keep that in mind when making animations so that they're the right size without having to resize them in Blogger.

Let me know if there is anything that I should clarify! Your comments for this tutorial will help with the clarity of the video, so if something is unclear, comment!


 God Bless,
 

Lizzy and Mr. Darcy Animated

 I tried my hand at animated pictures. I experimented with an animation program years ago, but hadn't used it much since until a couple of days. What do you think? I may try more animations, so be on the look-out for more!

God Bless,
 

Captions Anyone?

 I've seen a couple of blogs would have caption contests, so I thought I would give it a try here and see how it goes. Who knows: if it goes well, I may do this more often. I have two pictures here...

Picture #1

Picture #2

You can have a caption for one picture or both, but make sure you specify which picture you are captioning. And as always, keep it clean.


God Bless,
 

More Icons!

There are 15 more icons made! Enjoy!









 God Bless,
 

Jane Austen: The Music (Piano Sheet Music)

Last January, I started to learn how to play the piano. I still a beginner, but I'm on the lookout for new sheet music. Yesterday, this came in the mail...

Jane Austen: The Music! It features music from both Pride and Prejudice (1995) and Sense and Sensibility (1995).

I love how for Mr. Collins's theme, it says to play it "Pompously"! 

There were also pages talking about the plot of both Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. It kind of irritated me, though, that they were calling Edward "Edward Ferrar". IT'S FERRARS!

But alas! There wasn't a picture for Pride and Prejudice!

The music is a bit advanced for me, so it will be a while before I can play anything (I can only play part of treble cleft for a lot of the songs). But anyone who loved the music in Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and who can play the piano will really enjoy this book. Here are the songs in there (and a good list of songs it is!):

From Sense and Sensibility
Weep You No More, Sad Fountains
A Particular Sum
My Father's Favourite
Patience
All the Delights of the Season
Steam Engine
Willoughby
Excellent Notion
Combe Magna
There is Nothing Lost
The Dreame

and, from Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice (opening theme)
Elizabeth Observed
Canon Collins
The Gardiners
Rosings
Farewell to the Regiment
Pemberley
Thinking About Lizzy
Lydia's Wedding
Double Wedding 

View on Amazon!

 God Bless,