Day 14 of Senior Project

So today was our last day. All we did was put the play button on the right copy of the video and then burned 6 new DVD. Tomorrow I have my committee review and then I'm DONE. That is CRAZY its all over. It was a great 2 weeks but its coming to an end. I just need to finish the rest of the paper work and then I'm done.

Hours worked: 1

Time posted: 11:55

Day 13 of Senior Project

Today we moved the video into iDVD and added play button. We also picked a theme for the background behind play button. This went very smoothly. We began to get excited because we realized that we only had to burn it onto a DVD and then we were DONE. So I walked across the hall and asked Anna for 6 DVDs and began burn them. After we were done Cameron Lucas wanted to see the video. We took this as an opportunity to try out one of the DVD's we had burned. We stuck it in the player and watched the whole movie. We saw there were no credits at the end. I pointed out to Dev that I had added credits to the video in Final Cut and we didn't take that version and burn it. We are in the process of figuring out weather we can re-record over the DVD's we already used or whether we have to get 6 new ones.

Hours worked: 2

Time posted: 11:41

Weekly Reflection

So I forgot to blog about Saturday so I am going to add it in here. On friday we talked to Jim about helping us put it on a DVD with a play button. He told us that it would be better if we put the credits in our movie using Final Cut because sometimes iMovie can degrade the quality of the film. So on Saturday Jim came in and helped me put in a title and credits in Final Cut. Once he showed me how I was on my own. I wanted the titles like starring and edited by to be bigger then the names listed below. The only way to do that was make several clips with different names and try to line them up properly. After trying for almost an hour to get it to work I gave up and decided to use spacing instead of size for an effect. That looked just as good if not better then what I was trying to create for the last hour. Now all we have to do on Monday is move it into iDvd, if I'm correct, and add a menu with a play button and make a DVD.

Hours worked: 1.5

I enjoyed this week much more then the week before. Editing can take you anywhere. It is what you make out of the footage you have. The week before consisted of walking around and gathering all of the footage we needed. Following people from class to class to driving around campus to get shots of buildings was what our first week consisted of.

This week we took this ordinary footage and pieced it together to make art. There are parts in our video that reflect the lyrics of the song by the special effects that we used. For instance part of the lyrics in our song are “ Twisting my stomach into knots.” For that part of the video we took footage of someone running down the hill at Polar Swim and overlapped faded, rotated clips to have the effect of a knot.

This week I learned so much more about Final Cut Pro and cool editing effects you can do with it. There are things in our video that I never thought were possible. We have a shots of Orlando and Will Cudahy spitting on the mic. We faded both clips and put them on top of each other. Because they were shot from different angles it worked out beautifully. I wish that I could list all of the special effects that we used but that would be spoiling the video for all of you so that is all I will tell you about.

I also learned there is a program where you can fix or change the color of anything in your video. This editing software is called Color. This was thanks to a few lessons with Sam Johnson during his independent major class with Jim Cox. I new one could change anything in a still photo using photoshop but I didn’t know that it was possible to do that for a video. I didn’t use it very much in our video. I fixed two different shots where the camera had focused on the light in the window making the window brighter and the rest of the room darker then it actually was. Other then that I just learned that it is possible to change the color of someone shirt or the wall in a room. It is also possible to tint the whole shot a different color. It would be possible to make a shot look like one is looking through night vision goggles.

Although I may not use Final Cut again to make a video it has still be a blast learning new things about the software and making the video. Having a completed video is great accomplishment that I will enjoy looking back on later in life.

hours worked: 24.5

Time Posted: 11:35

Day 11 of Senior Project

So today was a great day. We finished the video so now all we have to do it put it on a DVD. I went to the tech lab at 9 this morning and started editing. I learned a lesson the hard way today. I was watching the movie and saw a set of clips in the middle i wanted to fix to the beat of the song. Then I found the clip right before everything I had just edited needed to be shortened. So I shortened it which moved everything else after it. This ended up screwing everything up that I had just worked so hard to line up with the song. So after all that Dev showed up to save the day. I watched her and learned all the cool effects one can do in Final Cut Pro. We exported it to iMovie and added a title and credits. Tomorrow we are going to meet with Jim to put it on DVD's and insert a menu page with a play button. But for the most part WE ARE DONE!! YAY.

Hours worked: 5

Time posted: 11:13

Day 10 of Senior Project

Today was very productive. After sleeping in and giving a tour E block and part of assembly I went to the tech lab and worked right through most of lunch.We put the song into our video and began doing our final edit. Our video was just a few seconds longer then the song but there were clips that needed to be shortened so it worked out in the end. The next few days are the fun part of the editing. We have all the clips on the timeline that are going into the video and they are all in the order that we want. Now we are just adding artsy details like slowing or speeding up a clip, reversing a clip, or changing the color in the clip.

Hours worked: 3

Time posted: 11:29

Day 9 of Senior Project

Today we were in the tech lab by 8:30 in the morning. I worked on editing the video from then on until about 12 at which time I saved it and went to lunch. Sam Johnson was in the tech lab again and he helped refresh me on how to fix the brightness in a window of one of my clips using the editing software called Color. I have mastered how to fix the brightness in a window after practicing with a few clips while Sam was there. I also learned that in one of the clips where the camera stays still it is possible to change the color of someone's shirt or the color of the wall. This was pretty simple to learn with the knowledge that I already had about using Color. We have also been looking for music to put into the video. We would like to put music to it as soon as possible so that we can begin the final edit. When we edit with the music we can get the scene changes and transitions to match the beat of the music. We are planning to have a song picked out by tomorrow so that the next couple of days can be editing to the music.

Hours worked: 5

Time posted: 7:45

Day 8 of Senior Project

Today was probably my favorite day of senior project. It was very productive. We had a leisurely morning of waking up at 7, getting out of bed at 8 and being in the tech lab by 9. Then we opened Final Cut and continued to edit. Sam Johnson was in Jim Cox's independent class. He came over to see how we were doing seeing as he is very good at using Final Cut. He gave us a lesson on how to fix the color in some of our clips (ex. really bright light coming though a window and washing it out). It was relatively complicated and not needed for most of our clips so we probably wont use it much. We now have 1 minute and 37 seconds of a video which is a great start to the week. If we keep going at the pace we are going we will have plenty of time to fix minor details to make it perfect.

Hours worked: 6

Time Posted: 8:10