Creative Process and Copyright

Before creating our storyboard, I hope the project takes on more of a voice over narrative if need be, as opposed to a direct dialogue sort of script and video. The reason for this is because I think sometimes forgetting what to say or acting it out can look a little patchy and appear as if it is not cohesive with the entire video. Because we are trying to meet the needs of our clients, which is career services, I hope this video is professional but I hope it is fun. Because we have to think about their audience in this regard, who is their audience? Their intended audience is students between 18-25 probably and what do they like? What will encourage a college student to see our video and be convinced to utilize what career services has to offer? I want to work with a lot of different angles but still keep the viewer attentive and focused. I’m not sure exactly how much of a difference there will be between the storyboard and video, once we get to filming but I think planning our ideas together will minimize the chances.

Lawrence Lessig advocates for a reduction on copyright laws, which essentially is “strangling creativity”. After creating our storyboard or at least a draft of it, the steps of creating it were different than what I assumed for it to be. Of course, I planned it with just my ideas and creating a storyboard meant merging four ideas into one. Some were drawbacks but overall I think it was an enhancement to have a collective mindset about this project. We were thinking about copyright content and how that would play out, our biggest challenge would be to find music that is not copyright but is in the public domain. We still want it to be good music that enhances the overall mood of the video but not something you find in a cheap infomercial. My group however did decide that a voice over would be better than direct dialogue!

Top Five

1. The College Road Trip by Deanna

https://thecollegeroadtripblog.wordpress.com/

Absolutely love road trips so I think Deanna’s topic for her midterm blog was very exciting! She provides super valuable information on her blog regarding road trips. I thought the most valuable piece of the information that she provides is where to eat and where to stay, from examples of where she has ate and stayed. When I did a cross country road trip last summer, those were the two most important things I needed to know, (also where the nearest gas station might be). I think she did a great work catering to her targeted audience. Great work!

2.  Makeup by Ang by Angela

https://makeupbyangblog.wordpress.com/

A makeup blog is one of the most effective blogs in capturing their targeted audience and catering to them. I love Angela’s #makeupselfie section that adds her personal twist and her niche for inexpensive beauty products that can be found at any drug store. Most makeup gurus on youtube today currently use only high-end brands that do not seem to resonate well with most viewers, as they are mostly on a cheaper budget. I think Angela is doing a great job at making her stance attractive to more than just one kind of viewer. Great work.

3.  The Artist’s Corner by Alexa

https://aac209.wordpress.com/

As an artist myself, I don’t even I could make an effective video on how to draw a simple cartoon character as easy as Alexa did. Her overall blog is exciting and quirky, as an artist would be, and its appearance is welcoming. She does a great job at welcoming anyone who particularly enjoys drawing and sketching even if it is just for knowing purposes and not as a hobby. I can see her blog as growing into something very particular in anything sketching and drawing and then into painting as well! Alexa can definitely work with different mediums and canvases in the near future! Good job!

4. Give me the Aux by Alex

https://givemetheauxblog.wordpress.com

I enjoy the title of the blog first and foremost, super catchy and really common phrase, I think most of us have said it before. I think it’s an effective way to attract his intended audience by including a phrase that most of consider is a way of saying “Let me show you some good music”. By focusing on a specific genre, I think Alex does a great job at developing his niche and making his blog appear with valuable information for his group. Various components in his blog feature not only the latest and trendy rap songs but he also features reviews or debates, such as his video about cultural conversations, which I think is a really good way to help build a community on his page! Good job!

5. Fork it up by Alanna

https://forkkitup.wordpress.com/blog/

Gotta love the witty title name! Super clever! As an avid eater, like we all are probably, I think this blog topic is a great way for Alanna to build her niche and bring in an audience! The various foods that Alanna has posted about thus far, like sushiritto, are really tasty and visually pleasing foods that most of her audience will enjoy! A food blog like hers knows the importance of using photos to showcase the food that is being reviewed and Alanna provides a lot of mouth-watering pictures to do just that! Great work Alanna!

Welcome to the Woodlands!

Being that the midterm should have been revolved around something that will help me professionally or personally, I chose to make my midterm blog about Firefly Music Festival – not only that it helps me professionally as their brand rep but it excites me and therefore it is for personal enrichment as well. Recently in my media class, we watched a video regarding advertising and its evolution towards being more of pseudo-psychological marketing. I wanted to make my video more of an advertisement as opposed to a tutorial, review or walk through. Because this is also from a professional standpoint, I wanted my video to focus more on advertisement and how a video alone could convince viewers to attend the festival this year. Also, by implementing an advertisement video onto my blog, I wanted it to be noticeably clear who my intended audience was. While making my video, I wanted to cater to an audience who may not know what Firefly is but are avid listeners of indie, techno and rap music. By targeting those specific audience members, I could pitch an event like Firefly because it plays all three genres of music. I thought it would be clever to make it from a first person point of view that way the audience can imagine themselves as first person easier. I have to admit I did face a bit of challenges when editing my video, especially since iMovie made the colors appear flushed and dull, I thought the overall appearance of my video could have been better. Color definitely plays a big role to audience! However, it was to my benefit of the festival not happening yet, that way I was able to use my idea of asking people what their plans for the summer were. In other parts of the blog, I also wanted to provide some information that the official website generally does not carry, like what to bring or general camping do’s and don’ts. I chose the theme for background simply because it allowed me to have more of a free range with adding photos onto the blog without making it look over-dramatic. I thought providing the witty little sayings as excerpts would work as attention grabbers to make readers want to read more. My inspiration for this blog was definitely the official Firefly website, I wanted to provide the same, if not more, information to my audience in a fun and exciting way.

 

RU listening?

That was fun. I was thinking of which two songs I wanted to use and how they might compliment each other or even contrast from one another. I thought it would be interesting to start off with a nice lullaby song and then end it with a bang, the song you first listen to is called “Ceilings” by Local Natives, following that track is “Classic” by The Knocks. I find it fascinating when a lot of audio edits that include the crossfade of two songs do it in order to change the mood or emotion, that it may play for. I think my collection of songs would introduce a calm and soothing mood in the beginning that gradually transitions to a mood of energy and excitement! What do you guys think?

The videos on channelawesome.com show a lot of proficiency with audio edit, I watched one in particular that reviews the Disney movie “Frozen” on a segment called Sibling Rivalry. The angle of the video is mostly consistent, unless portions of the movie are included. The frame includes both brothers and the camera is most likely standing on a tripod where it films the brothers at a front angle. Like I mentioned, when the brothers add portions of the movie onto their video, they also include a voice-over that continues on a particular thought or evaluation for the review. Apart from those audio edits and introductory music, the video does not show a lot of video editing, as the clips do not cut off and the brothers carry a constant stream of discussion throughout the video. With the idea of editing video, I do think it’s important to consider when a video does not editing because some can survive a good impression with little to none.

 

tRUst me,

I know I may not have much experience with blogging prior to starting this blog but I do have my fair share of vlogging. As great (ha!) as my voice may sound, speaking directly into a camera with nothing but complete silence does not appeal to much of my audience. Background music is very very important, it adds tone, rhythm and aids viewers for an overall better understanding of what a video is trying to portray. Not just background music but sound effects too, they can create an entire atmosphere in its short duration! For my brand ambassadorship, there were times where I have been asked to speak to the camera without any background noise, but this was for the convenience of the video producers who would later edit my videos and add background music. Professionally, I can vision myself editing audio for the enhancement in vlogs or some form of video marketing, commercials, advertising. This would save me the time and trouble of not only having to find background music and sound effects but copyright as well!

Personally, I can vision myself editing my own instrumental audio for my self enrichment, like when I play the bongos or the piano! I didn’t know you could plug in a keyboard onto GarageBand and you can record your sounds! It’s one of the many features that I did not know about GarageBand and audio editing before watching the tutorial simply because I never used the application until now (before, the ‘band’ in garageband made me assume it was music or audio related). Regardless of how I may see myself using it, the ability to tweak a segment of audio that is already created or completely start from scratch is a skill worth having, especially today’s market. It’s innovative and conventional; you can create, duplicate and modify sounds!

Remember this header photo? It’s not me, it is my twin sister. Talk about duplicating.

RU an image editor?

 

Original

Edit

Original

Edit

Not quite. Here is a side by side comparison of original photos that I have taken and then after I have edited them. From its practical standpoint, I can edit photos. I have enough familiarity with brightness, contrast, saturation, shadows, highlights, sharpens to manipulate the simple appearance of an image. After I have edited, the two images have a better brightness, hue and overall color pallet. For this edit, I used photoshop. In her article, Coleman refers to computers as being a “basis for beauty” (p.1) where one may argue that computer softwares such as photoshop can manipulate digital images to create something of beauty.

“You Suck at Photoshop.”

This photo will  better explain what I meant by “not quite”. That’s me – as a plant. For this edit, I also used photoshop. In the previous instance , you may think that I am great at editing images. In this instance probably not. The difference between this photo and the aforementioned ones above is my function knowledge about photoshop. I can definitely do the basics but I would have to learn more about going in depth with completely manipulating a photo. This photo is fake and it becomes obvious when you compare it to the ones before. This example of “lulz” (p. 111) is for the mere purpose of laughs. The rise of digital information and social platforms has helped in creating a “meme” and “troll” culture. A meme is a humorous image that is spread quickly by internet users and mostly used for imitation. Trolling, as a way to imitate or offend someone through post, was an initial purpose for editing images. As Coleman’s standpoint, editing images to create hilarious or sometimes offending memes is a very common thing to do in today’s internet. Editing images can also create beauty in practicality.

First Impressions

Hello everyone, my name is Lorena Pedetti! This is my first blog and they say a picture is worth a thousand words. Welcome!