Practice Profile Story

Before our making a final profile story that would be submitted for a chance to be aired on television, we made a practice profile story. It was a good thing that we made a practice video because we made mistakes that we learned not to do for our final profile story. Our story was about Kaylee and how teamwork is an important aspect in her life. We chose Kaylee because she would be the most interesting out of our group. Kaylee has a personality that translates well on camera, so she was a good person to interview and film. 

Profile Project Progress

Mr. Sanderl  recently wrote a grant and received brand new advanced cameras and microphone packs that were to be used for this project: Elder Words of Wisdom.  Mr. Nunn was always one of my favorite teachers throughout middle school and his outgoing personality made him our group's top canidate. We knew Mr. Nunn has a lot of things to say that would make for a great video. Our project was about Mr. Nunn and his life as a teacher and what led him to become a teacher. Mr. Nunn had an interesting life before teaching; he had a variety of jobs including owning an art gallery, but his passion always remained with children. Then, Hurrican Iniki hit, destroying his business, forcing him to chose another career so he decide to become a teacher. We interviewed him in his own classroom because we felt it was a setting where he would feel most comfortable. 

To help the audience make more sense of our film, we used B- Roll and voice- overs. B- Roll is the alternative footage used to cover the main interview. Covering the slip- ups of the interviewee or camera movement are some of the instances B- roll is used. B- Roll is used to help tell the story better or to make a point clear. Our B- Roll consisted of Mr. Nunn's classroom and him teaching. Voice- overs are used to narrate the story. They are used to create smooth transitions, add interest, or clarify something, when used properly. We planned our voice- overs very precisely; we had a production plan template that we used to write down what we had to record. Mr. Nunn sometimes did not repeat the question we asked him in his question so we recorded transitions to make the story flow and understandable.

To work together better, our team could envision what we want our video to be like so we are all on the same page. This would help our team to work better together by making ourselves plan out what we need to do to get the results we want. Our production plan helped us a lot because we could write our ideas down and see which ideas worked and which didn't. We have gotten better at spreading out the work and assigning jobs, but we could always improve.

Our critiques are very helpful on deciding what we need to improve on in our video. Judging from our results, we need better visuals. We have already filmed more B- Roll, but we might need more. Another helpful suggestion we got was we needed to make our overall story flow. This comment was especially helpful because we now know why our story didn't seem quite right. We have already planned out how to make our story flow better by simply rearranging the order of the interview.

Composition Techniques

Composition techniques are used in both photography and cinematography.  The four main composition techniques are rule of thirds, framing, unusual angles, and  leading lines. They are important because without them, the audience would get bored watching a video with the same angle. Even if you have a great video, without using any composition techniques it wouldn't be as interesting as if you did have them.

Rule of thirds is a widely used composition technique. When using rule of thirds, you align your subject on the outside thirds of an imaginary grid. Framing is when you use your surroundings to frame a subject and draw attention to it. Unusual angles are used to create interest; they add excitement by taking a shot from a different perspective. Leading lines are used to draw focus to a subject by using natural lines bring the viewer's eyes to look at what you are trying to show. 

Three Shot Sequence

A sequence is is a series of clips that are related with different angles that shows the action of something happening. When you sequence, you show action by using four different types of angles: wide, medium, close, and extreme close. Sequencing is important because with out it, the viewers would be confused as to what is happening. If you watched a video with no sequencing, it would be boring to watch and you would lose interest quickly.

One of our assignments in GT was to create a three to four shot sequence of a simple action. My group (Kaylee and Zoey) create a sequence of a girl opening a door. Our first shot was a wide shot of a girl walking towards the door. The next shot was a medium of the girl about to open the door. Finally, there was a close shot of the girl opening the door.

Practice Story Reflection

Yesterday, our team faced very high- pressure situations in trying to finish our Practice Story. Our task was to create a video. My teammates were Zoey and Kaylee. Our video was about a girl that loves teamwork and we interviewed her and showed footage of her demonstrating teamwork. On the first day of filming, we got exactly what we needed: a good interview, but on the second day we weren't sure what to film so we wasted time figuring out what to film so we did not have much footage. Then, we planned what we wanted to film so we could do it the next day during advisory.

After we got what we needed for our B- Roll, we started to edit our video. Our team worked pretty well together. We split up the work: one person was editing while the other two finished our transcriptions. Next, we recorded our our transitions that would make the video go more smoothly and understandable. Since we were all pretty hard- working and no one was really slacking off, we had no arguments and got a lot done.

Even though, we filmed again and thought we had enough footage, we soon realized we did not have enough. A lot of our time was used to figure out what we were going to show. Deciding that our team did not have enough footage, we used the computer camera to film. The rest of the period consisted of deciding what to put where and making our video make sense. Despite our efforts, we ran out of time and had to turn in our assignment a few minutes late. 

If we could do this again, we would plan out what we were going to do before we do it because it makes everything easier to accomplish. If possible, we would work a little bit faster and maybe even go in before or after class to work on our video. Overall, I think our team did pretty well and we were a good team that worked together and split up the work evenly.

Polar Panoramas

Here are my Steps to a Polar Panorama. I took 10 or more vertical photographs going from left to right while overlapping each other by about 25% at a unique location. Using Adobe Camera Raw, I edited my pictures. Using "photomerge" on Photoshop, I created a panorama. Next, I distorted the picture so it was a square and rotated it 180 degrees. Then, I used the filter "polar coordinates" to create the polar panorama.

These are the steps I took to create the cut out of myself and the shadow using the Quick Selection Tool. First, I opened the picture I wanted to use in Photoshop and created a copy of the layer. Next, I used the Quick Selection Tool (w) and select the parts of the photo I wanted to use (minus tool to deslect parts you don't want). Then, I smooth and feathered the cutout and copied and pasted it onto my polar panorama. Finally, I copied the cutout and turned the exposure down so it was black, turned the opacity down and skewed the "shadow" so it looked more realistic.

Spherical Panoramas

 These are my two of my spherical panoramas. To create them, I used a camera to take 10- 15 vertically oriented pictures going from left to right, while getting about 10%- 15% overlap, in a complete circle. Next, I used Adobe Camera Raw to edit and enhance my photos. Using Photoshop's Photomerge function, the images were stacked into a panorama. Then, I compressed the panorama into a square and used the filtered the image to the polar coordinate setting. Finally, I used a circular marquee tool to select my spherical panorama, feathered the edges, and applied a black or white background to it.