I really enjoyed being a part of Broadcast Technology. My favorite aspect of the class was the editing portion, personally it's what I enjoy the most about the film making process. The six word story project was also one of my favorite parts of the class because although there is a total time restriction on the video, we had limitless possibilities to choose from. I do wish however we spent more time learning about using the Final cut pro software. I enjoy working with other people and that is part of the reason I enjoyed this class as much as I did.
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For our final project of the semester we were given the task of creating a news package story. This was my favorite project because we had the freedom of choosing our story in or out of school. I chose to do my story about my fellow band classmate Joel who switched from orchestra into band and was able to audition on both clarinet and saxophone. This made filming incredibly convenient simply because I am in band class the same time as Joel and our band director Mr. Lehde. I was able to interview both Joel and Mr Lehde who gave me great responses which provided me with more than enough footage to choose from. The editing process went very smoothly and everything came out the way that I had originally planned unlike my six word story project where I had to completely change the way I filmed because of complications. Overall, I am very pleased with the final result of my news package. If I could go back and change one thing however, It would be the time of day I chose to film in the band room. The New band wing has huge windows with white wall painting giving off a nasty glare that was hard to deal with in the editing.
In preparation for our upcoming final project I watched a few short news stories on some truly unique people. My favorite by far was the one about a child named Jayden who lost both his Mother and Father when he was very young. He now goes around his local municipality giving out toys and small objects to people hoping to bring joy to others. I was shocked by how open and positive minded he was in the situation he faced at such a young age. This resonated with me the most because I have a friend that lost his mother not a year ago and the grief and pain he went through kept him down for such a long time. And the fact that this 6 year old child after loosing both his parents has the selflessness to go out and think about other people is truly amazing. I also noticed that all the stories were built around a fundamental core of B-roll shots over a Narration frequently interrupted by natural sound and personal anecdotes from characters in the story. These skills all give the story a more personal touch in that they all did a great job of making you feel like you are right there with them . Failing to hone in on these ideas will result most likely in a very bland emotionless story. I hope to once more take everything I have learned this semester and bring it all together to make a great final news package.
This week in class we were asked to conduct a short interview with some of our classmates. I interviewed my friend Johnny about his move from Los Angeles to the midwest less than four years ago. I got some good feedback from him but I felt that we discussed the weather to much as opposed to something more exciting like the activities or things he did in LA. The interview was fairly short because of this and if I could do it over again I would definitely spend more time on his experience in California instead. Aside from the interview itself, there are a lot of things that I learned from errors I made on how to conduct an effective interview. The biggest takeaway was that you have to assume that the audience has absolutely no prior knowledge on the subject you are talking about. It was a subtle mistake I made because of the fact that I am already familiar with Johnny because he is my friend. I didn't even realize I was failing to ask him to go into detail on subjects he had already spoken to me before about. Lighting was another big mistake I made. I chose to interview Johnny in the lobby outside the gym which is poorly lit and by putting Johnny in front of the bright blue wall. On camera it turned out really dark and shadow covered around his face. Putting the area with the most light behind the camera is ideal because it will light up the person being interviewed making them look more vibrant. Today I finalized and turned in my Six Word Story project. This is easily my favorite assignment we have completed so far, especially because I got to base it on the sport that I love playing. However I did encounter a few obstacles and had to tweak quite a few things before I was able to get my final product. Originally, my plan was to film it in my local gym/rec center, which makes the most sense because I play there almost everyday during the off season. when me and my friend arrived to film, they wouldn't let us in because my friend Johnny was not a member at the gym. At first I thought about completely scraping the project and trying something else, but I quickly realized I could achieve just as great of a result using my own hoop at my house. Now that Ive completed the entire project I am actually thankful that we were kicked out of the gym, I really liked the way this turned out. One thing that I did not enjoy about the project though was the fact that each shot had a window of only 3-5 seconds and the entire video could only last around 30 seconds. This frustrated me because there was a lot more I wanted to tell in my story which made it hard to illustrate it all in just 6 shots. for students who will have this assignment in the future I would highly suggest capturing as much film as possible. This will ensure you have a wide variety of shots to choose from so that you will not have to go out and re capture any of your shots.
Before we begin to film our six word story projects, our class was given the task of capturing 19 different camera shots in preparation for possible inspiration when filming our projects in the near future. Some of these shots I have seen in movies and am quite familiar with, I was just surprised to find the actual names of the all of the shots. I always like capturing my images all in the same vicinity/room if possible because I like the idea of sticking with the same overall theme. I thought the weight room would be a perfect place to capture these images in that it offers a variety of different objects and structures in such a small area. One of my favorite shots I took was an extreme close up of my face while I'm laying face up on a bench doing a chest press. Another included a full wide shot of the entire weight room. It is a very important shot because if I was actually filming a video in the weight room establishing a wide shot to give a viewer some context is critical. I plan on using a few of these shots in my upcoming project, it will for sure be my best one yet.
In class recently we learned about famous American novelist Ernest Hemingway and the creation of the idea of telling a story in six words. We also got to view the famous "for sale, baby shoes, never worn." in class. What I found most interesting about it was the amount of information and emotions they can reflect with such few words. After some extra research in class I was well prepared when we began brainstorming our own six words stories. During my research, I visited the Ernest Hemingway museum/home website. It provided some awesome contextual evidence not only about Hemingway himself, but the development of his specific style. This information definitely helped me create my own six word story outline for our next video project. I like that you have the freedom to choose a topic or idea that is significant to yourself and can film this outside of classroom if you need to. I am for sure planning on making my six word story about my love for the game of basketball, although I am not certain how I am going to shoot it.
http://www.hemingwayhome.com/
Today we presented our own array of shots in front of the class put together using the Final Cut Pro Software. This was by far our most challenging project yet in that we had to learn and become familiar with Final Cut Pro. This was for most all my classmates first time using the Software so it took some getting used to. Then we had to go out and get a series of shots called "WALLDO". This stands for wide, angled, low, linking, depth, and opposite. Me and my group members chose to film this in the back gym using the basketball hoops. What really surprised me was the amount of shots we were able to get in such a small area using just a basketball and goal. My favorite shot was the opposite where I made a free throw and the camera cut to my face where I attempted to show enthusiasm after a made basket. For this assignment, we had the task of traveling around the school campus and filming a number of Objects. One of the new challenges with this project was balancing the light and avoiding reflections while filming objects like the vending machines and trophy cases. However I think my shots came out very well, especially my trophy case shot which was by far my favorite. I definitely think that this project helped build on my knowledge on how to effectively film objects, as well as how to best find angles to film objects. These skills will for sure benefit me on our upcoming project. We also started using for the first time the Final Cut Pro Software. I felt I had a slight advantage in that I have seen and toggled with the Software a little. This was our first video project in the class. I generally enjoy editing and putting together clips and videos. However, with the constraints that I movie and the templates put upon us, I struggled quite a bit figuring out how to effectively use the "ken Burns" effect. Keeping the portrait size of the image I wanted to use in the screen. Despite this there was some specs of the templates that I enjoyed like the fact that the time intervals on each images were short and to the point. Overall I am definitely alright with the final results and can hopefully make improvements on the next project.
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Garrett Rogers
I am a seinor at ladue Horton Watkins High school Archives
December 2017
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