Practice Profile Story

The purpose of doing the practice story was so that we could get a feel for what we had to do. It was so that we could practice on a different person before we actually went and made our real video. We didn't really know what to do, but after doing the practice story we had a better idea of what to do. During the practice story we learned how to get good b-roll, how to set up a good interview composition, and many other useful things. We chose to interview Audrey about practicing her painting. We chose Audrey because it was the most convenient, Kaylene and I didn't want to be on camera. We were all doing a painting project in our art class, so it was an easy thing to get b-roll for, and it was easy to talk about because, it's not like she had to go back to when she was seven and remember something.

Profile Project Progress

In our newest project, Words of Wisdom, we interviewed Edmund Acoba. He's a district judge who presides in the Family Court of the Fifth Circuit, and a karate sensei. We went to the Island School Gym, where he teaches karate and interviewed him. We chose to interview him of all people because he has to completely different jobs and a family, but manages to find time to fit them all into his life. There's a lot of people out there balancing their lives between two jobs, and this video could be used to help them. He talked about how he maintains his jobs and doesn't get overwhelmed by them.

B-roll and voice overs are two really important components in an interview. They help a lot in making the story flow better and make it more interesting. B-roll is footage that helps the viewer connect with the video more and they show what the person's talking about. Voice overs are used to take storytelling even further. In this case, we're using voice overs as a sort of transitions that help the story flow better. Transitions make the story flow by taking you from one subject to the next so it makes sense.

I teamed up with Audrey and Kaylene for this project. I think we're doing all right so far. Everyone on the team has their own job to do, and we all do our jobs. Audrey and I did the interview, filmed all the b-roll, and did the transitions. Kaylene's gonna edit everything together. We all did the pre-production planning together, so none of us are sitting around doing nothing all day.
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Our rough cut got critiqued by the class the other day. They told us the main things we need to work on are pacing our voice-overs better, and get b-roll from a different place, like the courthouse. We have a camera signed out for the weekend, so that we can get b-roll from the courthouse. Also, we decided to have Audrey redo the voice-overs, so that they're more clear and better paced. Right now she sounds rushed and talks a lot faster then Edmund, which throws off the balance of the video. I think if do those things we can definitely get our video from
good to great!

Composition Techniques

The four main composition techniques are rule of thirds, framing, unusual angles and leading lines. The rule of thirds is when you break down the shot into nine equal parts that form a grid with three horizontal and three vertical lines. You then find the most interesting part of your subject that you want to focus on and position the camera so the part you want to focus on is at one of four points on your grid. Framing is when you draw attention to your subject by blocking other parts of the picture with things in the scene creating the effect of a frame. Framing gives your image sense of context, depth and layers. It also tends to lead your viewers eyes to the main focal point. One other thing framing does is it intrigues your viewer. Unusual angles are when you make the image more interesting by changing the angle you're shooting the picture from. A variety of perspective is always a good thing. Some ideas for new perspectives are lying or crouching in front of the subject, or going for a birds-eye-view. Leading lines are lines that can be found in the image that can add a dynamic impact and change the overall mood of the image. Leading lines, like framing, tend to draw your viewers eye to the main focal subject, if the subject is at the end of the lines.

Three Shot Sequences

Three shot sequences are an important part of great visual story telling. They make the video much more visually appealing. They also have technical benefits such as the fact that they promote continuity. Also, sequencing compresses shot time, so your video isn't too long. They will also make your video more professional looking.

To make good three shot sequences you should use a variety of different angles and shot types. Sequencing can make a long boring shot into a shorter more interesting one. Also, in just one continuous shot it can be hard to see whats going on. A sequence will take you from seeing the entire frame to seeing just one detail. Sequences are key in making your video appealing and interesting while it still makes sense.

An example of a three shot sequence could be a wide establishing shot, then a cut in to a medium so you see the subject better, and then a close up to get a better view of all the little details. In our video "Kaya Drinks Water" we start out with a wide establishing shot of Kaya sitting in the grass holding a water bottle. Then we cut to a medium shot of her beginning to open the bottle. There is much less distracting the viewer from looking at Kaya in this shot, compared to the previous one. After the medium shot we cut in even farther to a close up shot of her actually drinking from the bottle, in this shot all you see is Kaya the water bottle, and the background.

Practice Story Reflection

We were assigned a project in which we had to interview a person and film b-roll to go along with what the interviewee said. My team's story was "Audrey Practices Painting". We had one day to shoot b-roll and one day to shoot the interview. Then we had to transcribe our interview word for word onto a document and plan out transitions the narrator would say to make the story flow.We had two days to film the narration and edit the videos.

In the beginning we had some problems because
 we couldn't come up with a story. When we had to film our b-roll and interview, though we worked really good and got back to class in time to import everything. Editing wasn't hard either, but we didn't have enough interview footage to make our video a minute long. We added an intro-screen and to add b-roll without interview to make the video longer. We didn't finish on time, so we turned it in a couple minutes late.

We could have improved a lot of things. For one, we could have made our interview longer and worded the answers so it's easier to edit. Also, we could've had more creative shots when we were filming b-roll. Communication would've helped us a lot because we just did one thing at a time with one person working and the others sitting around. I think, with the time we had we did an ok job.
   

Polar Panoramas

These are two of my finished polar panoramas. To make them I first took 10-20 pictures of  a place I liked while moving the camera left to right. The camera was always in a vertical orientation. Then I edited them until I liked them in Adobe Camera Raw before stitching them together to make a panorama in Adobe Photoshop. Just like the spherical panorama I made the panorama into a square 5000x5000 pixels. Then I flipped the image 180 degrees. After that I added the polar coordinates filter to war the photo into a sphere. Then I used the smudge and stamp tools to hide the seam.

All About Me

Hello people. I'm Sheila and here's something about me :)

Before I moved to Kauai, Hawaii I lived in Bern, Switzerland. A couple months after my youngest brother Nick was born we moved here. I went to King Kaumualii Elementary School from kindergarten to 5th grade. Now I go to Kapaa Middle School, this is my last year here.

Some of my hobbies include soccer, drawing and reading. I play soccer for a team called Pohaku. I like drawing people and animals, and abstract stuff. I spend a lot of my time sleeping or eating or just being a lazy little person. I really like hiking and running though.

I always wanted to go to Italy again, because it's cool and I only went there for a couple days last time. Also I want to go to the Philippines, because I have family there, but I only ever met one of them.  Oh, and I'm the girl with the braid on the left. My friends (starting from the left) are Claudia, Audrey and Kaylene :)