Final Report Spring Semester

This semester I did quite a bit more than last semester. I made sure I went to a few men's and women's lacrosse games. I did a lot of editing. Much more so than I've done in semesters past. I found that I really enjoy editing and my prior knowledge of the software really helped me out with a lot of the projects I worked on this semester. I also worked quite a bit on camera which I enjoyed thoroughly. Ordinarily I do enjoy one-on-one communication and I am comfortable speaking to a group but it was a different experience altogether to speak to a camera rather than a person. That being said, I can definitely see myself working on camera and doing something sports-related as maybe a sportscaster or even a sideline reporter. In either case I feel like I have a lot of flexibility when it comes to doing on-camera or behind the scenes work on any given production. I don't mind doing either and I've also found I really enjoy doing camera work as well so videography is definitely something I wouldn't mind delving into. Also this semester I've done a lot of group work which I particularly enjoyed. I feel like it is a lot more applicable to a real-world scenario when one has to rely on others to do their jobs. I did a lot of work with the help of Steve Waldman who is a friend of mine. He just started getting involved in the broadcast field so it was a real pleasure teaching him everything I know about broadcast given I have experience not only in the college setting but through prior education as well. It was great being able to guide him and show him a little of what I know and I definitely would enjoy teaching about the field of broadcasting. As for the future of the newscast, I would really enjoy if the news show went to a two-anchor format. The one-anchor format isn't as entertaining in my opinion. Also, I would really like to see the newscast go live on our channel. Maybe have the live production at some point during the early evening and have it play at 5, 6 and 7 o' clock for a few days during the school week. I feel like the show could use more participation and maybe making the taping of the show around practicum time would be nice seeing as we are all assembled there already. It might be possible to have each student in a higher level class produce a news show or two and be able to use the students from the lower level classes as crew for their productions that way some of the students can rotate directing, producing, anchoring, etc. and give each job a shot. I really enjoyed working this semester and I look forward to having more responsibilities next semester.

Studio Taping 1 Hour (31.5 total) 4/19/13

Today Ryan, Frank, Steve and I taped more of our final project. We did a mock-ESPN College Game-day segment where Ryan and I anchored. I felt that Ryan and I flowed very well and between the four of us, we put together a good production especially with Dr. Bradford's help with the switcher. We also brainstormed a few ideas for pre-game interviews and how we were going to deal with the loss of our audio during our pre-game, halftime and post-game interviews.

Log and captured .5 hours (30.5 hours) 4/18/13

Today I logged and captured the footage for our final project along with Frank. We also did some planning for the rest of the project with Ryan.

Final project filming 2 hours(30 total) 4/15/13

Ryan, frank and I are working on our final project. We have decided to do a sports show on ultimate frisbee. We got some highlights from the B championship game and the A championship game and hope to put them together soon. We plan on doing some in-house taping as well using the chroma-key soon.

Editing/Finishing Feature package 4/8/13 3 hours (28 total)

I finished editing the feature package today. It was fairly simple, but I also had to record voice-overs and apply them to the package. I feel like the package came out well, it was very tedious however, especially when I realized I was way too long with my original package, exceeding 4 1/2 minutes. I left it in the dropoff folder and saved multiple copies just in case.

Editing feature package 3 hours 4/5/13 (25 total)

I edited some more of the package. I found out it should only be a minute and a half and not the five minutes I had anticipated so I had a lot of cutting and rearranging to do. I finally got all my sound bites from the interview with Nick in the right place. I tried to use chroma-key for my package but it wasn't lit as well as I wanted it to be so I opted not to use it. All that is left is the voice-overs and I'll be finished.

Feature package editing 4/4-5/13 3 hours (22 total)

Between logging and capturing the entire days footage and editing all the bits and pieces together, this was a very tedious task. I love editing and I find it to be a lot of fun especially being able to have full creative liberty and seeing what was on the tape come to fruition when all the segments are cut and pieced together how I envisioned them. I was freaking out for a bit when my timeline disappeared and it was grayed out when I went to select it from the windows tab. A quick google search fixed the problem and I was able to get back on track. I still have more to edit but safety came to kick me out of the studio around 1 AM. I tried to bring the project back to my room to work on it on my personal computer but the files were never rendered onto my USB after I thought they were so I feel like an idiot staring at a timeline of offline files. Luckily all that is left is some voiceover work and a couple soundbites to edit and I should be done.

Feature Package filming 4-4-13 7 hours (19 total)

I really shouldn't have waited as long as I did on this. I was originally going to do a piece on a day in the life of a student athlete with Danny Modesett but he was too busy between school and away games so I taped Nick Stone instead. I followed him around between 12 PM and 9 PM stopping the tape only to eat meals and when nothing eventful was going on. Steve Waldman and I shot Nick in class, going to lunch, checking his mail, going to the community living office, and fulfilling RA duties as well as an interview with him as well as a friend of his. I also shot a few stand-ups as well for the package. The stand-ups were difficult, especially having to remember what to say and not having a lot of flexibility in terms of ad-libing the script. All in all it was a successful day of shooting and Waldman helped out quite a bit with working the camera when I had to be on camera and he was there for constructive criticism when making my shot selections for certain scenes.

Working with acting for the camera 2.5 hours 12 total

We worked with the theatre class on a project they needed for class. Everything ran smoothly at first as the actors were easy to work with. They gave Waldman and I a lot of creative liberty and we took full advantage. We encountered a problem with the audio on our camera. The audio would fade in and out regardless of any microphone/cable/mixer input combination we tried. The audio from the external microphone on the camera was having the same problem. We ended up recording their scene with very low audio as they said as long sit was slightly discernable they could still use the clips.