Semester 1 Review

What Did I Learn?

Technology

     Throughout the semester, I learned how to better use Illustrator so my patterns looked natural and connected together so when putting my pattern onto mockups and a digital layout of my box, it would all fit correctly and perfectly. I have learned so much in the technology department of e-Com. When I was a Freshmen, I could barely use Photoshop, and Premier Pro. I struggled so much, but i eventually learned how to use both of them efficiently. The next year when I was a Sophomore, I hated Illustrator because I didn't know anything. It was if I was starting over again in the learning process. I eventually learned the tools and shortcuts of Illustrator that I now use Illustrator whenever there's Graphic Design involved, even in my daily life. I used to do very small projects in Illustrator that would take a couple hours to about a day, but now I have done so many month long projects in and out of Illustrator that I have the stamina and attention span to dit down and do what I need to get done. My Sophomore year, we did many Photoshop tutorials, and then towards the end, I did a Vector portrait of my grandfather and many other vector portraits. The Photoshop tutorials took minutes, maybe a hour at most. The Vector Portrait took many weeks and hours to do. I had to stay after school to finish the project. I worked so hard and stayed after school so long that my muscles in my hands were sore. While I worked so much in Illustrator, I do need to go back and do some Photoshop work since those skills have been neglected for some time now. 

Collaboration and Communication

     In Graphic Design, I often asked my teacher and the people around me what they thought of my design once I was done. I'd get compliments as well as critiques. I did my best to fix my designs based on the critiques and see what worked best. Everyone around me had amazing ideas to share. In the past, I wasn't very open or vocal about anything. I was mostly introverted, and still introverted to this day. However, thanks to Video and other events outside of e-Com, I am able to fulfill any role needed and am ready to give my opinion or thoughts on something if need be. I am also more open about asking for critiques during random stages of the creating process. I have made great friends because of e-Com not just in the Graphic Design branch, but in the other branches as well. 

     Before I even entered high school, I was very communicative. I always told teachers when I would be absent and e-mail them when I was sick or gone unexpectedly. So, from a professional standpoint, I was communicative, but from a more casual standpoint, not so much. Once I get to know people, I become very open, but team projects were always something I didn't really like. Thanks to e-Com, I have had many opportunities to be open and communicate what needs to be done as well as goof around here and there.

Project Management

      In middle school and even sometimes to this day, I procrastinate quite often, however if I am away from distractions and given "free" time, then I get projects and other things done usually before the deadline. Going through the e-Com program, I have always completed projects and have been aware of deadlines. I have stayed after school for hours sometimes finishing a project. I try to use class time to my advantage and use as much of it as possible to work on a current project. One thing I wish to correct in the future, however, is to stay on task better and not get sidetracked by friends. 

Leadership

     I wouldn't consider myself a leader. In group projects, I fulfill any role that needs to be filled. However, if being a leader or director or head project person is the role that needs to be filled, I'll step up and be the leader. I do have many leadership qualities like listening to others as well as being able to take control of situations. 

Semester 2 Final

Short Film

    

 Project

For this project, everyone in my class had to write a script to possibly make into a short film that would be 3-5 minutes long. After hearing everyone's script and ideas, the class voted for the top five scripts, and then we were assigned onto teams based on the type of story we wanted to do. I wanted to do a mystery story, so I was put on a team that was doing a mystery story.

Challenges and roles

     It took my team and I two weeks to complete. Some challenges we face were our director and one of our actors being gone due to illness. We filmed what we could with me being mostly behind the camera. Another team member, Maleah, helped me behind the camera and helped choreograph scenes. She and I filled in as director when our director was gone. The rest of my team, including Maleah, was acting in the short film, so I had a lot of time behind the camera and recording.
     I was also the editor for my team. I really wanted to edit because it's my favorite part of the filmmaking process. I had to sharpen some shots in Adobe Premier Pro, which is an amazing video editor, as well as color correct some shots, which was fun. Two shots were originally very, very orange, so I tried my best to tone that down and make it more natural. I could have done better with those two shots if i spent more time on them, but sadly, I didn't. I also had to color correct the shots in the chase scene. When were filming outside, it was dark and overcast, making the shots more blue looking rather than a sunny, natural, outside look. I also had to mess around with sound because I forgot to check out a mic. The camera was great at picking up sound, but when I was editing the restaurant shots, it was hard to get rid of the music in the background. I tried my best.

What I learned and Feedback

     I learned how to direct people and makes lines were down and memorized for the next shot, color correct, and edit audio.  Some feedback I was given was to make sure the set is clear and to mic the actors when filming in a loud setting. The original script had two more scenes we were going to film, but due to time constraints and actors goofing off, we couldn't film those scenes. We had half of one of the original scenes filmed, but due to scheduling and people getting sick, we couldn't film the other half. However, the ending to this piece still makes sense and works for what we have. In the end, the final product was around 4 and a half minutes long, so i fit the criteria when editing. I really like this piece despite the bad jokes that were thrown in.

Music Video

    
 The goal of this project was to recreate a music video. My group chose to do Pompeii by Bastille. I loved this song, but because I had to listen to it so much while filming, I'd rather skip it on my Spotify playlist. It took us several weeks to film this due to very bad winter weather. Weather was a major challenge when filming due to filming in winter and filming in Kansas. Another challenge we faced was people showing up on time. Our main actor was always late despite the fact that we had communicated in our group chat several times when and where we were filming. I learned to be patient and deal with people when I was in a bad mood. Some feedback my group was given was how good the eyes turned out halfway through the video, but the eyes at the end could be worked on a bit more. If I could change anything about this project I'd change the actor. He wasn't very reliable when it came to scheduling and showing up, so if i could find anyone else that was reliable, I would and replace the original actor in an instant. Overall, my director was great and so was our editor. The film itself is the best it could have been due to many conflicts.

Class Time

     If I was the editor, I spent majority or all of my time editing the film. I really enjoy editing, so it was no problem for me if I was assigned to editor. I usually took a back seat and filled in any roll needed, but if the director was gone, I filled in that roll and took over. For the short film, we were lucky enough to be able to film during class, which is a rarity for entertainment filming. If i wasn't filming or editing, I worked on my graphic design work and practiced my Illustrator and Photoshop skills. I don't do much outside of class unless my group plans to film. I try to make it to filming, and majority of the time, I do show up.

Strengths and Weaknesses

     I am really good at editing and enjoy perfecting projects. I have improved a lot when it comes to color correction and editing clips. I've also learned where to cut a clip to get it to be more natural when put together with other clips. 

     While I am good at editing, I need to work on sound. I have a basic understanding of how to edit sound, but need to practice more. 

Summary and Final Thoughts

     I loved editing the short film. Overall, I wish I did more editing. I learned how to use equipment properly, how to edit to enhance projects, and how to be a team player on projects like these.  One goal for next year, even though I won't continuing Video, is to continue to practice editing and maybe make a few videos in the future.
     There are a lot of good students in my video class that will go on to do great things. I really enjoyed working with my group for the high school movie trailer and wished we could have filmed more to finish our project. I have made a lot of good memories with this class and I hope everyone goes on to do great things and to do what they love. At times, there was a lot of stress, but eased up towards the end.

High School Movie Trailer

Pre-Production

     My team and I worked on re-creating the trailer to the Breakfast Club, one of my favorite movies. For pre-production, my team and I did the necessary work like storyboarding. We all worked very well together from the very beginning and felt very confident in ourselves and this project. 

Production 

     We watched the trailer and some members of my team knew other students who looked eerily similar to the original cast of the Breakfast Club. All of the people we originally contacted were able to work and film with us in the beginning. We filmed mostly in the library because that is the location where majority of the movie takes place. All was great when we started filming. Halfway through our filming session, we all ate pizza, that someone had ordered ahead of time, and drank soda. We all were laughing and telling stories, but eventually got back to work. We filmed quite a bit more, and around 6 o'clock, the camera, which was on a tripod and we made sure it was on securely at the beginning of filming, suddenly fell and landed on the ground. We picked it up to make sure it was okay, but the battery broke. My team tried to fix the battery as I started cleaning up because I knew there was no way we'd be able to fix it. Nothing worked, so we e-mailed our teacher. Our teacher gave us some tips on how to prevent this in the future and that no one was in trouble due to the fact it was a complete accident and no one intentionally damaged the battery. The actors, the team and I weren't able to film again for the next two weeks due to conflicting schedules. 

Editing

     I wasn't the editor for our project, but the person who was editing often shared and showed us his progress. One creepy thing that happened during editing was the video we filmed synched up to the original audio of the original characters. This was not planned at all, and we recorded audio while filming to use instead of the original, but we decided to use the original audio instead since it lined up exactly. Another creepy thing that happened was our cast we picked looked very, very similar to the original. My team and i often compared our footage to the original to help sequence the shots, but also to see the similarities. 

Overall

     I really enjoyed this project due to the fact I got to recreate the trailer to the Breakfast Club. I think the difficulties of this project will help me to prepare for the future. Some things I would do differently is prevent the camera from falling so my team could film all the shots in one day. I would keep everything else the same. 

Music Video

 

   

Pre-Production

For this project, my team and I chose to do the song Pompeii by Bastille. We wanted to copy the music video for this song as best as we could, but we deleted many scenes in our video that were in the original because of the location or due to time constraints. We wanted to portray "the end of the world" which is the main theme of the song.
     During pre-production, we went through a couple music videos, and ultimately decided to do Pompeii because we thought it'd be easier to do and manageable. As a team, we decided not to do a lot of what was in the original video, mostly because our video had to be around two minutes and thirty seconds. One of my teammates was the director due to her confidence and assurance in what to do. I carried around and mostly manned the camera equipment, but the director took over controlling the camera from time to time. I always checked to make sure we were following the rule of thirds and the 180 rule. In the beginning, my team kept asking who would be the actor.

Production

     Production was rough. The director wanted to film at a park about twenty-five minutes away from where I live for one of the scenes, but they wanted o film early in the morning because the shot in the original video looked like sunrise. The first time we filmed there, our director showed us around the park and possible areas to film. We started setting up the equipment, and I put the battery in the camera along with the SD card, and tried turning it on but it wouldn't. Filming was cancelled that day. We all planned to film at the park at least four times. The first time was the one I just talked about. The second time, we got majority of the scenes based off of the original video done, but the actor was late. Third time, our actor never showed up due to illness. Fourth time, the roads were so icy that our director spun out twice and both our actor and director had a difficult time driving.
     Continuing on with more production, we also had to film at a "restaurant" with an elderly woman. Luckily, our editor's grandma was willing o let us film at her house and would be in the video. Unfortunately, our director couldn't make it, so I was "director" for the evening, and our actor got lost on his way to the grandma's house. He was at least forty minutes late. We eventually started filming. I felt confident in all but one scene, but we tried doing a couple retakes, but our actor had to leave, so we had to deal with what we got.
     Another place we filmed at during production was at a parking garage.  Everyone was a little confused as to where we were meeting, but we eventually found each other, and started location scouting there for a bit before finally filming. We got what we needed from that location, but we did plan to re-shoot there again.
     Due to the weather, we weren't able to re-shoot anything and lost a couple day where we could've filmed more scenes. Once we started filming, we stayed on track and tried to get as much done as possible. We did goof off  every once in awhile, but we did get back on track right away.

Editing

     Finally, editing. I didn't edit the video, but from what the editor has told us, they were editing for an hour and Adobe Premier Pro crashed. They luckily saved the project before it crashed but it was still bad. After that, they said Premier kept acting weird and would crash on him about every ten minutes. They eventually got it done, but I could tell it was exhausting for them to edit the video.

Overall

     I got to work the camera quite a bit since I was responsible for carrying equipment around to and from places. My team and I had a group chat so we could communicate when and where we wanted to be someplace. I tried my best to communicate what times worked best for me along with what times I could film. I did become the director temporarily at the grandma's house because our director wasn't able to come.
     If I could do something differently, I could stress the point to my team about showing up early or at least on time due to at least two people showing up late consistently. I'd also do this project during any other season than winter.
    I would still delete all the scenes we originally deleted due to the difficulty of location. I'd also do the same song because unlike other groups, I haven't gotten sick from listening to this song yet. IT's an okay song, in my opinion, so I wasn't ever annoyed when we had to listen to it over and over again.
     For my next project, I'd make sure we pick someone who is reliable and will show up on time for filming to be the main actor. I'd also make sure communication is clear as to when and where to film.
     Overall, this project was a bit stressful due to weather conditions and scheduling. I'm glad this project is done. I am really proud of what the video looks like and how much we actually did. We didn't get the video to two minutes and thirty seconds, but not a lot of groups did. My two favorite shots in the video are when our main actor looks off into the distance with the sun setting and there's smoke blowing out of a building in the distance, and when the Grandma looks at the main actor because her eyes are black due to the magic of editing, which took our editor an hour to do. Again, I'm impressed with how well the final product turned out.

1st Semester Reflection

ONW Now News Story

This project was for my school's version of a news program. This project took us a couple days due to principal being busy multiple times. One challenge was, obviously, interviewing the principal since he's always busy, but somehow my team interviewed him. Another challenge was editing. My team wasn't sure who would be responsible for editing, but I was good and could edit pretty quickly. I did stay after school due to the voiceover being sent to me long after I finished the first edit. After I got the voiceover in, my teacher sat down with me and helped me fix the color, graphics and straighten the angles in clips. I didn't get home until 4:45pm that night. I learned to pay attention to little details when editing, even if it doesn't seem like a big deal, it is. The teacher helped me a lot along the way on this project and the end result is really good. It's on of my best edited pieces this semester.

Advanced Feature Piece

This project was to do an advanced interview by including varied shots and natural sound. This project took my team a couple days, giving me the opportunity to get a lot of B-roll. A challenge along the way was the audio didn't record so out entire interview with Mr. Johns was silent. I told my team the best option was to do a voiceover for the entire thing and the teacher said to add light music under the voiceover. Feedback I was given was to make sure to audio is on while recording. Overall, recovering from a major setback like this is an accomplishment. This project is one of my better works.

Time

When I wasn't needed, I made sure assignments were turned in and we had made sure my team had everything planned out and ready to go. There were some days where I did nothing due to everything being ready and assignments were turned in. When I finished early I made sure everything exported correctly and uploaded to Youtube the way I wanted it to. Outside of class, I'd watch movies and notice the different cuts and shots in movies and tv. I would try to name the different shots, but it happens so fast, I can't name them in time. My strengths are communication and editing. I try to be as open and on page with everyone on my team wile remaining flexible when it comes to ideas.  I can improve my skills in leadership by being more vocal about the project and what my team should do. 

ONW Now

 My role in the ONW Now news piece was editor. I edited the clips of the video, voiceover, color correction, straighten shots, added graphics and transitions in Adobe Premier Pro. My team did a story over the new laptops every student got at our school. I learned to pay attention to detail even if it seems insignificant.

Summary

  What I loved about this semester is the amount of editing I got to do. If I could change what happened about this semester it'd be making sure the audio is on when recording. Overall, I learned how to straighten clips, correct color, add graphics and proper transitions. One goal I'd set for next year is to be more efficient and notice small details.

Final Thoughts

 While video has been fun and I enjoy editing, there were several times this semester where I was really stressed out and had to stay after school a lot to finish projects and assignments. I hope next semester will be less stressful, but I don't plan on enrolling into video next school year due to the stress I experienced. 

 

ONW NOW

A good broadcast story should contain at least one interview, B-roll that pertains to the story or what the interviewee is referring to, a good voiceover/script and good editing.

When my class was doing the Sophomore version of *ONW Now, i sat in the room where people could control what was being recorded for video as well as transitions and what would play next. I didn't do much since I edited my team's video for ONW Now while everyone else went to the recording booth to get jobs for when the entire thing would be recorded. 

A strong news broadcast should contain good leaders, proper preparation, and strong teamwork skills like communication. The anchors have to be prepared to read the teleprompter and make it sound natural instead of if they were reading off of a screen. Those in the recording booth have to have good communication skill and prepare for technology failure and have to have a plan in place. The microphones have to be checked to make sure they are working and on. Set director have to have good listening and communication skills to be able to take orders from the recording booth and to pass directions onto the anchors. 

*ONW Now is my school's version of a News Station. Every week, they make a news broadcast about different things happening around the school. They also produce daily news videos, but ONW Now is the news that most students see and is produced weekly. 

Advanced Feature Piece

For this Video project, my group decided to interview Mr. Johns, the new Web Design teacher in the e-Comm program. Our story was based on his experience so far at ONW and how he ended up where he was now.

In pre-production, our team had a harder time finding a subject for our story. The person my team was originally going to interview didn't want to be interviewed, so we decided to interview Mr. Johns. For scripting, I wrote down the questions to ask during the interview. I came up with a good portion of them, if not, majority. As for assigning roles, I quickly volunteered to work the camera because I haven't had a chance to work it yet. During class time,  Mr. Johns as kind enough for us to film B-roll. I made sure to record a lot of random clips of Mr. Johns and the class. Apparently, I was too good at my job at filming B-roll due to the fact that the file with all clips wouldn't upload to the class server. Editing was a struggle due to the realization that no audio was recorded including our ten minute interview and natural sound.

I found a way around the failed recorded audio and suggested to my team to record a voice over for the entire project.

Putting together the clips and sequencing it all was fairly easy. I got that part done quickly.

My approach to this project compared to the last interview I did was make sure I recorded enough B-roll because I felt like in my last project, my team didn't have enough.

What I would do differently would be make sure to make sure the audio is recording and maybe not record as much as I did, but still a good variety of B-roll.

This experience was more interesting because of all the various shots I tried to get. It did, in my opinion, made the final product more interesting and satisfying to finish.

Overall, this project and some bumps here and there, but, in the end, turned out just fine.

Feature Story

This project was to do a feature story like on news channels. My group decided to interview a student at my school due to the clubs and activities he did.

My group and I came up with twenty-one questions to ask. These questions built on each other, which means the questions weren't "yes/no" questions. I came up with some questions as well as my group members. We originally were going to film in the library, and we did, but we forgot to turn on the microphone that was in the camera, which is a Panasonic AC90 camera, so we had no audio. So many groups made the same mistake my group did, so we were all given an extra filming day. By the time we filmed again, with the microphone turned on, we couldn't use the library anymore, and found another space. After filming was done, it was time to edit. We all used Adobe Premier Pro. I asked the student we interviewed if he had any footage of the clubs/activities he was in. He gave us the clips and used them as B-roll.

For editing, I divided the film we had from the interview based on the club mentioned in the question. I had to delete majority of the footage from the interview because the video had to be one minute thirty seconds maximum. Throughout the process, I learned how to "color code" clips so I knew which clip was which. I changed the colors frequently so I wasn't bored with the colors I originally chose. This kept me organized throughout the process. I did edit the audio levels so everything was clear and even. I also added transitions to enhance the project and to hide very little mistakes. I also added lower thirds text at the beginning so the audience knew what or who was on screen.



If I could redo this project, I wouldn't mostly because I'm not interested in convergence journalism, or news stories based video, I did have fun with this project, but it wasn't my cup of tea. I would add more voiceover, but I'm not good at writing scripts for this kind of video work. I would also fix the way we filmed the interview. The camera angle wasn't straight at all throughout filming, so I had to fix that too.

I would still interview the same person, film in the same space, and use the same editing software and clips if I had to to this project again.


 

For my next project, I will make sure that the camera angle is straight, and that the built-in microphone is on so audio is captured. I will also make sure to add more voice over and write a better voice-over script.

Overall, this project was interesting. It was fun, but not my cup of tea. Editing was bit more difficult than any other project I've worked on for Video. This project was a learning process, and well worth the time.

ONW Procedures

     Over the past couple of weeks, I worked with a team to film a "how to" video related to our school. For example, how to use the lunch line, how to get into the school if you're late, dress code etc. My group decided to do "how to use the elevator". At my school, if yo are injured, and can't walk up the stairs, you can get a key from the nurse that grants you access to the elevator. We talked to the nurse to see if she was okay with lending us a key and if we could film. She said it was okay, and so we began. All my team members had the same basic idea for what we should film and do for our video. I had a pair of crutches and an ankle brace that fit me at home that I brought to school to use as props. I played the injured person in the video, and another person on my team played the person helping me. For editing, we all used Adobe Premiere Pro which is fantastic for editing and putting together videos. In the end, I think I did a good job with my video. Our camera was having technical difficulties at first, but we got a new one, and all is good. I would fix the white balance in some shots and well as leveling the shots by using the tripod. I would also reshoot the scene coming out of the elevator because one of our members decided it'd be funny if he was in the shot, but we were running out of time to film due to camera issues, so we just used what we had. All in all, this project was fun and I would do it again in the future if given the chance.

Chase Scene

Pre-Production

      Coming up with three ideas was easy for the group I was with due to ideas thought of ahead of time. Many of the ideas included a thief. We finally decided to do a museum chase scene with lots of comedy. This project was really exciting to film, and be in. I learned that having a bit of fun behind the scenes is okay and makes the project more enjoyable to work on with others. The enjoyment behind the scene shines through in the project through the comedy and the action scenes.

Scouting and Filming

     Scouting our location was very easy due to everybody's flexibility with locating possible settings for scenes. The filming bit was easy as well due to a great director and the actor and actresses very very open to listening and everybody had an open mind.
     I was assistant Director and "Cop" 2 in this project. We didn't know who would be who for a long time. We agreed that our director would be Steven due to him knowing what he wanted, and his great leadership skills. I would be assistant director since . my part in the film wasn't as big. Ethan was the main Cop who was the stereotypical lazy guard. Anna was the thief due to her accessibility to black clothing.  I wouldn't do anything different with this project due to how exciting it was to film, and be in. A lot of fun took place behind the scenes which was one factor as to why this project was a blast.

Editing

    I used Adobe Premier Pro for editing. I have used Adobe three times now, and it is easy to use. However, I did have an issue where I thought I lost all my work. All the clips said "Media Offline" and I closed out of Adobe to find my folder on the school server. It wasn't in the spot it normally was, so I called the teacher over. Luckily, Anna, who was working across from me, found my folder. I moved my folder back to its normal spot, and found my project. I did have to come in during lunch to work on the project to catch up to where I was before it went "offline". One thing I can do better is save my project more often. 

Overview

      Team collaboration was awesome. We were having fun, but staying on task as well. The director did an awesome job politely criticizing what the actor and actresses can do better. The actor did a great job portraying a lazy guard, and the thief did a marvelous job adding comedy to the scenes. I did a good job of being funny and serious at the same time. 

      

Sidewalk Chalk

    Symbolism

      Over the three days that my team and I worked on the sidewalk chalk project, we first learned about symbolism and the history of symbolism. Symbolism has been used for millions of years as a way to communicate a story or an event.After the team and I looked at multiple symbols and their meaning, we all chose one that represented who we were. I chose to create a dolphin due its meaning. Dolphins symbolize love for children. I love to be around children, and playing with them, so it made sense for me to pick the dolphin. I also chose the color blue because blue represents water, peace, and being calm. I'm a very easygoing person who's usually calm, so that's why I picked blue.

My team and I drawing our symbols

The Process 

     It wasn't easy coming up with an idea to combine all of our symbols together. Four of us, including me, chose a symbol that can be found in nature, while the other member chose a rope, which would be difficult to combine. Our decision was to create all our symbols in one, big nature scene. The fifth member's symbol would be the frame of our nature scene, and we would have the animals near their natural domain.

The Experience 

     The team experience was good. We all listened to each other's ideas and opinions. We all worked independently and together at the same time, which was something that I've never experienced before. In the end, there would be nothing that I would change about this event.

My blue dolphin