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.

My Logo

This is the logo I made in Adobe Illustrator. I think the most Important thing about this logo is the background of it:the Gryphon. The Gryphon is a mythical creature that head the head and wings of an eagle and the body and tail of a lion. When someone asks me what my name means I can tell them that it means a powerful mythical creature which I think is super cool. I thought the dark blue gradient went well with the shield. I used a shield because it goes well with the Gryphon and it adds even more of the mythical idea into the logo. I really like the font I used with my logo because it looks good while still kinda having that mythical look to it.

What helped me a lot with the process of this logo was the tutorial I did awhile ago on making a shield in illustrator. The other thing I did was do sketches of my logo. This helped me pick out which one I liked best out of my sketches. What I learned from this assignment was how to make a shield. How to use the gradient tool a lot better. If I had to learn more of one thing it would be the line tool. I thought I did very well. I think that I think I could of done better was making the shield have a shiny look to it.

Shiny Shield

This was the the tutorial I did. It was how to make a shiny shield in illustrator. The process was fairly easy and it was also a fun project to do. I learned a little more on how to add anchors and how to make an object shiny. Im getting good at adding colors and gradients to objects on illustrator. Here is the link to the tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6NlFOawIvo

My Font

After taking a font survey I learned that I am Edwardian Script. I then typed my name with my font and analyzed it.

The Google Logo

The pre launch to the google logo was between 1997-1998. Google went though lots of color changes through time. When the last google logo was finished Kedar says  "We ended up with the primary colors, but instead of having the pattern go in order, we put a secondary color on the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules." So google wanted to show that they are creative and that they don't follow rules. The word google got the idea from the word googol which is a number which is exactly 10¹⁰⁰

This resembles that google has a TON of search options to chose from. Google has came a long way from when they started to now. For example look at what Google's logo looked like when they first launched google------------------------------------------------>


You may notice that the G is green compared to the regular one which is blue. The google logo has gone through lots of letter color changes through the years and that is another thing that makes google unique but one thing I think that is really cool that google does is on every holiday or famous peoples birthday's gouge will change there logo to resemble that person or holiday which I think is a very cool and unique thing that google has done for awhile.

The Chase

The scope of this project was to have a video that followed the 6-shot system and to have A-B sequencing while having a chase going on. For the process of the video what we did in Pre-Production of our video was story board it out. We wanted are video to not be an original Chase video and to have a person be the chaser. We wanted to add suspense but also had humor to our video. You may notice that the main character in our video changes clothes time to time in the video as this was one of the problems we ran into when filming the video.

The filming process took approximately 2-3 days. Editing is always my favorite part as you get to go back and see all the shots you got, while putting them all together to make our video. I learned that taking the camera off of the tripod and putting on the ground is a great thing to do if your looking for a super cool shot. With final cut pro I learned an easier way on how to trim clips and I also learned how to lower the volume in a certain clip or a certain amount of your video which is super useful.

One thing I would do differently right off the back is to have the main character wear the same clothes or like a sweatshirt for the whole video because with all the clothes changes we have in our video it makes the viewer kind of confused.

One thing that I think I did very well was following the 180 degree rule. Another thing that I feel I did well was while editing I made the shots during the chase scene very quick shots.

The experiences I will draw from this project and put into the next is to make sure if we are doing a video with running or an intense scenes to do quick shots. Another thing I will make sure to do is to don't do the same shot over and over, you want to mix up the shots.

Overall I thought I did fairly well with this project and it was also a lot of fun.

6 Shot System- Point A to Point B

The close up of the face is good for showing emotion of the face and detail.

The over the shoulder shot is good for showing what the person is doing and kind of shows from there point of view.

This medium shot does a good job showing where he is at while he is still in frame.

This wide shot shows him running all the way around the corner. This is a good shot to get a lot in one shot.

This medium shot sets up for the close up of hands coming up. This medium shot is good for letting the viewer know where he is in the video.

Lastly the close up of the hands adds a more detailed and more dramatic clip to the viewer.

First Graphic Design Project

Our first project of the year was to make a basic pencil with instructions in Adobe Illustrator. The process was fairly easy this is how it turned out..

 The next step was to make our own pencil without instructions in Adobe Illustrator. This was a little harder than the first time since there was no instructions but after a little I got the hang of it. This is how it turned out..

                                              

The final part of are project was to make 2 objects of our own is Adobe Illustrator pretty much using tools that we learned. I made my phone which is the HTC one and I also made the Apple Mouse. Here how it turned out.

In the end I learned a lot of things in Adobe Illustrator especially certain tools and what they do. The 3 takeaways that I came up with were

 1.When using the polygon tool you can add more or less sides with the up and down arrows. 

2.On a shape or object you can add an anchor point to round or even change the shape. 

3. Using the gradient tool can help applying color to an object and then applying the amour of light you want.

Cutting Carrots

From this assignment I learned more about the 6 shot system and using Final Cut Pro. I also learned not to make the mistake of crossing the 180 degree rule. In future projects I will make sure to not break the 180 degree rule. I will also make sure to apply each shot that is needed to future project.

What is Graphic Design?

Graphic design is very unique in many ways. Lets say you are walking down a street in New York city, you will see graphic design on signs, billboards, on buildings, and everything else.  You can make graphic design through text, pictures, shapes, colors, and textures. People use programs like Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, or InDesign. Good graphic design makes peoples lives better and in the end graphic design is everywhere.