The Daily Render

A Digital Scrapbook for the Past, Present, and Future

OUROBOROS : A Sluggish Time-Lapse Short Video
|| 8/10/2008 || 11:14 pm || Comments Off on OUROBOROS : A Sluggish Time-Lapse Short Video || ||

OUROBOROS : A Sluggish Time-Lapse Short Video from Nikolas Schiller on Vimeo

The Ouroboros is a serpent or worm who eats its own tail. It has been used to represent many things over the ages, but it most generally symbolizes the ideas of cyclicality, unity, infinity, and for this short video, a Great Grey Slug.

Saturday night I was in Baltimore over at a friend’s house and we noticed some slugs crawling up the walls on her back porch. A couple hours later I found the slug on a metal spike and decided to bring it inside to make a time-lapse recording of the slug moving around. After watching the recording a few times, I noticed that it appeared that the slug was always moving in a circle.

Unlike previous short videos that I’ve made recently, I decided to add some music to give it some extra zest. I believe chose I Concerto in A minor, Op. 102 ‘Double Concerto’ – III. Vivace non Troppo performed by Isaac Stern, but I’m not 100% sure because the MP3 that I was given about a year ago did not have the proper citation.

Make sure to look closely at the hole in the side of the slug its a rather interesting breathing apparatus. Also, if you look even more closely, you’ll see my reflection in the pots & pans in the background.

Related Vimeo Entries:

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A Ziploc Bag of Leftovers Overlooked
|| 8/9/2008 || 6:48 pm || Comments Off on A Ziploc Bag of Leftovers Overlooked || ||

The video above shows Thursday night’s dinner in a gallon ZiplocÂ® bag with the text “You are here” left outside of the “Quart Bag” group art exhibit at the Civilian Art Projects. It was supposed to compliment my piece as locationally humorous street art. I only wish I would have taken more quality video to put this together, but I overlooked that technicality myself. Woops.

Check the photos from Friday night here, here, and here.

Jupiter traveling through the night sky of Washington, DC
|| 8/3/2008 || 7:53 pm || Comments Off on Jupiter traveling through the night sky of Washington, DC || ||

Jupiter traveling through the night sky of Washington, DC from Nikolas Schiller on Vimeo.

Due to light pollution it’s very hard to observe the planets and stars at night in Washington, DC. However, Jupiter has been visible on the southern horizon this entire summer.

The video clip was taken on my back deck using a tripod and Canon SD750 digital camera set to time-lapse mode. A photograph of Jupiter was taken every two seconds for over two hours.

If you look closely, you’ll see a tiny ball in the lower portion of the screen. It goes invisible for a few seconds, which I believe was from a distant cloud, but for most of the video clip you can see Jupiter slowly transit the night sky.

I’ll have to check Stellarium to see when Mars is visible again because I’d like to try recording that planet as well. Maybe someday I’ll have a camera with better zoom controls so the planet doesn’t look like a spec of dust on the screen!

Related Space Entries:

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24 Hours in Rocky Mountain National Park
|| 7/21/2008 || 4:49 pm || Comments Off on 24 Hours in Rocky Mountain National Park || ||

Click here to view the video on the Vimeo website

From 7/10/08 to 7/17/08 I was in Colorado visiting family & friends. On 7/13/08 I went to Boulder to visit my old summer camp buddy, Jourdan. I had originally planned to spend Monday (7/14) in Boulder, but that morning Jourdan suggested a different plan- a plan that involved driving up to Rocky Mountain National Park and checking the backcountry office to see if there were any available campsites. To our chagrin, there was a spot available at Fern Lake, which is located about 4.7 miles from the Bear Lake trailhead.

This video documents our journey into the park, hiking through the park, and driving out of the park. Along the way I showcase the Bear Lake trailhead, the demise of my hiking boots, hiking through snowfields near treeline, waterfalls at the base of the continental divide, fish swimming in a beaver dam at the foot of Fern Lake, and the grand vistas that can be seen in Rocky Mountain National Park.

This video is minimally edited using Quicktime Pro and is composed of a series of video clips taken with my Canon SD750 digital camera at 640×480 at 30 frames per second with mono audio recording.

Had I surrendered my digital camera late Thursday night when I was assaulted, this video would not have been possible.

CurrentTV: Green On Green [feat. the 2008 Green Party Presidential Candidates]
|| 6/4/2008 || 12:39 am || Comments Off on CurrentTV: Green On Green [feat. the 2008 Green Party Presidential Candidates] || ||

This four minute video showcases some of the 2008 Green Party presidential candidates and their stances on a few issues. I like the way the video goes about rectifying some misconceptions about the 2000 election and the importance of voting for who & what you believe in. As I noted last week, Cynthia McKinney has clinched the Green Party‘s presidential nomination, but regretfully I won’t be able to attend the national convention this year because family duties call me to Colorado at the same time. After attending the two previous annual meetings I’m really curious to see who shows up, but this year I’ll just have to watch the videos of the proceedings on-line.

The Base Map Installation @ Artomatic
|| 5/5/2008 || 1:15 pm || Comments Off on The Base Map Installation @ Artomatic || ||

About a month ago when I was planning out my Artomatic exhibit I came up with the idea to do a time-lapse video as a means to promote & showcase my upcoming exhibit. My friend Brian Liu made a similar styled video and I thought it would be fun to make one that shows both the location of the exhibit and teases viewers into seeing the actual exhibit.

The process involved in making the video was rather straightforward. Back in mid-April I went through my collection of printed maps and picked out a few that I didn’t care for. Then I went to my nearby CVS and purchased about 6 more DC, Maryland, and Virginia maps. I cleared out my dining room and laid out all the maps to see if they would cover the 12′ x 8′ space that I am alloted at Artomatic and once I realized that I had enough maps I began to cut them into roughly 1′ x 2′ sections. After that I went to the hardware store and purchased some wheatpaste and a paint brush. Finally, I contacted my friend Robin who’s done similar videos before and bounced the idea off of him. He thought it was a decent concept and after a few minor delays on Friday, April 25th, 2008 we went to the Artomatic space and recorded the entire installation from start to finish. About a week later I got the raw video from him, last night I edited it in Final Cut Pro, and today I uploaded it to YouTube.

I chose to use the tune “The Dub and the Restless” by Sonic Boom because it’s been a favorite of mine for ages and I felt it captured the essence of the time-lapse video quite well. I have contacted the musician and hopefully he’ll continue to let me use the video without issue.

Tomorrow I am going to the Artomatic space and will be doing some touch-up work to the wall because after my last visit to the site I noticed some of the map’s have become unstuck and I need to make sure they are securely fixed to the wall. Later this week I will be going to the space and putting up my maps over “the base map.” I’ll probably need to get some extra lighting in place and after that it should be ready for Friday’s opening! I have a couple other ideas for the exhibit, but they’ll be shared here when the time comes.

If you are in the Washington, DC area this Friday, please stop by and say hello!

Looks like someone from NOMA gave the Artomatic organizers one crappy raster graphic to use— notice the pixilation on their logo!

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Tom Davis Supports Statehood?
|| 3/23/2007 || 8:52 am || Comments Off on Tom Davis Supports Statehood? || ||

No, not really. But taken completely out of context, this clip sure makes him sound like a supporter of statehood. I actually learned some new constitutional facts. See for yourself:

If you were to watch the full clip you’d see that he’s just another politician compromising equality for 1/3 representation and claiming it’s progress. He definitely makes the case that a strict reading of the constitution says that DC should be a state.

4 years ago today…
|| 3/22/2007 || 3:39 pm || Comments Off on 4 years ago today… || ||

I made this “newsic video” to document Washington, DC’s reaction to the illegal invasion of Iraq. Filmed using sixty 12 second clips from my old Canon s200 digital camera and sequenced in Final Cut Pro, this video showcases the march, detainment, and dÃ©nouement of the day’s free speech exercises. Alas, four years later and the war continues. Sad.

March 22nd, 2003, Washington, DC
Music by DJ Shadow, “You Can’t Go Home Again“
Used without permission.

DC Colonists video clip
|| 5/11/2005 || 6:38 pm || Comments Off on DC Colonists video clip || ||

Image Links to Flash Player:

I finally got this clip on-line from the DC Fox Five 10pm newscast on April 3rd, 2005. The same clip was rebroadcast on the morning of the 4th. If you look closely you can see me dressed as a colonist. We are going to have another outing at RFK stadium next month. I can’t wait!

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Nikolas Schiller is a second-class American citizen living in America's last colony, Washington, DC. This blog is my on-line repository of what I have created or found on-line since May of 2004. If you have any questions or comments, please contact: