Thursday, June 25, 2009

Top Spot

It might just be a conspiracy, but how many more pop culture icons are going to die this week. Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, all in one week. Not only is it strange for them to all die in one week, but the news is truly focusing on them. I always find it interesting when celebrities die because real news takes second to petty entertainment news. Such a shame.
~Melissa

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Going down the drain

I watched local news last night, yes, there is a reason not to watch local news. How is it acceptable to wear faded, torn jeans and a T-shirt for live shots? Someone is going to have to explain that one to me. I understand in some news industries there is a relaxing of the wardrobe on camera, but really? Jeans and a T-shirt? I think there are all levels of professionalism, but when a reporter is wearing torn jeans and an old T-shirt on camera, that is just a disregard for the field and your career. Journalism and reporting may be entering the new era, but I don't believe jeans and a T-shirt are ever going to be acceptable unless it is for ireport or you are the one being interviewed on camera. Such strange happenings in the world of television news.
~Melissa

Monday, June 22, 2009

Today

I made a soundslide today. I painted a house today. I took a nap today. I read the paper today. I read a magazine today. I read a book today. I looked at several blogs today. I must go to bed early (today) because I have to get up real early to paint tomorrow so it is not like 100 degrees. We have been taking afternoon siestas, a very novel and appropriate idea in this weather. And I just ordered Rosetta Stone Spanish from a guy on Craig's List and I got a freaking deal. Awesome.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Getting Ready

I am pretty sure we have gotten off of our blogging schedule, oh well. I am looking forward to tomorrow's events and hoping the weather doesn't get too hot or rain. It should be a ton of fun and well, who can't resist carnival food and music? I am also hoping I actually have a voice tomorrow. I have been sick for more than a week and my voice is officially shot. I have a Collegian event to cover tonight and will be talking over loud music. I am very certain I will not have a voice come tomorrow afternoon. Maybe some tea and honey will cure that...

Life

Today Beckah and I have the day off. This is nice and awesome. I think that we will try and go eat breakfast somewhere and then perhaps do something else that is nice like go look for old backgammon boards. Take this Twitter, I am over 140 characters. Tomorrow we go to film our final project. I should start drinking water so that I don't explode tomorrow with all of my deep fried oreos and sun. A goal for this summer is to get better off the diving boards. I was weaksauce yesterday.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Flash can't be done in a dash

I was not able to blog yesterday, so I thought I would just add a quick note: Flash is ridiculous. I started working on the Flash graphic for our final project and Stacy was right, you are going to want to throw the computer through a window before you are done, maybe before you even start. It should be really cool if we can pull it off though.
~Melissa

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Storm.

Crazy freaking storm last night. It was awesome. Today we are going to be story boarding
for our final project. I am eating a cheese pastry. There are M&M's on the table but I do not think that a cheese pastry and those would go together very well. Well, maybe the blue one... Nope. Gross.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Looking Ahead

I am looking forward to this week's planning for our final project. We have decided to cover the 27th Annual Wah-Shun-Gah Days celebration in Council Grove. Should be awesome! There should be a Pow Wow, Craft Show, Car Show, Flea Market, Carnival and several Food Vendors. Hopefully we get great footage and the audio should be fantastic between the Pow Wow and the Car Show. If anyone is still looking for ideas on what to cover this is a really cool site: http://kansasflinthills.travel/events/. I am looking forward to applying what we have learned with each program and turning it into one large multi-media project. This is what I plan on doing for a career and the more experience I can get the better.
~Melissa

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Practice Makes Improvements

Yesterday's footage gathering went really well. I would say we got very lucky with the video we took. We ended up interviewing the girls we had close-ups of, without planning and it worked great to put our package together. It has been awhile since I have gone out on a shoot, and I forgot how much I enjoy it. It got a little frustrating to try and find different shots. I concentrated on too many close-ups and we probably could have used a few more wide shots. Or with the wide shots, I didn't go from the wide to doing close-ups (main group and then close-ups of faces for each people in group). Overall, it was a great shoot and we got some really cool shots that work well with the script we put together. It's all a learning process and this project proves that no matter if you have experience in something or not, there is always ways to expand your skills and knowledge. I am always very impressed with how fast we were able to put the package together, so much faster than the original way I was trained with packages. Until next time...
~Melissa

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Today the sun was not shining.

As my day started early, I began a headlong run of work and school. At the end of it all I came home to sit down and watch others as they painfully try to complete a Wipeout course. The show - if you have not seen it- is about 24 people competing in obstacle courses to win $50,000. The hosts team up to narrate the event and poke fun at each participant. The first round allows 11 people to go on to the next round. They are chosen by the best times. Then they have to make it through two more rounds to narrow the number of participants to four. As would be expected, the people participating in this event are generally eccentric in their personalities. The hosts come up with nicknames to help the audience remember each person. Needless to say it is hilarious show that will make you grimace at some of the spills and falls.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Finishing the Puzzle

I am looking forward to our package project because this is what I am familiar with. I love learning new processes and programs, but Final Cut Pro is amazing and you can do some really cool things with it. I really enjoyed the editing session today. Even though I have experience with the program, I have never had it described so simply. I realize it is a very complex process, but today it made sense and to have that click is crucial. It's like working on a puzzle, only to find there are pieces missing, and then you find those pieces and you can complete the picture. Has anyone every had that happen? Until next time...
~ Melissa

Sunday, June 7, 2009

And here it is


Well, I am anxious to see the audio project that Melissa graciously finished for me on Friday. I skipped town for my wife's birthday and so I wasn't able to help finish it up. I am also curious to know what I missed on Friday. We are moving into video stuff, and I think that we may go and cover a bee farm this week. Awesome.

Friday, June 5, 2009

A Walk on the Wild Side

Gathering photos and audio for our audio slideshow yesterday at Sunset Zoo was quite an experience. When I called Allie Lousch, the zoo's marketing and development director, to set up our visit, she gave me a list of ideas for coverage. She listed everything from new animal habitats, and updating the flower beds to summer clubs and junior zoo keepers. When we first arrived, Allie led us into the zoo, pointing out our options and we ended up going with a summer club group. I wasn't sure how we would put together our project, by following a group a kids who were playing on a jungle gym, little did I know we were to follow them on a 45 minute hike through the zoo's wilderness trails. Word to the wise, never wear flip flops to a zoo when you don't know exactly what you are doing (or just leave the flip flops at home). It was a challenge to follow these kids on a thin dirty/mud path through the forest. It was steep, messy, the bush was overgrown. Taking photographs was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. Who knew a hike in the woods could be so difficult to shoot? A lot of the photos include the backs of people and it was something that I just couldn't control. How do you get in front of a group of kids who are constantly moving, while the earth is literally slipping beneath you due to washouts? All in all though, the trip was a blast. I love working with kids and this work was hilarious. From boys talking about how "cute" pandas are, to seeing one of six glass frogs in America to a little girl with a lot of spunk and had peacocks as pets. It was great to hear what they thought of the zoo, to see it from their perspective. From the project side of things, it was challenging to take all the information we had gathered and put it into a two minute slideshow. I think we did a good job though and I learned quite a bit along the way: never wear flips to the zoo, audacity has a mind of its own, soundslides is a very wicked, cool program and once you have the knowledge of the two programs, you can create some pretty cool presentations.
~Melissa~

Thursday, June 4, 2009

At the Zoo

We are going to the zoo today to capture audio and pictures for a slideshow. Should be fun. We will post the result.