Video Semester Final Blog

Semester Final

1st Feature Story

This project we did in video was a feature story. This was the 1st feature story we have done through the semester. I chose to do my video on sophomore, Gabby Chapa, and there singing abilities. This feature story probably took about 2 weeks all together. It was mostly easy but i did run into a few challenges. The first time i set the interview up and interviewed her, I looked at the clips later and realized the there was absolutely no sound. because the mics just weren't on while i filmed, this wasn't an east fix. I had to learn how to make sure the mics were always on so that it wouldn't happen to me again, and then set the interview up again and re-film it. So really sound was the only problem i faced through this project, and when i was given feedback from my classmates and teacher, it was all just about making sure my volume was even and steady through the interview. So after i fixed all the sound problems, i would say it was a successful video and i wouldn't change anything else about it.

ONW Now/3rd Feature Story

For this project, as a sophomore class, we created our own ONW Now. This project took about a week i would say. I think out of all of the projects that we have done this semester, this was one of the easiest. The reason i feel as though this was one of the easiest is because i volunteered to do a feature story, with a partner, and to be a News Anchor. At this point, i have already done 2 other feature stories so i kind of had it down what i was supposed to do, and i had a partner so i wasn't doing all of the work by myself. The feature story we created for ONW Now was over some girls from the JV ravens dance team. I had a lot of fun shooting this video because we interviewed some of my close friends and i got to go to morning practice with them and watch them dance. I also wrote the voiceover for this feature story, and maybe because i really already knew what to do, it just came right to me. Through filming i didn't really have any problems at all it happened very smoothly. Being a news Anchor for ONW Now wasn't too hard either. All i had to do was write a short script for me and my partner, which he also helped with. While we were shooting live for ONW Now i did get confused a few times so i kept looking around while talking because i wasn't sure if it was even filming or not. But i think we just all needed more communication and then it would have gone smoother. But besides those things, this was probably my favorite project and i wouldn't really change anything.

Class Time

When we were working on projects in class, i think i would usually do a pretty good job at staying on task and being focused on my work. Even though at some times it could be a little challenging if my friends wanted to talk, but overall i got things done on time and with my best effort. If their were ever a time when i would finish my work early in class and had nothing else to work on for that class, i would try to go back and look at my work to see if i could fix anything that could be critiqued or that could even just be better. Outside of class, i will take more time to work on my voiceovers to make sure they are clear and strong or even make time to film better b-roll, interviews, etc. 

Strengths/Improvements

As a video student, i have grown/progressed in many ways which have become my strengths. Some of my strengths are Collaboration and Leadership. I really like to work with other people, hear their ideas and help each other. To me, collaboration is a really great thing because there are 2 people working on something and sharing ideas and i think that is really great and helpful. I also think a strength of mine is Leadership. I love to feel like a leader and to be in charge. i am good at organizing things and times to meet for interviews and talking to teachers, or whoever i need to, to make sure that it happens and goes as smoothly as possible. I have named my strengths, but there are definitely things i could improve in. A couple improvements i need to work on are writing voiceovers and time management. I honestly don't like writing voiceovers at all, and when you don't like something it can be hard to do it fast but good. So although i get them done, they aren't always the best and i will work on making them better. I also could improve in time management. I always get my videos done, but a lot of the time they are a little late. I just need to get things done a little quicker and for sure work on getting the editing done faster.

Summary

Overall, i have really enjoyed this semester. I really like convergents and i have learned so much. From learning to use the cameras, to using premier pro, to writing a voiceover, i have learned a crazy amount of things this year. I have really enjoyed working with others to interview them for feature stories and learn more about their lives and interests through it. In the end, i really don't think i would change anything from how this semester went because it went pretty well. I really hope that i enjoy entertainment next semester like i have this semester. So i can say it has been a very successful semester.

Professional article review

For my professional article review blog post, i read an article called "The 28 principles of animation" (http://www.animationarena.com/principles-of-animation.html). In this article, it just talked about important things that you need to keep in mind while animating to make sure your animation looks clean, realistic, and professional. I will just summarize some of the principles, what they mean, and why they're important. One of the first principles it talks about is to consider weight. What this means, is when you are animating a character of some kind, you need to pay attention to the weight of the character and the pull of gravity. Everything has a certain amount of weight and each about of weight will "act and react accordingly". I think this is an important factor because you will easily lose the audiences attention if you have feathers falling like brinks or bricks falling like feathers. Another important principle of animation is to always include details. Details are super important to include in an animation because they make the animation look way more realistic, which in turn makes it look more professional. Also, people like to look at something, like your character, and see details which gives your character more.. character. Another good principle is Simplification. although detail is great and you want details, you defiantly do not want to overdo it with details because then it is just too over powering for the audience and takes away from the rest of the animation. And same with the background, you don't want to have to much going on in the background because just like the details, it will over power the rest of it and distract the watchers from whats important. Those were just a few of the main principles of animation that this article talked about. I think this article in general was helpful and important because for people who are just starting in animation, after reading that article, now know what to look for and make sure of when you are animating to make it look the best it can.

Professional Project Blog

For my professional project blog post, i watch and will analyze the Disney short film called "Piper". In this short film, a mother bird is trying to get her baby bird, Piper, to learn how to get clams from the sand, to eat, by herself. But when Piper tries to do what her mother is teaching her, she fails over and over again. So, after her mothers method not working for her, she got back out there and tried once again, and by accident, she picked up a method of getting clams that no one else used, but it worked for her and she was catching even more than the other birds were. I think this short film actually does have a really good story line to it. To be more relatable to us, it is showing us that even if conventional methods don't work for us or if we just can't get something to work how we want it to, you just need to keep trying and be creative with it and figure out something else that works! There really wasn't anything to say about the animation part exact for that it was obviously very good and very clearly professional. thee were no scene changes that didn't make sense or didn't fit or anything, it all flowed very nicely and the animation was just amazing throughout all of it. I think this story was told very good because its one of those things that really touches peoples emotions and really draws people into watching it and it was just very good. I like the way it involved the audiences emotions and will defiantly try to use that aspect next time i make a short story or anything i can apply that to. I think that since it was Disney that create bitand they are extremely professional in animation, there really is nothing they could have done any better or anything i could critique. It was a great short film and i love the way it was all put together.

Technical Tutorial Blog

For this blog post, I am supposed to teach something that I learned how to animate, without the help of Mr.Netterville. So I learned how to animate text in Adobe After effects. So basically it is a pretty simple process of steps.

1. So to start with, you want to get whatever background you want behind your words and import it into after effect
2. Then you go to the tools panel and select the Horizontal Type tool
3. Next, click anywhere in the Composition panel, and type whatever you want it to say and then press Enter on the keyboard to select the text layer in the Composition panel.
4. Now if you go in the Character panel, you can chose whichever font you want and set font size to whatever you want
5. So next you will want to go to the Paragraph panel, and click the Center Text button so it will align the text in the middle and be centered.
6. Once everything is how you want it to look, you're ready to animate your text! So now you want to make sure your text layer is selected and then in the Timeline panel, move the time button to 3:00 and press the S key for scale
7. Then you want to press the little stopwatch button and add a key frame
8. Then, Move the time indicator thing to a different time, for example 5:00, and then press the scale value and reduce it about 50% or however much you want it to shrink. So by animating your text this way, you can make it grow and shrink!

After you do all of that, you can use things that we have learned in the passed, like ease in and ease out for example, to make it look more clean, or you can change the color of the text or anything else. This is just one of the many ways you can animate text while using after effects, which I learned on my own.

Feature story #2

In video, we created a 2nd feature story. The concept for my feature story was The life of an ONW football player. So i really just got into what its like to be a football player, what the pros and cons are and how it affects his life.  The whole theme for this feature story, was to get a better understanding of what its like to be a football player at Olathe Northwest High School. I combined the narrative lead and nut graph into one statement, but it helped make my feature story better because it really started it off right and made everything else flow easier. I interviewed ONW football player Jon Bowman and his football coach, Coach Sherman. These two really complimented each other and i think just went perfectly. Jon shared how much football has impacted him and what he loved about it, and then his coach would share how Jon has impacted the team and what he was really good at and what his strong suits are. Im glad i chose Jon and coach Sherman because it really flowed nicely and went great. Throughout the filming process, i did run into a few bumps. For example, the camera had a blue tint to it when i tried to shoot and i asked how to fix it but we couldn't figure it out so it just had to stay like that. Also it was a little hard to come up with a good voice over and script but that is more so just something i have to learn to do better. Besides those things, both of my interviewees were super easy and fun to work with. When we watched my video in class, i didn't get too much feedback for things i needed to fix except to fix the blue tint. Overall it was a great video and experience.

What makes a good feature story?

    There are a lot of aspects that make up a good Feature Story. A good feature story should share a story with the audience that flows well and gets the point across and there are a ton of ways to do that. The winning video in e-Comm showed a lot of good qualities that should always be in a feature story.

     I saw a lot of things that i liked in the winning video. For example, there were really strong shots in her b-roll. I think its very important to have strong shots because thats what makes up basically the entire video. While the voiceover is going people need something to look at that also goes along with the voice over and really gets the whole point across. If you don't have good shots in a feature story then the whole video will be thrown off and won't flow. The 6 shot system is a great way to get all the good shots you need, and its pretty easy. 

    Another thing that i noticed in Lina's video, was that her voice over was strong. Having a strong voiceover is also extremely important in a feature story because just like shots and angles, it makes up a huge amount of the video. The audience needs to be able to understand what you're saying and have a clear idea of what the concept and main idea is. Also the voiceover can be what tells the story and so its important for it to be strong.

    In the voiceover and just audio in general, its very important for it to be balanced. If during different scenes the loudness changed dramatically, it can distract from what you or the subject is trying to say and the audience can get confused easily. So audio balance is another very important detail in a feature story. These are just a few things that make up a great feature story.

   

    

Feature story Experience

For video, we had to create a Feature Story. In this feature story, we interviewed 2 people, one of them being the main subject and the other being the backup subject. We did both a video feature story and a written feature story.

I will start by reviewing the video feature story. To start creating it, i had to decide who i wanted to interview, what the concept would be and what i wanted the theme to be. then i had to set up interview times for the subjects that worked for both of us. Next, after i had interviewed them, i had to create the voiceover/outline. After all of that, i import my footage and voice over, and start editing. I think for me writing the voiceover was the hardest part of the whole project, because in the voice over I'm not supposed to say things like "I" and "me" so i had to work around that which was a little difficult but after i got passed the begining of the voice over, the rest of it just came to me and was easier. I also had a few problems when filming the interview. I had filmed the whole thing and asked all the questions and the when i went to look over the footage, there was no sound at all. So i had to set up another time for the people i needed to interview and redo it. It was not too big of a deal and it was pretty easy to set up another interview but it defiantly set me back a little bit. Although i was upset that i had to redo it, i learned to always check to make sure the sound buttons were on the correct setting and to test to make sure the sound works before you do all the filming. I really love doing interveiws and I feel like it's something I'm good at and I I'll definitely continue to do.

We also did a written feature story. For the written feature story, you get to use a lot of material from the voiceover you already created for the video one so it was much easier than the video feature story although I liked the video one much better. All I had to do for the written one was create a captivating beginning to the story, which was slightly difficult. Really I didn't see much of a point or challenge to the written feature story and it was even kind of boring if I'm telling the truth. So overall I have loved this project especially the video feature story and I am excited to continue doing them