JJ Interview

Star Wars Legos and An Awesome School Blood Drive

Super Busy Weeks

The last couple of weeks have been crazy in Video class. We did a project where we filmed a fellow classmate build a lego spaceship and asked questions throughout there building process. We took these clips when there were talking and did J and L edits with them. A J and L edit is where you take a clip of the person talking and you put another clip over them talking so you are seeing them build the lego spaceship while at the same time you hear them talking. During the middle of this project we started doing another project which was pretty much the same thing we have been doing except this time it was over the blood drive.

Similarities and Differences

There were some pretty distinctive similarities and differences between the two projects. The lego project was definitely more planned out, while the blood drive was right on the spot. The blood drive however was definitely a very cool experience because it kinda felt like you were a news channel covering this blood drive event, getting cool shots and getting interviews it was very cool.

The Lego Project
The lego project was the 1st project we started working on. What we did was we got into partners and we took turns from actually filming to building the lego spaceship. The goal of this project was to kind of get a perspective on convergence journalism. This was pretty fun for me as I am wanting to go into the convergence journalism strand. I learned that you want to get a lot of different shots especially close ups. This was a great experience for me and I hope to do more stuff like this in the future.

The Blood Drive Project

The blood drive project which took place during the lego project was a little hectic but was still an awesome experience. It felt like you were a news reporter covering a story which was a lot of fun. I was able to get some really good shots but there was definitely some things I would do differently next time. I would first get a lot more shots interviewing the person and get him talking more. I would next get a lot more different shots especially close ups. Unfortunately I was not able to get shots of him actually donating the blood because we ran out of time but like I've said before this experience was such a good experience for me.

Postcards

This is the first thing we worked on in class. It's an awesome clipping mask, which a clipping mask is basically where you put an image over a letter for example and then when you apply the clipping mask to it the picture goes over the picture perfectly. It ends up looking really cool. I learned how to really use the clipping mask and how it works and overall this piece really tells a lot about me and I think it turned out really cool.

Since Christmas is coming up what better way to celebrate the holidays by making a postcard. This postcard was a lot of fun to make while using some of the things I have learned over the semester. One thing I really like my postcard is the santa. By dropping down the opacity on him it gave it the perfect look for the postcard. Another thing I had to do was make sure the reindeer were aligned so I made sure they were aligned. Overall this was a really fun postcard to make. 

This postcard I made using my name and the place I am wanting to live when I'm older which is Portland, Oregon. I focused a lot on the text of my name by adding really cool effects and I also find a really cool font. I also decided to add lighting to my piece. I like to add lightning to a lot of my pieces because I think lightning is really cool and its kind of my unique thing to me.

Floating Mountain

This tutorial we did was absolutely awesome. What we did was we took a mountain which was in the middle of an ocean took that mountain and put it into the sky. Which we then had to add two objects to the mountain in the sky. I decided I should add lightning and then to make it look even cooler I added a blue moon at the top right. In the end I learned how to overlay pictures and it was definitely worth it.

Professionally this took some collaboration as we helped each other out with ideas. We did have a project deadline for this project which I had to make sure I got it done in time. The things I learned when doing this was how to layer the lightning in the picture and make it so it looks like it is actually happening and then I of course learned how to make the mountain look like it is floating in the sky.

The Show Goes On- Music Video

This project we did in video was a music video made by us. The scope of the project was to make a music video using music and while doing this following the 6-shot system and having the video be 1 minute and 30 seconds long. The process of making this video was long but worth it.

           For the Pre-Production part of the video we had to come up with an idea. So are idea is there is two guys. One is a basketball player and the other is a dancer. Both of them are not that good at what they do so at the beginning of the video you see both of them fail. During the middle of the video they try to get better by training and practicing. Then finally they succeed at the very end of the video. When then took this idea and storyboarded it which took about 2-3 days including figuring out this idea.

          The production of this music video was stressful yet very fun at the same time. First why it was stressful was the locations we picked out. The 2 locations we used were the gymnasium and the auditorium. Now what we didn't put into consideration but should of was how busy those locations were going to be. In the end we were only able to use the gymnasium once. The auditorium wasn't as much as a problem though as we were able to shot in there for most of the days. What I would change to no run into this problem again is to either make it so we are shooting in at least 5 different locations or to make sure the locations we pick out arn't going to be used a lot.

           Post-Preduction ah my favorite part. Editing this video took about a week. I had a big decision to make though. Either use just the dancer's shots so the video isn't too confusing but yet the video would be a little short of 1 minute and 30 seconds or use both basketball player and dancer shots but it would be a little confusing considering we didn't get all the shots we wanted for the basketball player but the video would meet the time needed. Well as you can see I chose the second choice. It was a little tough but I tried to make the video make as much scence as possible. Overall with editing I thought I did a decent job.

            The things I learned while doing this project is while filming try to make the subject in the lightest spot so there face or body don't look so dark. While editing I learned how to set markers to the beat of the music so my shots for the video went with the beat which is a super cool thing. I also learned a lot about teamwork on this project. We had to share directing roles between 3 people and as a group were determined to make the deadline for the project.

            What I would do differently is first make sure we have good locations with no one going to be in those locations which leads to the next thing I would do differently is get a lot more shots. Not having those shots really hurts you when it comes to editing time. Things I would do the same is use the same storyboard/teamwork idea we used. Also the types of shots we used were also good.

             The experiences I will take from this project is the form of teamwork used, the types of unique shots we did, and also the new marker tool we learned to do in final cut pro. Overall I thought we hit some bumps here and there during this project but in the end it was a lot of fun.

Creative Pieces

This first sphere was done in photoshop. This tutorial was easy but tricky at the same time. The tricky part about it was lining up the the two lighter parts of the circle on the inside. I learned how to copy a part of a shape and to flip it 180 degrees. It pushed my limits by making me try new things in photoshop

http://www.axialis.com/tutorials/tutorial-misc003.html

This tutorial was the same as the red sphere but I added my own touch to the sphere. I made it with a cool blue and also added some typography by adding the letter G representing my name. I rotated the G so it goes more with the sphere.

I definitely feel like my work flow has changed after doing these tutorials. I feel like I'm more efficient on my work and i have gotten a lot better at making spheres.

Red Spheres

With the red spheres done(Top sphere being Photoshop and Bottom sphere being Illustrator) . I learned that with just a circle you can make it into a sphere. All you need to do is add a point of light to the top of the sphere. Then you add the shadow to the bottom. Just like that the circle you had now looks like a sphere. I learned how to use the gradient tool a lot better and other tools. I found that using Adobe illustrator was easier than using Photoshop. Illustrator has tools that were easier to make the circle and it was also easier to add a gradient to the circle and for the shadow.