WHS Visual Art

I personally shot, edited, and interviewed people for this project.  I am personally proud of the contributions I made to this project and the final result.  Me and Jake met with our client, Mrs. Kaiser, multiple times and also emailed back and forth about the project and her vision. I think Jake and I worked well together. We both had the same ideas when it came to editing and we helped each other when we seemed to be having trouble with something.  I think the final result showcases both of our ideas for this video as well as the vision Mrs. Kaiser had.  I think each of the classes were shown and explain well and separately however, it still flowed as one piece.  I am particularly proud of the opening sequence because I feel it shows a good overview of the art classes and explains the project well.

Make Breakfast Count!

I entered  the Healthy breakfast PSA contest.  The criteria for the contest are as follow:

• Participants must be in middle school or high school and live in Massachusetts.
• The video entry must be 30 seconds long or less, original, youth-produced, and content appropriate.
• The entries can be submitted by: a group of 4 or less, a classroom, or a school-recognized club with an established advisor.
• Multiple entries are allowed.
• Entries must promote healthy school breakfast.
• The video must feature a reimbursable school breakfast meal. Please review resources section for more information. CNOP encourages students to work with their School Nutrition Services Department to meet this requirement.
• Group scenes are encouraged, but not required.
• The video must feature a scene in a school cafeteria.
• Videos must respond to one of the following:
  1. If your school has a breakfast program – Show in the video why it’s beneficial to eat breakfast at school.
  2. If your school does NOT have a breakfast program – Create a promotional video that can be used to encourage the start of one.

I chose this  contest because I don’t believe kids in middle school and high school know the problems that accompany not eating a healthy breakfast and I wanted to shed light  on the problem.  I thought I wanted to give facts about eating a healthy breakfast, however I wanted to do it in a funner way, so I put it into a triva question context. I came up with the tag line “Make Breakfast Count”. Also, I helped film, direct, and edit the PSA.The most challenging factor about this project was the thirty second time limit. Also, The requirement to film in the school cafeteria make the noise levels hard to deal with.If I could have done this differently I would have tried to have more information in the short amount of time if possible.

Creative Project Term 2

Our group wanted to create a music video.  We decided on Michael Jackson’s Man in the Mirror.  We felt this song was about innocence, and change, so we tried to show that innocence and change to make people look further into the song.  Most people don’t listen to the lyrics of the song so I felt that we tried to make people think of the deeper meaning by doing an abstract music video.  I feel that technically, we got a lot of dynamic shots, which we put effects on to make ever shot seem different and have a different feel.  I feel it helps our story to have multiple effects because it shows that you can’t interpret it literally, and you must think about it to really understand it.  We used the multicam edit when sammy was tripping and molly helped her up. I feel like it was not successful because it didn’t really capture the drama of the fall, and it also didn’t capture the resolution of molly helping sammy.  I think if we could have redone it we should have put in a more dramatic scene to show the effects of a multicam edit. I think that after completing the video I would have chosen a more literal song.  I think that we tried to portray the metaphoric ideas in the song, and we understood it because we storyboarded, however it did not show through as much for the audience.  I think if we were to redo this song, we should have storyboarded with more detail and more realistic shots.  Finally, I think we should have gotten a head start and decided early on what we wanted to do rather than changing our ideas multiple times.

Poetry Project

I chose this poem because I think it had a nice message.  It seemed inspiring, and seemed like just about anything could happen.  This poem shows me that you can be inspired by something small.  At 33 seconds, I felt that the shot of me lighting a match worked well.  I like this shot because it really has dramatic lighting from darkness to light. Also it goes with the line in the poem “When the stars go to sleep” which is another way to say when the sun comes up, and this is like a representation of that.  I also like the shot of the lawn when it fades to a shot of a tree in black and white. I thought the effect of the cross fade and the effect of black and white, I feel its a nice way to fade. If I could do something differently, I would go back and film some different shadow shots, rather than just trees.  I felt that getting shadow shots of different trees would make it seem to flow more, however now I feel it just seems repetitive.  I would have gone back and gotten different types of shadows along with this.  Also, I feel that I should have had quicker shots and more of them to speed things up.

Creative Project

I decided to make a stop motion of my room cleaning itself because I wanted to make a stop motion, however I wanted something that would have a point.  I figured that a cool stop motion would be having my room clean itself while I hung out on my bed.  I got different shots of different areas of my room so you could see my clothes moving, and my make-up moving on my desk.  I also got a shot of my closet so you could see more than one part of my room.  I also got shots of me to break up the stop motion. I got a mid shot of myself and a close up so you could still see my actions, but see my expressions as well.  I do feel like I was successful in capturing my idea in my video.  I think that my choice of music helped move my video along. “you make my dreams come true” seems to go well with the idea that my room is cleaning itself so I don’t have to do anything! If I could change the video I maybe would have added more shots of me and more of story line to make it flow a little more.

What’s New at Westwood High?

The first project we did was about Westwood High. I chose to do “what’s new at WHS” because this year, the high school has made many changes and improvements to the school.  The high school has changed the administration and different aspects of the school.  My partners, Sammy and Molly,  and I thought this would be a good idea because we could focus on different aspects of the new high school. I focused on the new study zone in the library.  I shot an interview with Ms. Percy.  We gave her a mic, and asked her questions about the study zone.  Then, I got b-roll of the things she was talking about, such as people studying, working hard, being able to focus.   I also got b-roll of people goofing off, doodling, and other things that the study zone doesn’t allow anymore.  While editing, I had shots of Ms. Percy from the interview, however, I kept them short and put b-roll over them which pertained to what she was saying. Also, I added a vox pop to see what the students opinions were on the library so it wasn’t just from the librarian’s point of view.  For changes, I had to put a lower third in when Ms. Percy came in.  Also, she was washed out so I fixed the brightness.  Also, I fixed the audio to make sure it wasn’t inconsistent.   If I could have changed something, I would have changed my timing and been more on time with my deadlines.  Also, I probably would have chosen something more interesting so it wouldn’t have been so bland.

Production Name

My production name is Blondie Productions.  I chose this name because I am a blonde and I thought it sounded like a fun way to represent myself.  I think it shows my personality because it is not too serious and its  fun.   Blondie productions is girly however, I didn’t want it to look too girly. I think making the “blondie” bold letters made it seem less girly, but writing the “productions” in cursive and pink kept it somewhat girly.  Also, the star that floats in, I think, is a nice way to animate it without going too overboard.  I think it represents my style of video because I don’t try to over-do it, but I do the job well and with my own creativity.   I created the logo using the adobe after effects.  I added a star with the shapes buttons, and the letters fall in using the set animations. Overall, I think this is a great logo to represent my work and myself.