Semester Reflection

Technology

Through e-Comm this semester i have learned a lot in my technology skills. For starters, i was never really that great with technology, especially not in animation. One thing i have learned is that technology is extremely complex. At the end of a project, when everything is clean and done, it looks like it was really easy and maybe effortless. But that is definitely not the case. There is a ton of work that goes into making a good video or animation. Having good technical skills is extremely important in e-Comm because that is really all we do. We do a lot of things but they all involve technology, so developing good skills in that area is essential for creating a good project. I have had many challenges in this area over the semester and year, but as i keep using the technology and working with it, i just get better and learn more. This year i really enjoyed the most recent project we did in animation, where we made a short film and used green screen for our background. I learned a ton in the technology skill from this project.

Collaboration

Collaboration is essential in e-Comm. With nearly every project we do, we are collaborating with at least one person. I believe that i do pretty well in this skill because i am definitely a people person. but there can still be some challenges. For example, the short film project we did in animation, i was in a group with 3 other people. For the most part i really enjoyed working with these people. I think we worked really well together, and even though we had some technical/scheduling issues, we still managed to get everything done and turn it in on time. I love working with other people and i think it is extremely important. Even though we may not always agree with someone else ideas, its still important to listen to them and work together. 

Communication

I would say that communication is probably the most important skill to have in e-Comm. If you are in a group with someone and they don't communicate their ideas, or what the can/can't do, the project is not going to work well. In the last project i did in animation, the short film, communication was definitely something we could have done a little bit better in. I felt like some of the members didn't give me exact details about the important things and decided not to do something last minute. In the end, this project turned out good, but i think it could have gone a lot smoother with more communication. This is for sure one of, if not the, most important skills to have.

Project Management 

I am going to be completely honest, this is probably the skill i could use the most work in. I have always had a hard time sticking to a schedule and turning things in on time or before. One of my recent projects in video, i turned in about a week late. I have grown a lot in this area and i am definitely better now than at the beginning of the school year, but there is always more room for improvement. This skill is very important because in the real world, a deadline is usually set. Once you are given a due date, that is it, you often won't be able to adjust it to your own schedule. So this  is definitely something important that i plan on continuing to work harder and harder at. 

Leadership

In our final project, the short film, i had to take a lot of leadership. I am perfectly fine with it because i love being a leader and feel like it is one of my strongest skills. My group for the last project was great, but we were all okay with either being the leader or not being the leader, so i just took the position. I think thesis a very important skill because everyones ideas and opinions get heard, but the later is usually the one who makes the final choices or who plans all the scheduling and makes sure they are always there. It can be hard to be the leader sometimes, because you may feel a little overwhelmed or stressed depending on the project, but tit is one of the most important roles and every single project needs to have a leader. 

Strengths/Weaknesses

A couple of my strengths are definitely when it comes to collaboration and leadership. I love to work with people a lot and i love the take the lead. I wasn't always someone who liked being in charge or liked working with a lot of people, but as my 2 years in e-Comm have passes, i have grown most in these areas. I am not perfect in these skills and could always use more improvement but i definitely do best in these ones. I keep working on these skills by taking on different summer projects in e-Comm and working with people i usually done. Some of my weaknesses would be in the areas of technology and project management. I am not good at using some of the tools like Maya, photoshop, and after effects. By using them more and more, i progress in using them, but i still need a lot of work. I also need a lot of improvement with project management. I tend to fall behind and turn projects in late or not stick with the schedule and just take my time with it. It is good not to rush projects, but you still want to meet the deadline. the last couple of projects i have had, have been turned in on time, so i can definitely see an improvement but there is always room for more.

What I've learned/What I'd change

Throughout 2nd semester i have learned so much. Ive learned more than i usually do most semesters. For starters, I've learned that there has to be some wiggle room when you do projects. Chances are, its not going to turn out exactly 100% how you envisioned it in your head, so their has to be room for change. This mostly applies to video and when we did he short film in animation. I have also learned again, how important those guarantees are to everything we do in e-Comm. every one of those guarantees has a huge impact on how smooth things will run and how good and quality they will turn out. This has been an amazing semester, so their really is not a whole, lot i would change. In animation, i would definitely turn things in more on time and do better quality work. There were even some things i don't even know if i turned it. It was kind of a rough semester for me in animation, but it is over and i am happy with how everything went. And same for video, there were somethings i could have done better on or turned on time but in the end i think i did a pretty good job and i am happy with everything.

Conclusion

This has really been a great semester. I am actually pretty sad to see everything leave, especially since i will not be in e-Comm next year, but it has been great. not only was this semester so good, but the last 2 year of e-Comm in general have just been amazing. I have made so many friends and gained so many relationships that i know will last for the rest of my high school years. I have learned so much and i am grateful for everything the teachers have done for me. Ive loved e-comm and i really will miss it a lot. This has been a pretty great experience and I've loved every minute of it, even the hard ones. 

Video Semester 2 Final Blog

Music video

At the beginning of 2nd semester, our first entertainment project was to create a music video. We had to pick a song and watch the video for the song and other must videos similar to it for inspiration. After we did that, we had to decide if we were going to recreate the original video. or go off our own ideas. My group chose to make a music video off of Justin Bieber's "Company" song. This project took about a month i would say. Overall this was probably one of the easiest projects this semester, but i still faced some challenges along the way. the scheduling was pretty tough, so i wasn't able to make it to most of the filming outside of school, but i did whatever i could at school. Through this project, i learned how hard it can be sometimes to collaborate with other people, especially when you don't agree with their ideas and they refuse to meet in the middle. And of course my video skills got a little better when it comes to the technology. the only feedback given was to use a more stable thing, like tripod, so it is less shakey and to have taken out one of the parts at the very end that didn't make much sense. This project turned out very well at the end and i really enjoyed doing it. 

High School Trailer

Towards the middle of 2nd semester, we got started on our next project, which was to remake a high school trailer. My group decided to remake a tailer called "Teen Spirit". This was one of the funniest projects that we have done all year, in my opinion. I was able to make it to every filming and do most of the scheduling so i felt very involved. This took about a month and we turned it in even a little after the due date because of how long it was taking. Like all projects, there were a few challenges along the way. First, their are a ton of costume changes in this trailer so we had to make that work, which was actually a lot harder than it sounds. Then, on of our main cast members, is a very busy guy, so we had to make most our scheduling work around him which was a little bit difficult as well. One of the last challenges was that there was a party scene in this movie, which is really hard to do when you only have time to do it at school. So that took a while but after we overcame all of those challenges, it turned out well. I learned that i defiantly need to work on time management and turning things in on time. Overall i think people liked the video a lot so we didn't have much feedback, just that some of the audio/shots were a little bit off. But like i said, this was one of my favorite projects and i think it turned out very well. 

Short Film

The very last project we had in video, and the one we just completed, was to create a short film. In a way this was one of the easiest but also hardest projects and ill explain why. This project also took around a month. It was easy for me, because we got all of the filming done in one day and it was a day i could not make it. So i didn't even film. Also, i was not one of the main editors, so i didn't have to worry too much about that either. So in those easy it was very easy. But this was also very hard because of the preproduction. We started off this assignment by creating a treatment, that we didn't even know if we were gonna use it or not. The treatment took me an insanely long time. I think it took so long because i am not a writer at all. That is something i actually struggle with. But after we made and shared our treatments, we had to write a whole script for it too, which was pretty stressful in my opinion. So after writing the script and treatment, we didn't even end up using it. So i didn't really see the point in that and it just caused me unnecessary stress. Besides all of that, this was a pretty easy project and it turned out amazing. I had some pretty great group members too so it made it even better. The only feedback we were really given was that it was a little violent and we had to edit some parts out so it was less violent. This was a great project and a strong way to end off the year in video.

Class Time 

For the most part i used my class time pretty well. I was usually pretty busy so i never had a lot of free time. But when i did have a lot of free time, i would not do a whole lot. If i was 100% caught up i would hang out or do other class work. I could have used that time to make sure everything was as good as it possibly could be and as improved as possible. I guess if i were outside of class, i could always make sure i had all the perfect shots i need and if not, then get them or just think about using video in different situations/places. 

Strengths

As a video student and as an employee i have a few strengths. Some of my strengths are collaboration, leadership, and communication. I love to work with other people all of the time. i usually prefer to work with others and when i do, i like to believe that i am pretty good at listening to their ideas and including everyone all the time. I am also good with leadership. I love to take the lead and to be in charge so i have never really had much of a problem when it comes to leadership. Another of of my strengths in communication. I do a pretty good job at talking to people, and letting them know what i can and cannot do. I think communication is extremely important in everything we do. Even though i do well in these things, i still continue to work on them and always get better. 

Weaknesses

We all have areas where we could improve. A couple of my areas are project management and technical skills. I have never been the best at turning my projects in on their due date or before. I try to and i know that i could, but i don't always try hard enough and i could definently do better. I have been working on it this semester and will continue to work on turning things in on time and sticking to a schedule I've made. Another area of improvement is technical skills. I have a hard time with editing and being able to work the camera right all of the time. I have gotten a lot better with it this semester but i could always do better. I am not going to be in e-Comm next year, but i will still work on my technical skills wherever i can.

Summary

This has honestly been a great semester. I have accomplished so much and had so much fun. I am going to miss this class along with everyone in it a lot and am actually kind of sad that the year is coming to an end. If i could change anything, it would just be to stay a little more focused and make sure i get everything turned in on time. I have learned, progressed and green in every area this semester. Mainly i have just had a really good time. This semester had a lot less stress than last year and its just been relaxing and the project we have been doing have ben fun. I will not be in e-Comm next year but i hope for all of my classes to be this fun., even though i know they probably won't. this has been a great year, i am sad to see it ending but it was fun. 

Teen Spirit trailer project

In video, we got our second entertainment project. The project was to re-create a high school movie trailer. My group and I chose to remake the trailer for the movie called Teen Spirit. Like all projects, this one started with a lot of pre-production. First we had to make the Story Boards so that we knew each scene and how to film them. Then we had to write down the script and figure out our cast. After we found people to act, we had to come up with a schedule that worked for everyone, which is probably one of the hardest parts because everyone is on different schedules with different things to do so it made it very difficult. But after all of that, and finding out where you want to film and costuming, we were finally ready to film. We told a very long time to film if I am being honest. The majority of the shots were at school, which made it way easier, but some of them weren't. There were some filmed in cars and at the mall. We planned on actually going to the mall for those scenes but it just never works out and we were running behind so we ended up just making do with what we could at school.  But after we finally figured it all out, we got to edit and be done. The editing was probably the easiest part because I already knew where everything was supposed to go because of the actual trailer, so I just had to remake it. From this project I learned how to make do with what I could, and that everything can't always be exact or perfect, and I also learned that I need to work a little harder with time management because we turned this in about a week late. I know we had some troubles because out main cast member and group member was out of town for a while, but I'm sure we could have turned dit in a few days earlier if I had worked better with time management. Thats really all I would change if I could, because overall it was still fun and I'm glad we chose the trailer that we chose and I think I turned out to be a pretty good video.

Impossible Plausible bog

Im doing this blog over the Dwarves video. Here are 5 Impossible Plausible's I found:

1) Theres a scene where dopey gets water in his ears and a bunch of water goes to his head so when he shakes his head you can hear all the water swishing around where his brain should be, so it happens because there is a hole from his ear to his head where the water can get in but its impossible because if there were that much water where our brains should be, that would be really dangerous and it doesn't even happen



2) There is another scene with dopey where the soap keeps slipping out of his hands and when it flies above him and comes down, it squished him and makes a loud bong sound, so I guess the soap is supposed to be heavier and have more mass than dopey himself, but thats impossible because we all know a bar of soap falling on our heads is not going to squish us or even really make any sound



3) Another scene is where they are all eating the soup and the soup is in the spoon a few inches away from there face and just my sucking in, all the soup goes to their mouth. So the soup goes straight from the spoon to their mouth from a distance of sucking which we all know is impossible because of the laws of gravity, the soup would fall.



4) Another one is the scene where dopey swallows his spoon, dopey is enjoying the soup so much that he accidentally swallowed it. He does even realize the he swallowed it for a little while util he realized that the soup wasn't going into his mouth. We know this is impossible because a spoon is huge and if we even tried to swallow it, we would choke and it would be pretty bad.




5) The last impossible plausible is when dopey gets a spoon stuck inside of him, they bend him over and kick his behind and because of the pressure or jar or whatever, the spoon comes out of his mouth. That is impossible because we know that if someone actually tried to do that, it would just hurt but nothing would come out of our mouth.

Snowflake Personal Bog Post

In animation, we recently created a snowflake project. In this project, we had to create multiple snowflakes and then animate them falling outside of a window. This project was not very easy for me actually. There was a lot of work to be put into it and honestly I'm really not the best at animation. But to start this project, we had to create 6 different snowflakes using some kind of cutting tool. This was actually one of the easiest and most fun parts of this. So after we made our 2d snowflakes, we had to make them 3d which was also pretty easy. Then we created a window and made it transparent, just like a window. Then, we had to set up our 3 point lighting so it complimented everything just right. next, came the hardest part, which was animating them so that they actually fell and looked realistic. We had to duplicate them so that there were 18 or so and then use key frames to make them fall and keep them repeating. Although it doesn't sound like a lot, there was still a lot more work put into everything and it took a while to make. Overall I'm happy with how it turned out, although there are defiantly things i would change to make it better, but at least i know for next time.

Music Video Personal Blog Post

In video, our most recent project was to create a music video with our group. We had to pick a song and watch the video for the song and other must videos similar to it for inspiration. After we did that, we had to decide if we were going to recreate the original video. or go off our own ideas. My group and i decided to just go off our own ideas. We chose the song "Company" by Justin Bieber. There was  a ton of pre-production things that had to be done first. We had to write a beat sheet, schedule time and dates that worked for everyone, create storyboards and a lot more. I think there was a little too much involved in the preproduction that just was not necessary. For example, we had to do a blog post before we filmed and i really done feel like that made sense to do before the filming because we already had a lot on our plates and that just added un needed weight in my opinion. But after we finally finished the pre-production stuff, we finally got to the filming. I was unable to film at for the first time when they filmed at the park, but i helped later when we filmed at school. I learned a lot through this project, like that pre-production takes a long time so you have the manage you're time very wisely. I also got to experience my first entertainment project and that was super fun. I think that editing was the hardest part because we all had different ideas and did not always agree with each other but in the end we made it work and compromised where needed. But overall, i think this project went well and I'm excited to continue with entertainment.

Music Video Review

For this blog post, I am reviewing and analyzing the music video "Shake It Off" by Taylor Swift. I think the story and meaning behind this song is really great and is told really well from the music video. Some of the lyrics in this song are about just being yourself and forgetting about the haters and what other people think of you. So I'm the video it was showing Taylor dancing as a ballerina, a hip-hop dancer, a cheerleader, contemporary dancing, etc. and this went perfect in the video because it just showed that she can be or do whatever she wants to because she is her own person and she doesn't care what other people think, which is exactly what the song is saying. There were a lot of great things in this video that I would apply to my own work. For example, how what she's singing matches like the dance moves she's doing. Just making sure what is being said and what is happening goes together is very important in a music video and something I'll definitely apply myself. There were a lot of great things done in this video, like the variety of shots used and the variety of things happening in the video was just enough to keep viewers interested but not get them confused on what is going on. Theres really nothing that I can critique or say needs improving in this video, considering it's professional, but it was very well done and I will keep in mind everything i learned from this video to my current and upcoming projects.