This month I was going to do a story on burn victim survivors since a camp asked to partner with us. I set up an interview with one guy, however I found out that my classmate was also interviewing him, so I decided to do a completely new project...one week before the deadline. I thought of what would intrigue our audience when we show Ladue View, so I decided to do a Buzzfeed-like video. I made sure it was a topic that everyone in our building could relate to in some way. I decided on "The 5 Types of Students you see in Seminar," narrowing my list down to five broad groups. My intention wasn't necessarily to be funny, just light and entertaining. I wanted to steer away from the serious aspect of broadcast journalism. I wrote up a script, found music, edited the music together and then filmed during the Seminar before deadline. I edited and completed my video TODAY and I'm actually really proud with how it turned out. I did a good job of preparing myself for this video, and made my job easy on myself while still producing a quality video.
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This month I'm finishing up a few projects I never completed. I posted a raw interview I conducted with my teacher, Mr. Goldwasser, whose son has been battling cancer for his whole life. When I interviewed him, I set up the shot and framed him correctly, however when it came time to actually begin speaking, he leaned forward cutting the top of his head out of the frame. I didn't think it was distracting enough to conduct a whole new interview. I really liked the things Mr. Goldwasser had to say, and I didn't want to risk losing good sound bites. That video can be found on my videos page. As the March deadline approaches, I'm putting together a few videos that I hope end up how I imagined.
For the past month or so I've been working on a new Ladue View intro, since we haven't had a new one in a couple of years. I started the process by story boarding, since my idea was super complicated. I've never really used a story board before but it has really helped and I think I'll do it more often. I chose to make this video because I like doing more creative projects and I had the opportunity to do whatever I want, within reason. Unfortunately, I waited way too long to start shooting. I think I was nervous because I've never done a project where every single shot has to be perfectly framed. I think the project I created for myself was intimidating and it took me a second to get myself started. Once I did get started, however, it wasn't as difficult as I anticipated. Since the beginning is stop motion-like I had to carefully take 22 of the exact same picture in different locations. I think is psyched myself out. I still have a few shots I need to get to finish my video up. I'm disappointed in myself that it isn't complete, but I want to make it perfect so as long as the final product is something I'm proud of, I think it will be okay. Moving forward, I plan on story boarding more and starting the production process earlier. I think this year I've learned that I prefer editing way more than actually filming. I like piecing clips together because that's where my creativity comes into play. After I finish the intro, I have a few ideas lined up that I'm really looking forward to.
For my next project I'm making a new intro for our show, Ladue View. I want to challenge myself and do something I haven't done before. I found two different songs I liked, except I only liked parts of each. So I cut the two instrumentals together and made an original song for the background music of the video. I then went through and made marks at every beat. The first 3 seconds had 22 marks, just to give you an idea. I plan on doing a stop motion type thing for the first few seconds and then go into video. I'm planning on having matched cuts between almost every shot. This is the first time I've actually gone through and story-boarded my project. I think it's gonna be really helpful because the shots are so specific. It's definitely gonna be challenging because I have a lot of unknowns ahead of me. I'm excited to see how the final product will be.
For my final I took on a mobile journalism project. My friend Aliza and I were walking out of school and she told me she was going to get a tattoo in memory of her sister who had passed away a couple years earlier. Aliza asked if I had wanted to go with and at first I told her I had to study, but then I realized that it was a really good story opportunity. So instead of going home after school, I hopped in her car and we went to the tattoo place. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me film inside the building or during the actual tattooing, but I was able to take pictures which I later turned into a montage. I didn't know how I would put this story together without and B-Roll so Mr. Goble suggested I get footage at the cemetery. I was really uncomfortable asking Aliza if she wanted to visit her sister's grave because I didn't want to cross the line, but it ended up that she was okay with it. After getting her tattoo we drove to the cemetery and I got footage of Jessica's grave with Aliza standing near it. I think I got a lot of good shots. The last thing I needed to do was interview her. I couldn't interview her at the tattoo parlor, and I felt wrong interviewing her in the cemetery, so we just did it in the car which turned out okay. Editing was really tough because I had to edit on my iPad on iMovie. I'm used to editing on a computer and with Final Cut Pro, so I got really frustrated. It was really tedious and took me way longer than necessary but I'm really happy with the final product. I think the story is really cool and unique and the B-Roll is powerful. My biggest challenge with this project was definitely editing on my mobile device. With practice, hopefully, I'll get better.
This month I actually edited two videos. One was the intro for our show focusing on Ladue's new schedule, and the other one was about Seminar. The first one I got finished with pretty quickly. We wrote a short script, recorded it, and then used various B-ROLL shots and animations for visuals. For the Seminar package, I definitely procrastinated a lot. I don't like interviewing people because I prefer filming different types of videos. I used two interviews that I actually shot myself, but the others were filmed by my classmates. I found it pretty easy to put it together since this is a topic I am somewhat passionate about. I did a few new creative techniques that I had never done before. Instead of starting an interview with a B-ROLL shot, I just lowered Kate's audio during my voiceover and after I was done speaking, I raised her for a really good soundbite. I think my videos turned out really good, and I can't wait to put the show together. I think it's gonna be really cool.
This past weekend two of my classmates and I got the opportunity to attend the National High School Journalism Convention that took place in Orlando, Florida. Of course, you can't travel to Orlando and not go to one of the parks, so the four of us (Reis, Jen, Mr. Goble, and myself) decided to spend Wednesday at Universal Studios. We went to Harry Potter World, rode rollercoasters, experienced 3D simulations, and of course found ourselves sipping on the popular Butter Beer. This day of fun definitely set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
After spending the day on Thursday practicing some mobile journalism skills, the convention kicked off with a keynote speaker, Andy Staples. He talked to all 6,000 students who attended JEA about the field of journalism and how to make yourself stand out. Some of the things he had to say really stuck with me, but once it got to the question and answer portion, it got a little repetitive so we ended up leaving a little early. On Friday we had the first of our classes. I got to choose which 50 minute discussions I wanted to attend, so I picked ones that I thought would be the most interesting, relevant, and helpful to me. The first one I went to was about Snapchat, and how it can be used in businesses. While I found this interesting, I'm not sure if I necessarily learned anything completely new. It did, however, spark a lot of ideas of how we can utilize different social media platforms at school. I went to two more classes that were a little dry, but my last class on Friday was probably my favorite one of the whole trip. It was called "Making Photoshop Magic." This class taught me so many really cool tips and tricks for using photoshop more efficiently. I learned how to color correct photos quicker and better, how to cut out difficult shapes easier, and how to make photos higher quality. Whenever the teacher showed us a new technique, everyone in the room gasped. It was incredible how easy some things that I thought were the hardest could be. (If that makes any sense) Saturday came pretty quickly and we spent the morning listening to Dave Davis talk about controversial video topics. It inspired me to try and find some uncomfortable stories and cover them well. The second class of Dave Davis that we attended was called "Make em Laugh Make em Cry." During this 50 minutes, we viewed some really touching videos along with some hilarious videos that Mr. Davis's students created. It made me realize how important emotion is to a video. In between classes, Jen, Reis and I decided to rent a little paddle boat for 30 minutes and paddle around the little lake by our hotel. It was a lot of fun, and a nice break from the classes. We ended our Saturday with a delicious meal at Planet Hollywood. I have never in my life eaten Mac and Cheese better than Saturday night. Overall, I had an amazing time and I wish I would have gone on the JEA trips in years past. I learned a lot, had fun, met new people, and gained a new love for broadcast journalism. I never took part in this trip previously, because I didn't think there was any way it could be that fun, and I didn't want to just spend a weekend learning, because I do that during the week. But I proved myself completely wrong. The discussions I attended were engaging and interesting, and when we weren't in a class, we were filming for a music video I'm going to edit this week. We got to walk around the Disney Boardwalk and explore our GIANT hotel. It was so much fun and I'm so glad I went. Oh yeah - we also won fourth place for Broadcast Story of the year!!! This year my high school undertook a new schedule that's caused a lot of controversy. A lot of the students I've talked to really dislike the new changes. (Go to my Multimedia page to learn more about the schedule) Instead of doing our usual Ladue View show where we feature a variety of packages, we're doing an entire episode focusing on different aspects of the new schedule. I'm covering the modified AC lab that they now call Seminar. Instead of traveling freely, students are now given three sub periods to get their work done. We can only visit up to three teachers at given times. It's difficult to find a variety of opinions because the majority of the students I've talked to say the same thing. I plan on spending my next Seminar talking to Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors, and maybe another teacher. I have great sound bites from a Senior, and one of the Social Studies teachers, but I need a variety of opinions to make my package unbiased.
I'm also working on a short intro for the show that explains the past schedule and the current schedule to give outside viewers the basic understanding that a Ladue viewer would know. I've used a lot of animation and text to make it visually appealing. I enjoy working on this mini project more than the actual news package because I prefer the more creative aspect of video making. I'm really excited to see how this show turns out. I think it could be really successful as long as all of our packages are unbiased and show both sides of every situation. This month we partnered with HEC-TV again and I produced three different factoids for their shows. I did two about trains that will hopefully be aired on their Explore! Train show, and I did one factoid for their Explore! River show. I used animation for all of them, because I didn't know how to tell a story just using B-ROLL from trains and rivers. I really liked using all different types of multimedia in this project. It gave me a chance to focus more on the artistic side of video production and I liked using my creativity. My favorite one was the first one I made about freight cargo. I used a lot of different tools to create the vision I had in mind. Using motion, text effect, transitions, and more, I completed the video really quickly. Overall, I'm really proud of how these factoids turned out and I hope they air on HEC-TV's live shows. It's such an amazing opportunity.
For our first project of the year, we were assigned the 6 Word Video project. We had to come up with a story, about ourselves, in 6 words and use 6 different camera angles to tell said story. I was unsure of what aspect of my life I wanted to capture. I decided to be more broad with my story and portray that I am a little quirky. My six words were "I'm not perfect, but who cares." In my short video, I show me failing at basic cooking tasks at the beginning. At the end, I show myself getting ice cream instead of trying to cook. I made sure the text at the beginning which said "I'm not perfect" wasn't completely aligned to represent my imperfections. This was a really fun project to film and edit and I like the creativity it encompassed.
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AuthorOn my blog I will be sharing some behind the scenes pictures and sharing about upcoming videos. Archives
March 2016
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