Last Junio Final: Presentation

Angie Torres

Hr. 7

Video Production

Video Production Reflection

   Growth: 

   My career in e-Communications started my freshmen year. Freshmen year started off with me not knowing anything at all. Quarters were divided and I went through the process of going through animation, video, web, and graphic design. I knew I wouldn't want anything to do with web and animation as I completely didn't have a clue of what I was doing. However, I did now I wanted to go to video regardless of who the teacher was. Fast forward to sophomore year and I was taking Video Production and Graphic Design. I really disliked graphic design, mainly because I didn't learn anything because the teacher didn't know how to teach and made the students ask google how to do a specific thing. Not the best experience. Video Production continued to grow my interest as I learned more and realized filming was a lot of fun and much more simpler than graphic design. It was fun and the only reason I'm still in e-Comm. Now that my junior year is over, I've learned a lot of things to how to get shots in sports events to how to use the camera and tripod to how to set up for games. I've learned how to edit and make videos cleaner and more professional. I've improved a lot since freshmen year and I'd like to thank you, Mr. Cooper. I'm not sucking up, freshmen year I learned a bit but not that much. Sophomore year you've helped since second semester and I'd like to thank you because when I needed help you didn't tell me to go ask google but instead you actually helped and helped me grow in the field. 

Relationships: 

   Throughout this whole year, I've met some new people.  Not a lot, but new peers in this class. Seniors, although I didn't speak with them unless I needed help with scheduling. I've met new juniors but only like 3. I've developed a friendships with them. Not to deep but I got along with all of them and there wasn't any drama. I learned how to cooperate with them and made sure communication was a priority in order to make sure no one was disagreeing with an idea. If they criticized my videos, I felt comfortable with them and make sure not to take it to heart because their critiques were very helpful and helped me improve on my video productions. Their help really helped me grow and I'm happy I got to know them personally and professionally. 

Time Management:

   This class has really pushed me to make sure I used my time wisely. There were times where I had to stay after school and finish videos and there were times where I had to make 2 videos in the time of 3 days. It was stressful and sometimes I wanted to scream but I made it through. My first video was probably some commercial freshmen year and now my normal pieces are of sports that are 35 seconds. They got better and I improved which I am satisfied about because I am really considering taking video production as a career. It took me about two hours to do each one but as the year went on I became much faster and it has taken me about only one hour. 

Last Junior Final: Self-Reflection

Angie Torres

HR.7

My junior year in e-Communications is what I would call productive. I thought it was going to be less busy and maybe less time consuming but I was wrong. My year went like this:

   Football season started and I got b-roll for each home game. I was happy to do so as  I spent time watching the game as well as interacting with my friends. It went fun and because I filmed got b-roll the majority of the games, I had time to experiment with Final Cut. I figured out what each button did and got the hang of fading and fixing the lighting on videos that were off. I also learned how to work the tripod which I honestly haven't had the chance to actually work with it. It was useful for when I filmed soccer because other sports like football or baseball I used my hands. I also learned how to do voiceovers. They weren't the best, I can say for sure, but I improved since the beginning and I can say I'm satisfied because I know how to do them and I know what is expected and that will make my future senior stories much better.

   Challenges along the way would include how I should've managed my time. Things don't always go as expected and with this program it is very important to make sure you're flexible and can manage the schedule without throwing a fit. Sometimes I had to do homework for classes and it would intervene with games I was put to film. Sometimes I just had to assign someone else to film a game because I couldn't make it. For next year I'm going to try to make my time in class much more productive and I will try to make the program like a job and make it a priority because at times it wasn't.

  My greatest strengths in this class would include getting shots and editing the videos. I film the sports so I got much better holding the camera steady and making sure I got interesting shots instead of the same ones over and over. My editing also got better as I cut off the useless shots and got creative with effects like fading and using the rule of thirds. My weaknesses would include writing down voiceovers. I absolutely hate doing them. I improved on SAYING them, but I'm horrible at writing them. I can never think of what to write for them and thankfully I have Catherine that knows how to do them.  I tried to improve on making the voiceovers but it went ok but it still wasn't the best.

  If there could be one thing I would change it would be to make sure none of the sophomore have access to the equipment room because there was too many times I almost didn't have a camera and I had the small cameras sophomore year so they should as well. Other than that I'm pretty ok with everything else, I understand why classes have to be split up because there wouldn't be space in the room with like 40 students.

In conclusion, junior year was fun. I made memories and I learned al to over the technology. I still hate doing voiceovers and I doubt that will change but at least I improved on saying them. At least tried to. Can't wait for next year!


 

Professional Project Review: Football Edition

   
          This is the professional project review I chose to analyze. It was a highlight video of how Dakota Ballinger, #45, did during the football season for Morgan County Cougars. Including catches, tackles and many more.

          The story was just a highlight video and at the beginning there is a close up of Ballinger so the audience knows who he is at the very beginning. It was just told by sharing his most impressive plays on the field. One specific element I would take from this work is that if I was ever doing a feature story for someone who plays sports, I could definitely take the same style as the person who made the video did. Show the person the feature is about in he beginning, and show their most impressive plays with upbeat music in the background.

         One element that is already used that I already know is the rule of thirds and how to do a highlight video which mostly includes play by plays. The creator did really good of getting all the shots...the shots were steady and the audience can clearly see Ballinger playing. One thing  the creator can improve on is putting in voiceovers as that can help for a feature story or get an interview with the player as it is always a great idea to get to know the player on a more personal level.

        In conclusion, the highlight video was good...the shots were good and he audience can tell that Ballinger is a good gootball player and the video flowed on smoothly.

How To Tutorial Technique Review: Audio

This tutorial is about audio and how to control and make it as good as possible. Audio is very important in videography and so today I will help you learn the BASICS because I'm not that advanced with the complicated works. Let's get started!

        My purpose for making this tutorial is to help those who don't know how to work audio and to teach them how to fix it using the BASICS so that their videos aren't as bad. People need this skill because audio is everything in a video and if the audio isn't good, people will either hear nothing come from the video, the audio will either be too loud, too soft, and that just gets annoying. The audiences include EVERYONE. More specifically those who want to get into the video industry or anything that has to do with audio on television. But since we are starting off small, my audience are students who are trying to learn more about how to fix audio when using Final Cut Pro. BASICS ONLY.

NOTE: This audio and audio doesn't have any steps sometimes...ENJOY!!

This is the first thing to do. Which is get onto Final Cut Pro. Here, for beginners, you can see the footage and audio of the certain footage. In order to see audio, just right click on the footage and press "Detach Audio."

                                                                                                                        

This a close up of one of the audios detached from the footage. As you can see, the lighter shade of green indicates how loud the audio is, since it's not red or yellow, it is at the right volume. There is a white dot to the right side and that dot is used in order if the person wants the volume to fade or not.

                                                              
As seen, if you pull the dot to the left, it will have the audio fade out instead of it ending abruptly.

                                                       
Here you notice that the volume got to high and it turned yellow, it has to be green at all times or else it be too loud for the audience.

                                                

If there are two parts of one audio you want to separate, use the blade tool by pressing 'B.' Then just click on where you want to make the cut and you will able to break the audio into two.

Now that you know the basics, it is important to know that there will be multiple noises that will compete with each other. To balance out the sounds, go to the right of the screen where it says Channel Configuration. Here you will see the down pointed head of an arrow so click on that.

In order to balance it, the switch will be in "Stereo." Click on "Dual Mono" to balance out the noises. That is the basics of fixing audio on Final Cut Pro.

         This tutorial is about audio and how to control and make it as good as possible. Audio is very important in videography and so today I will help you learn the BASICS because I'm not that advanced with the complicated works. Let's get started!

        My purpose for making this tutorial is to help those who don't know how to work audio and to teach them something that wont make their videos as bad. But my help will probably only help a little. People need this skill because audio is everything in a video and if the audio isn't good, people will either hear nothing come from the video, the audio will either be too loud, too soft, and that just gets annoying. The audiences include EVERYONE. More specifically those who want to get into the video industry or anything that has to do with audio on television. But since we are starting off small, my audience are students who are trying to learn more about how to fix the audio when using Final Cut Pro.

Here is a video that will help better understand audio in Final Cut Pro. Sources go to KingTutsPro.

Professional Winter Article Review

           This is my professional article review. I chose an article that described the dangers of winter temperature. It warns everyone that is important to stay warm during these cold times because your life really depends on it

           The author, Jacqueline Howard, urges everyone to stay as warm as possible during the cold weather as some factors of being too cold could end up killing us. She uses scientific evidence to support her claim. The body has to keep the most important organs safe and warm --brain, lungs, and heart-- and so in order to do this, the body draws away blood vessels from the fingers and toes in order to keep the body from getting frostbite, heart attacks, asthma symptoms, or hypothermia.

      With the scientific research Howard has made, she makes her article much more relevant and her claim is strongly backed up. Her strength is doing her research and by doing so makes her a very reliable source. A weakness of Howard is that she claims that the body needs to protect the brain, heart, and lungs. Though she only goes in depth with what happens to the heart and lungs if the body didn't immediately act...she never talked about what would happen to the brain if the body never reacted quickly against the cold weather.

        The author's general conclusion is to stay as warm as possible by wearing as much clothing as possible. Wear jackets, sweaters, hats, gloves, anything that will keep the body warm and radiating heat. She also explains that there are other ways of staying warm, to keep your home as warm as possible, to have the fireplace running all night, get as much blankets to stay warm in, drink hot chocolate, and to put the heater on.

   In conclusion, the article relates to me as a videographer as when I do stories for sports, I have to do my research of what happened in the game and keep scores in order to make myself a reliable source. I need to be kept up to date and if I have other sources that help my story improve, I can add that to my work as well.

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Personal Fall Sports Project

      My personal project is the Fall Sports video I did back in September. The video was assigned to get the rest of the student body excited for the fall sports games. The video consisted of football, boy's soccer, girl's tennis, girl's golf, gymnastics, and cross country. 

     The process for the making of the video wasn't difficult but it wasn't easy. In order to get all highlights from the fall sports, someone had to go to games for each sport. I was able able to go to the home football games and film on the sidelines. After getting enough footage from each games, editing is next. I got all footages and picked the best from each sport. There were some sports like football showed more in the video than a less as exciting sport like golf. After I picked the footages, I has to get a song that went with the mood in order to get everyone excited for the fall season. 

    I had help from Adam Cook picking the song choice. We ended up choosing "After Dawn" by Jaeger and Meric and "Purple Lamborghini" from the Suicide Squad movie playlist. We divided the songs and put the faster beats in all the videos. Ben Whitney was the one who helped with the audio on making it fade and help balance the audio for the video. 

    What I would do better in the end is get more footage from other sports that aren't as popular like football or soccer. I would get cross country and golf and especially tennis involved more. I would also make the audio better because it ended up not being the best at the assembly. 

    What I would do the same is collaborate with my classmates and hear their perspective of the video as they help the video look better. Collaboration is important in Convergence and i'm happy I ended up getting help from my peers, as well as Mr. Cooper. 

In the end, I got to do something different which was the highlight video and it was a bit different from what I'm normally used to and it made me think more of what process I should take on, like whether I should of picked the music first or edited the footages first. It ended up being a really fun experience for me and I ended up learning more and if were to do it again I'd be happy too. 

Graphic Design Reflection

E-Communication Graphic Design Reflection

         I learned how to use Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator more in depth this year. Last year in grade nine I only had a quarter in Graphic design and so I didn’t have enough experience with both. I also learned how to use Adobe InDesign. In all programs I learned how to use tools and how to manipulate the colors in order to get them the shade just right. I also learned how to make a magazine and poster in Adobe Illustrator. First I would scale it to the right size. Then, I would take away the color from the poster, so I could put in the color I wanted. After I finished adjusting the color, I would import the image into InDesign in order to get rid of all the pixels and clean it all up. After I fix it I exported it into the server to send it off to print.

         I learned how to use all Adobe programs from my fellow peers and Google. As Lofquist always said, “Before you ask me, ask your peers. If that doesn’t work, ask Google. If that still doesn’t work, ask Google again.” Google gave me the answers when my peers couldn’t. Sometimes Lofquist did help and it was helpful, but I always made sure to ask Google before Lofquist. An example would be when I had to ask my peers and Google was when we had to do our own packaging. My group and I wanted to make a skateboard ramp kind of package. I wanted to two handles on both ends of the package and I didn’t know how to do it. I asked my peers and they tried helping me but they couldn’t figure it out either. I ended up asking Google and it gave me the answers I needed in order to finish my package. I’ve been learning a lot of technical skills.

         Reasons why learning the Adobe programs were important were so they can contribute to the rest of my projects. They improved my projects by load and made them look more professional and made my clients more satisfied.

         My strengths in this class are collaboration and communication. I love to work with people and share our ideas together. We all contribute and end up making our dream into a reality. Communication is also one of my main strengths. In order to collaborate, I have to have great communication skills. If the group doesn’t agree on something, we have to work it out professionally and in a mature way. By communicating, we worked out our problems and ended up being satisfied with one another.  My weaknesses are project management and leadership. I mostly need help from my peers in order to get the job done and when they need my help, I will help them as much as I can but I will only contribute only a little, so  I lack leadership. Project management is also pone of my weaknesses because I will try to finish my projects in time but since there is so many ideas going on in my head, I end up going a bit too excited and not getting my work done on time though it is always done on time.

         I improved this year by a lot. I learned how to use the tools and how to manipulate them to the best of my ability. I improved with also working with my peers. Before this year, I was more shy and I didn’t talk to that many people. As the year went on, I got out of my shell and I was able to communicate more with my peers and teacher.

         I’m going to contribute what I learned this year by applying it to my video class next year. I can make cool logos for the theme song. I can also use my technical skills if I need something for  class project. 

         Things I would change this year if I could work with more people. Get to know more people would’ve been great so I could’ve learned more from them. So I could’ve heard their ideas and help make their ideas turn into a reality.

         In the end, I think I deserve an “A” in this class. I had a lot of fun doing each project and I enjoyed sharing my ideas with Lofquist. She helped me when I needed it. Even though some of my projects were late, I still ended up doing more for my client. Each project satisfied my client and they loved my project. My logo looked nice and they liked the movie poster I did for them. With my peers, I helped as much as I could and collaborated greatly with them.