Reflection

I learned a lot about content creation over the course of this semester and how to use the various computer programs that are available through adobe. I think that for me the best time I had was making content on adobe premiere pro. I think this was the best for me because I had already used other programs like adobe photoshop and illustrator and had major issues using them in the past. But, this program felt a lot different to me as it kind of felt like you were making your own sort of movie and I didn’t run into any sort of problems I had with the other computer programs such as the layers with photoshop or illustrator, or the rendering issues I had with audition. I also liked it more than audition because of the visual aspect as I like to see an image with sound behind it and not just text. I think the skills I learned from this course was gaining a better understanding of how computer programs work and how to better manage my time as these drafts and tutorials seemed like they would be easy at first but they turned out to be very complicated and took me hours to often finish. I think the career path I’m aiming for in the future is for more of a person to person interaction. But I think that the last two units could prove to be really useful in aiding me in that path as they deal with voice recordings and video recordings. This could be useful in my field because video and audio recordings are being used in the work force everywhere today such as in interviews, conference calls and when making a video for your company. I think for me personally I wish I could have learned a little about how to use programs other than adobe like how to fully utilize an excel worksheet, more on how to create a professional company page and other topics like those. I didn’t really find other videos or websites that were particularly helpful mostly when I had a problem or didn’t know how to change something the way I wanted I would consult my friends that were knowledgeable in adobe products. For future courses I think it would be helpful to give small tutorials on how to do certain things like changing the size of a picture on premiere pro. That way if a student forgets they wont have to search through thirty minutes worth of footage to find a simple task they forgot how to do.

final Video

For the final draft of my Video I didn’t change a lot with the overall style of my video. One of the changes I did make was putting the video in a different order so that it made more of a chronological order from where I started to the time I finished. That way you can actually see how hitting the gym over the course of a few years can completely changed my body. For my final draft I also messed around with the recording style of my videos because when I went back and looked at them they weren’t in the best of quality because I thought my phone would be a viable option for recording things off of my computer. But through a little research I was able to find out that my computer had an option for recording things straight off of the screen without purchasing anything which was really useful and provided a much needed upgrade in the overall quality of each video. There was one tricky part about it though in the fact that it the program made my computer really slow and made it really hard to play the videos I was trying to use, without having any choppy moments in the video. Luckily through trial and error I was able to get around this limitation without having to many errors in the video I thought. Lastly when it came down the final product I choose to use better transitions slides and fades that I had found through adobe premiere software that made it feel a lot smoother making it feel more like the workout video that I was trying to go for.  Overall I’m happy with this product as I feel it has clear transitions and a clear message that wasn’t bogged down by too many still images.

Video Story Draft

For this version of my video draft I went for a typical type of inspirational workout video. I used an intro provided to me by my school. As our mascot was a mustang we had used work to show it as the lifting program. To start off I went I with a two pictures of me from sophomore year when I had barley been In the lifting program and before I was really that big. Then I used a transition to go to the first video of me competing and winning our rack belt in competitions. I also had a video of me lifting from my junior year to show some kind of progression through the years. Then I went to a transition of our schools motto “ride or die”. This is to show that I have gone into my senior year and go into the final progression of my journey. There I have the video of me lifting my max to beat the school record and then a picture of my record hanging up to show what I had achieved. I think for my final production I could benefit form using more of the transitions and texts options available to me on Adobe Premiere. I think a fade to black or white might be really nice between the slides where I use the photos that I was given by my school as they are the true transitions between each year of high school. I could also use the text option provided to make it more clear that this is the transition between every year. Lastly I might try to find better music under fair use as the more I listen to it the more I think it feel a little off from the rest of the content in the video.

Raw video and storyboard

Storyboard

Audio

Parrell park from creative commons (0:00-1:04)

Visual

Redmond Mustang logo: (0:00-0:09)

Sophmore (0:09-0:21)

Lifting group (0:21-0:30)

Belt (0:30-0:40)

Lifting (0:40-50)

Record (0:50-103)

 

For the Unit 4 Raw footage and Storyboard project I planned to create a motivational workout inspired video that takes in the style of most people that workout online that’s typically found on YouTube. The process would be find a scrap of images showing a beginning stage to show where I start and eventually make it to an end stage to show growth through the project as most of the workout videos I found online where kind of in the same style. I was able to find most of the footage and pictures through old photos that my coach had and got permission from him. From there I was able to get the music off of the creative commons website, where I found a sort of workout beat that sounded close to the type of music I thought would fit a video like this. Making the video wasn’t very hard as I just used the best photos and videos available for me and didn’t add any editing techniques or fades to it. I think that for the final product I might try and find more videos as I feel still images don’t work as well in this medium and I think that the better means for a video would be better. Also I don’t know if I should use the audio from the true video as it is just a bunch of yelling, but it might add more of a authenticity to the video. I like the true audio from the video as I feel it really fits an inspiring fitness story you might find on YouTube or one in the style of an instructional video that was listed on the project summary guide. Last I think that maybe an end or beginning credits might be nice for the final product.

Premiere Tutorials

Audio Final

For the final design of my story i decided to go against things that i thought would make it better because i didnt think they would be needed. For instance i kept in the idea of slicing my audio together because I thought that it would make me sound more enthusiastic and liven the mood of the audio instead of having to listen to me give a minute and a half story in a monotone voice. I tried it and i thought it worked out well as i sounded a lot more engaged throughout the entire story and i feel as if it flows along better. This is also what i think gave me the idea to not include background noises. I think because i was able to be more enthusiastic throughout the story, it allowed my voice to carry more of the story and entertain the audience better. I thought that if audio or music was added that it would just be distracting to the audience as it would take away from the message of the whole thing.  I also was struggling to think of music that wasn’t already copyrighted that would really something else to the story. I think that i also chose the best method for delivering this story because it was a well laid out story that flowed nicely and gave the audience a really easy guide of how i progressed over the three years. I started off as a freshman guided the audience through my junior and sophomore years when I met Luke and when he challenged me. All the way to the end where we had one final lift off and I was able to beat him and claim the school record. I gave the audience a clear beginning, middle and end which is always needed in a good story.

Draft audio story

https://soundcloud.com/user380051021/lifting-story

For my draft I decided to go in a story telling format. I thought this was the best approach to telling the story as i didnt have any access to talking to my lifting coach or my friend in the story. This doesn’t really change anything though because i know the entire story and can provide personal accounts of what the entire story and have even more knowledge as my friend Luke and my coach wouldn’t be able to talk about how i used to go to the gym early in the morning or when I first started to lift at my local gym as they weren’t there. I think for the final draft i could try and provide more background lifting noises like weights slamming together, weights hitting the floor, alarm clock ringing and other various noises that take place in a weight room. I like how my current noises work with having them in the background and providing a lifting feeling onto the story instead of a void of blank noise that would be present if i didnt have it. I think also for the final product i can probably use more of Adobe Auditions features to add more expression to the product. I think that the first feature i can use is using multiple cuts to my audio so i don’t have to read it all at once and have less pauses and stutters in the multiple cut. This will make it less dull for others to listen too. I think the next i would use is adjusting the volume to the entire story making different tracks playing at better rates and allowing you to hear things better and let it feel less jarring by having 2 audio pieces at the same volume attacking each other playing at the same time.

Audition Tutorials

Logo Final

I feel like this is the best way my logo could turn out. For the final product I a significant amount of features to the design, while also keeping the simplicity found in the first draft of the logo. To start I created some eyes, mouth and fingers for the final layer as it was suggested to me by a couple of my peers. Then I went on to use the pen tool to design some clothing for the entire 3rd layer. I felt as though this was a necessary as I got to this point in the draft because it felt weird to be continuously editing a large naked body and the clothes added vibrant colors to the logo. This change with the colors forced me to color in the other bodies, as otherwise those layers would have felt out of place and weird to look at. Then some other edits suggested by my peers like, changing the words to say “Lifting Journey” to make it more clear that my logo was supposed to be about the strength I gained over three years of lifting and lining up my bodies so that they were all exactly aligned down the middle of the page and not off to a side like in the draft. The one edit I wasn’t able to make that I really wanted to was adjusting some of the body parts. I was able to make some of the body parts look a lot more natural than they were in the original draft. But I wasn’t able to make the arms align up and look as symmetrical as I wanted as well as with the hips. Overall, I was happy with the final version of the photo as I believe it shows a clear and concise logo of how I grew during my journey.

Logo Draft

 

For my logo design project I honestly just thought about the growth I had gone through, throughout the years and used that as inspiration for my design. I though about how I started out small after coming off of surgery freshman year and reflected that in the first figure. Then showed my growth a year after having surgery in my sophomore year in the second figure. Then finally having the final figure of me I made the biggest and put a squat bar on my back to show that I how strong I had gotten in the end. I thought the hardest part of this was trying to recreate the human figure for each of the three figures. For each figure I wanted there to be distinct difference to make each of them feel unique and different. That was easy at first as it wasn’t too complicated to fit the first two figures in with each other. It was however difficult to create the human figure for the second figure but, I’m satisfied right now with how it looks. But, then after I added the third and final figure it was incredibly difficult to fit everything. First it felt crowed and the bar wouldn’t fit on the page with how the body ended up looking so I had to change the size of the art board on Adobe illustrator. Then I had trouble with sizing the previous two figures because of how they overlapped with lines on the final figure making it look bad. So I ended up shrinking the two figures to make them much smaller than I had previously wanted. I think for the final I want to add more detail to the final figure such as changing the hand so that it has fingers, adding a background, adding detail to the face and more. For my logo design project I honestly just thought about the growth I had gone through, throughout the years and used that as inspiration for my design. I though about how I started out small after coming off of surgery freshman year and reflected that in the first figure. Then showed my growth a year after having surgery in my sophomore year in the second figure. Then finally having the final figure of me I made the biggest and put a squat bar on my back to show that I how strong I had gotten in the end. I thought the hardest part of this was trying to recreate the human figure for each of the three figures. For each figure I wanted there to be distinct difference to make each of them feel unique and different. That was easy at first as it wasn’t too complicated to fit the first two figures in with each other. It was however difficult to create the human figure for the second figure but, I’m satisfied right now with how it looks. But, then after I added the third and final figure it was incredibly difficult to fit everything. First it felt crowed and the bar wouldn’t fit on the page with how the body ended up looking so I had to change the size of the art board on Adobe illustrator. Then I had trouble with sizing the previous two figures because of how they overlapped with lines on the final figure making it look bad. So I ended up shrinking the two figures to make them much smaller than I had previously wanted. I think for the final I want to add more detail to the final figure such as changing the hand so that it has fingers, adding a background, adding detail to the face and more.