Wrap-Up

Of all the projects I’ve had an opportunity to do this semester, my favorite was the work we did with Adobe Premier Pro. I really liked learning about all the tricks that can be used in video editing. I think I’ll probably use the skills I learned with Photoshop and with Premier Pro the most in the future.

Although I liked many of the skills that I learned from this class, I don’t see myself going in to Communications, I’m still pretty committed to Microbiology.  I really want to pursue a career in research, particularly in biotechnology in fields such as gene therapy or genetic engineering. Although I don’t think all of the skills I learned will be directly applicable, computer literacy is always a desirable skill on any application.

This class pretty much covered everything I would have expected out of a Multimedia Content Creation class. There weren’t really any other programs or concepts that I thought needed to be covered or that I had a particular burning desire to learn.

On every topic that was covered in class I found a few additional sites I used to help base my projects off of. Whenever I was working on something and I would get a little stuck, I would google tutorials for whatever program I was using and use them to figure out what else I could do to make it better. Youtube was also very helpful when looking at other examples of video story telling.

While at first I was a little upset that a Microbiology major had to take a communications class (after all if I wanted to interact with other people, I probably wouldn’t major in MicrobiologyJ) I’m glad I gave it a chance. While I might not ever run a youtube channel like RayWilliamJohnson or JennaMarbles, Multimedia skills are very useful to have in any career, and since getting a PhD takes a long time, they may even help me find a job in the meantime.

Lessons I Learned From My Horses

Here is my final video. I’m actually fairly proud of how it turned out. I like how I begin and end with the same video sequence. I also spent a lot of time finding pictures that correlated with the video. I should also note that the music I used for this came from a free use, non-copywrited music bank online.

(Start with a shot over Tucker’s head)Text on screen (0:00-0:05): Everything I needed to know in life I learned from my horses
Audio (0:05-0:25)I like to tell people that I grew up on a horse, but that’s not really true. I didn’t actually get my first horse until I was 7, and I didn’t really get heavily involved with horses till a year or so after that. Looking back I wish I would have been more involved sooner. Over the years of training and working with my horses, I’ve realized that my horses gave me almost everything I needed to succeed in life. Here are a few of the concepts my horses taught me: (cut from video to slideshow)
1. Confidence, Audio(0:25-0:52) Start photo slide show Without Confidence, you aren’t going anywhere. It’s the first step in handling a horse, and in accepting yourself. Before you get anything done, you have to believe you can do it, if you believe you can do it, so will others. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, why should anyone else? A horse can feel when their rider is afraid, an uneasy rider will always lead to a skittish horse.
2. Courage, Audio(0:52-1:18)Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. Make friends, but don’t ever let someone walk all over you. Be nice, but never let someone treat you like less then you are worth. It’s often hard to find a happy medium between being nice and being taken advantage of, and I often find myself thinking what I would allow my horse to get away with and comparing that to what I allow people to get away with.
3. Perseverance. Audio(1:18-2:00)Hold your ground and don’t ever give up on your goals, keep trying and pushing until you reach them. Never stop before you accomplish what you set out to do. This is one of the hardest things to hold true to, but one of the most important. No matter how many tears you’ve shed over the fact that your mule still won’t take his bit, or how many times your mare dances around the puddle or how many times you’ve fallen off trying to work that annoying crow-hop out of her lope, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, wipe your tears away, figure out why you failed in the first place, and get right back on. Never beat yourself up about past mistakes, but don’t forget them either, learn from them and make yourself better from it.
4. Hard work. Audio(2:00-2:23) If you want reap the benefits, you have to put in the time. The more you invest in something the better it will feel when you finally reach the outcome. You can’t have a clean barn and a well fed horse with soft hands. You can’t have a bombproof horse unless you spend time to train it. It’s unrealistic to expect all things to work out without some interference.
5. Sincerity. Audio(2:23-2:39) If something doesn’t come from your heart, what good is it? Be straight forward and honest, if you try to trick and deceive to get your way, you’ll just be left worse off than where you started. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
Audio(2:39-3:04) Back to video over Tucker’s head. Of all the things I have learned over the past several years, these are the most valuable lessons my horses have taught me. I don’t regret a single moment spent fighting, falling, failing, arguing, reasoning, bargaining, or begging any of my horses or mules. Although not every moment was fun, I learned more about life on those rides then I think I ever did in a class room.

Video Draft

Here is the First draft for my video project. There are a few more things I would like to add, such as text intros over the video when I introduce each topic. I also want to do a little bit more editing done on the audio. Listed below the link is the script for the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4ybCBuxjUg

(Start with a shot over Tucker’s head)Text on screen: Everything I needed to know in life I learned from my horses

I like to tell people that I grew up on a horse, but that’s not really true. I didn’t actually get my first horse until I was 7, and I didn’t really get heavily involved with horses till a year or so after that. Looking back I wish I would have been more involved sooner. Over the years of training and working with my horses, I’ve realized that my horses gave me almost everything I needed to succeed in life. Here are a few of the concepts my horses taught me: (cut from video to slideshow)

1. Confidence, ßtext on screen. Without Confidence, you aren’t going anywhere. It’s the first step in handling a horse, and in accepting yourself. Before you get anything done, you have to believe you can do it, if you believe you can do it, so will others. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, why should anyone else? A horse can feel when their rider is afraid, an uneasy rider will always lead to a skittish horse.
2. Courage. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself. Make friends, but don’t ever let someone walk all over you. Be nice, but never let someone treat you like less then you are worth. It’s often hard to find a happy medium between being nice and being taken advantage of, and I often find myself thinking what I would allow my horse to get away with and comparing that to what I allow people to get away with.
3. Perseverance. Hold your ground and don’t ever give up on your goals, keep trying and pushing until you reach them. Never stop before you accomplish what you set out to do. This is one of the hardest things to hold true to, but one of the most important. No matter how many tears you’ve shed over the fact that your mule still won’t take his bit, or how many times your mare dances around the puddle or how many times you’ve fallen off trying to work that annoying crow-hop out of her lope, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, wipe your tears away, figure out why you failed in the first place, and get right back on. Never beat yourself up about past mistakes, but don’t forget them either, learn from them and make yourself better from it.
4. Hard work. If you want reap the benefits, you have to put in the time. The more you invest in something the better it will feel when you finally reach the outcome. You can’t have a clean barn and a well fed horse with soft hands. You can’t have a bombproof horse unless you spend time to train it. It’s unrealistic to expect all things to work out without some interference.
5. Sincerity. If something doesn’t come from your heart, what good is it? Be straight forward and honest, if you try to trick and deceive to get your way, you’ll just be left worse off than where you started. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

Of all the things I have learned over the past several years, these are the most valuable lessons my horses have taught me. I don’t regret a single moment spent fighting, falling, failing, arguing, reasoning, bargaining, or begging any of my horses or mules. Although not every moment was fun, I learned more about life on those rides then I think I ever did in a class room. 

 

Some raw footage

Here is some raw footage I was able to shoot with my friends. I actually don’t think that I will use any of it at all because of the direction I want to take with my video. Most if not all of the video I wan to use will come from home, so I’m going to shoot the majority this weekend and over Thanksgiving, but this is a start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOiA84ZLUyI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5iKRUB2io&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syhp8qMQbEo&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fo2kpTrSCg&feature=channel&list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsSkRZsuVzQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwdyqw-9zvc&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoSWIz5J6Es&feature=channel&listU=L

Final Audio Story

Here is my final audio story. With it I attempted to answer the question “Who are you.” While I view this question as more of a introspective concept then as something that can be easily communicated  but I did my best. I did this by talking about myself and interviewing my family. I used the interviews to talk about how much my family means to me. Compiling this wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, I simply cut out my voice from the interviews and cut out as much background noise as possible.

Draft Audio Story

This is my VERY rough draft of my audio story. I know that I have a LOT of editing to do before its up to par. When I was interviewing my family, there was a lot of background noise that I need to get out of there, and I think that my voice is in the background in a few places. I also want to put some music in the background. I will definitely have to do much more editing before I turn in my final draft.

Raw Audio

Since I was home this weekend, I was able to interview most of my family. I don’t think I’m going to use a lot of this, maybe ten seconds or so from each, but we had a really fun time doing it. 

Kelli’s interview;

Kendra’s interview:

Mom’s interview:

Dad’s interview:

Adam’s interviews:

Rebekah’s interview:

Audition

Tutorial 1

First draft:

Final:

 

Tutorial 2

Final Logo

For my logo design, I wanted something that was simplistic but effective in conveying my topic. I also wanted something that tied into the design principles I used for my blog. As you can tell from looking at the photo I have at the top of my blog page, I really like fancy tea sets and cute teacups. Even though growing up I had never been very girly, I played with horses instead of dolls, and I preferred playing adventure to playing house, one thing I allowed myself to love was tea parties. I’ve always enjoyed getting dressed up in my best clothes, drinking tea, eating finger sandwiches, and talking to good friends. I feel that as a symbol, a teacup can convey a lot of ideas and emotions, at least for myself.

For my final draft of my logo, I made quite a few changes from my first draft. The most obvious is that I changed the view of the teacup, instead of looking down; you see it from more of a side angle. I also added some sharp edges instead of just using circles and round corners. To make the shape of the teacup, I made two rectangles, one for the base of the cup and one for the body. I rounded the corners on both and used the star tool, choosing 3 points to make a triangle; I created the angle for the teacup. For the base I adjusted the size until it fit with the body. The handle I made with the ellipse tool,  making one large circle and then another smaller one inside. I left everything else the same and simply adjusted it to fit. The final element is the inscription: KGB, for Kara Grace Beseler. Being a fan of history, I have always loved my initials, how could anyone familiar with the cold war not? I may not always be fond of my first name, of how often people misspell or mispronounce it, but I would never change my initials. I love joking about them and seeing the blank stares people give me or even better is the silly grin a fellow history nerd may pass my way.

To research a few principles of design I looked at the following websites, though my basic approach was to keep the design as simplistic as possible while still being recognizable:

http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo-design-tips/

http://www.code-interactive.com/thinker/a112.html

http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/70-excellent-logo-design-tutorials-and-resources/

 

 

Draft Logo

For my logo design, I wanted something that was simplistic but effective in conveying my topic. I also wanted something that tied into the design principles I used for my blog. As you can tell from looking at the photo I have at the top of my blog page, I really like fancy tea sets and cute teacups. Even though growing up I had never been very girly, I played with horses instead of dolls, and I preferred playing adventure to playing house, one thing I allowed myself to love was tea parties. I’ve always enjoyed getting dressed up in my best clothes, drinking tea, eating finger sandwiches, and talking to good friends. I feel that as a symbol, a teacup can convey a lot of ideas and emotions, at least for myself.

My logo has four basic elements that I think combine to form a complete design. The first two elements were simple circles that I used to represent the body of the teacup and the saucer on which it sits, I thought that the light pink of the cup, and the darker pink of saucer contrast well enough to be distinguishable from one another, but not so much that it is distracting. I created these two shapes using the ellipse tool. The third shape, another made by the ellipse tool, is the elongated nub that serves as the handle. The fourth and final element is the inscription: KGB, for Kara Grace Beseler. Being a fan of history, I have always loved my initials, how could anyone familiar with the cold war not? I may not always be fond of my first name, of how often people misspell or mispronounce it, but I would never change my initials. I love joking about them and seeing the blank stares people give me or even better is the silly grin a fellow history nerd may pass my way.

To research a few principles of design I looked at the following websites, though my basic approach was to keep the design as simplistic as possible while still being recognizable:

http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo-design-tips/

http://www.code-interactive.com/thinker/a112.html

http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/70-excellent-logo-design-tutorials-and-resources/