Critiquing the Phillies

The NL East won't be a problem in '10, but Charlie Manuel's club wants to be able to compete with the big guns of the AL they need to shore up their pen, but not by overpaying for Brandon Lyon, whom they are rumored to have interest in. Ken Rosenthal is tweeting that they won't commit to multiple years for Lyon though, so the alternative may be via trade. Florida has made Matt Lyndstrom available, but would you trust him in a set-up role?

Sylvia:

I thought "A College Love Story" was great. When I first saw the topic when rough drafts were presented I was a bit nervous as to how it would play, but it was really interesting and didn't have any of the cliches one might expect to accompany it. The two people seemed honest in the video and the little things (ex. the looped guitar) made big contributions. Also, good call with opting for text over narration.

Mike:

Not to start ranking the projects, but this one was definitely one of the more professional-looking ones. The video was excellent and the timeline of it was really good. The ambient sound was particularly fitting, as it kept up the level of excitement even when footage of the group wasn't being shown.

Cam:

This one had everything. The pictures he purchased were well worth it and the video of the father absolutely makes this thing go. As I said in class, the relationship between father and son in this video completely overtakes the story of the marathon. The marathon was obviously emblematic of bigger things, so it was great that there was both video of them discussing the race and reflecting on the past. Everything from a technical standpoint was very well-done.

AJ:

I though this one had some really great shots. For example, the shot of the troops walking down the hall that was lined with greeters was pretty awesome. The interviews were great, but actually seeing the greeters in action is what made this project so good.

Danielle:

This was the most fascinating one that this entire class will have, in my opinion. Even though I feel that the subject almost did the project itself, there were so many choices made by Danielle that made it even better. For example, black and white was definitely the only way to go. The sound of the loud, almost violent typing really brought to life that all this guy has is his room, computers, and marijuana. Regardless of anybody's political affiliation or thoughts on marijuana, this video could affect really anybody.

What has a breathtaking adam's apple and can't successfully publish his final project?

This guy. I don't know what the procedure is on swearing in blogs, but I would love to point out that Windows Movie Maker is really f-wording me. I have spent many extra hours dealing with WMM's problems as is, but now when I try to publish my video it crashes as soon as I click publish. I can play the project in the WMM session, but it crashes about five or six times during it, so it would be a lot of starting and stopping. I tried moving the session to a desktop, as a friend recommended, but all of the video files were gone when I did so. F-word.

I just did the coolest thing ever

I just manually did the coolest transition ever. I'm not even going to tell people where, but they're just going to see it and be like, "Oh yeah, he blogged about that."

I am going to throw a drink in Windows Movie Maker's face

It was either that or a pie, but I feel like there is some playfulness behind the whole pie in the face thing. I want Windows Movie Maker to know that I am miffed and won't stand for its shenanigans any longer. So I was doing the whole add video, save, crash, restart, add picture, save, crash, restart thing to my heart's content and realized today when I tried to watch the four-ish minutes I have so far, it has been deleting old videos as I add new ones. So now the tail end of it is six blank videos with random text over it. This is supposed to be one of the bigger drinking nights of the year, but since I am stuck working, I figure I'll just throw drinks...
In Windows Movie Maker's face...
All the livelong day.

Update on the ol' project

Despite Windows Movie Maker being the bane of my existence, I think my project is coming along really well. I have a ton of videos and pictures, and putting them together in the right sequence has been very much like a puzzle, but with more universal pieces. I am still working on getting some interviews to give it some more perspective, but I like what I have been able to do thus far. Once I head home I am going to try to move the project to a desktop, so maybe that will prevent the session from freezing as much as it has. Much like everything in this class, the only real problems I have encountered with this project have been from a "this computer sucks" standpoint.

My project is going to make teenage girls everywhere cry

...It sure won't, but I felt that was a catchy title. In all seriousness, I have gotten more excited about this project as time has gone and as I have begun collecting things for it. I am not going to just make it about a cappella and a group going into record, but more the effect that music has on people, especially at the college age. I am going to speak to some type of music professor and see if he can give an explanation, but there must be a fascinating one. I know that it is a bit cliche to say that music can be bigger than everything else, but looking through history, music has set tones for generations. The Beatles were the voice of a new generation, and one could go on for hours about what music meant during the Vietnam War. Music has been known as being an outlet, a remedy, or just something for enjoyment, but it obviously means a ton to everyone. I have an idea in my head in which I would record somebody on video and with my audio recorder at the same time. I would incorporate him talking about what music has meant to him, cut to a video of him recording, and have the audio of him speaking over it. Hopefully by the time I have to present the project there will at least be some sort of substantial mix on one of the songs recorded so I can work it in. There are tons of possibilities for this project, and I am excited to explore all of them and see what fits best.

Final project discussion

After discussing options for the final project, I decided to do a bit of a twist on what I originally had planned for my project. I had initially planned to do the project on a cappella groups, and what it is like to be in one. I wanted to cover everything, from arrangements to rehearsals to performances. There truly is more than meets the eye (or ear if I really want to be that corny).

As I discussed it with the group I was in, I mentioned that my group was recording a CD this year. It then occured to me that I could document the process of recording the CD, with pictures and sounds from both the final rehearsals and the actual work that we are doing in the studio in just a couple of weeks. I think that this will be a great project, as I will be able to have it both for this class and as a way of documenting my last recording experience with my group. Some other cool sounds can be the phone calls I have had with the guy recording us.

Video?

Yes, video. Only weeks after learning how to turn on a camera, I was excited to get started with using video for our stories. I wanted to use the video to capture somebody walking and talking for a story just because I figured that would be a cool shot, so I did a story on a senior who is both in his first year of being an RA and last semester of school. He is taking 22 credits in an effort to graduate early, plus he has the new experience and responsibilities of being in charge of a hall.

I thought that the video went generally well. I used a camera that was given to us in class since my Vado HD is on the fritz. Unfortunately the camera ran out of memory during a very usable part, so if we expand on this assignment in the coming weeks I would certainly like to go back and talk to him again.

I thought the video part was very useful for the story. I wanted to capture his bond with his residents and the pace of his busy day, and I feel the video helped achieve that. As he was talking a resident came in and asked him for tape, plus there were two residents hanging out in his room throughout the whole process. After we walked through the halls and he demonstrated the process of rounds while talking about his past experiences with resident assistants. It was pretty cool stuff. Now about editing it...

Reaction to One in Eight Million

I have decided to write about the piece in which the woman adopts the animals. I think that the way the story is presented in the beginning does a great job of mirroring just how simple a story it initially is. They are building up this woman’s desire to have a dog, which is nothing out of the ordinary, so I felt that the black and white stills kept the story from trying to be something that it clearly wasn’t. As the story progresses and you come to find that this woman has been generous enough to adopt as many dogs as she has, the black and white stills are a good backdrop and are tremendous in contrast with all that she has done. There are ultimately some major pros and cons to the overall layout of the story, but as a whole I thought that it was well-done.

If I had to choose my favorite part of the story, it would have to be when she was discussing her selfless nature and how she can’t just look at a disadvantaged animal and walk away. She says something about always wanting to grab for the bird with the broken wings, and just as she says it, a picture of a feather on the ground is shown. For some reason I thought that it was interesting that they elected to represent the wing itself rather than the bird. If the pictures had shown the disadvantages of all of the other animals, it undoubtedly would have been a much stronger piece. This brings me to the biggest problem I had with the story.

The story of Tilly, the dog that only had one eye and was struggling to do basic things like crossing the street, could have been handled much better in my opinion. Here is this woman, talking about a poor dog zig-zagging all over the street and nearly getting killed due to an inability to see, and all they are showing are regular-looking, side-profile views of this dog. Where is the zoomed-in picture of this dog’s face? This dog is in a rare situation that we most likely haven’t seen before, so put the camera to use! I feel that in order for these stories to be effective, the reader/viewer should be able to almost follow along without the narration. The pictures are tremendous in other areas of the story, but this was a heart-wrenching part that really could have been moving if it had the accompanying pictures.

Professor Marsters mentioned on his blog that the pictures are left in their rawest of states, in black and white and without anything really done to them. I think that the openness and honestly of the pieces almost requires the pictures to be the same, which they definitely are.

Getting my snap on

I had never taken pictures before this assignment. In fact, the extent of my photography prowess is being on "America's Funniest Home Videos" for holding the camera facing towards me on back-to-back-to-back intended pictures of Mickey Mouse at Disney World. I did some more thinking this time around though and I really think I got some cool stuff.

Assignment #2

For my second project I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was lucky enough to cover the Red Sox and Angels last week. I know that these things aren't supposed to be geared towards sports, but I figured that it might be fine since I took more of the "why do the Angels seem most off their game when playing in Fenway?" angle. I thought it was interesting to take one idea and see how three people felt about it. Obviously, nobody was more upset than manager Mike Scioscia following a game in which he was certainly jipped on two ninth-inning calls, but as the piece goes on you can tell that he calmed down a bit. For example, he seemed furious when somebody asked him if he watched replays, but minutes later he was saying that his team can't go blaming umpires for anything. Torii Hunter's candor was also amazing in that he is usually very nice and calm (John Powers of the Globe and I had even discussed prior the interview that being a sportswriter would be the easiest job in the world if all of the players were as genuine and accommodating as Hunter). The one part I hated about it was that I had to narrate it with a cold and probably sounded ridiculous, but all in all I enjoyed it.