This project was definitely a long process for me. I have never used Premiere Pro prior to this assignment, so this was a new experience for me. I worked very hard on this project and dealt with many technical issues. My photos were not uploading properly when I used my camera, so I decided to use my phone. After a few days of the new photos still not uploading into Premiere, I finally had gotten some of the photos to upload. I then worked very hard on the audio of this project, just for it not to upload. I recorded part of the artists songs on my records and then added the audio to the slide show pictures. I originally wanted to add a video of the song playing on the record, but that would’ve made the video to long. Uploading to youtube was probably the longest process of this whole project. It took hours and it finally uploaded, but the audio was left out of it.This really frustrated me because the audio was the best part of the video.Overall I think was a really fun assignment. I just had never used to program before and I really didn’t know what I was doing. It took me a lot longer than I anticipated because nothing wanted to upload properly and because I had to re-take to photos on my iphone to get them to upload on my Mac. I hope the next time I use Premiere Pro I don’t have so many technical issues because I really did enjoy the whole concept of making my own movie. I am still wondering why my photos didn’t upload into Premiere. When I added the Youtube URL it originally didn’t want to embed in the blog either. Basically every step of this project I have had some sort of problem or “Error”, which I’ve seen so many time trying to upload. I’m just happy that I completed the project so I don’t have to stress about it anymore. I really hope that I get the hang of Premiere Pro because it is a good program, I just had to many problems with it in this project. The audio isn’t in the video, which really upsets me because that was the best part. I don’t know why it took the audio out when I uploaded it to Youtube, but it unfortunately did. This is my project, it definitely could be better, but this is the best I could do. I hope you enjoy!

For this assignment, I chose to use action figures as my subjects. A couple of years ago, I discovered a thing called toy photography while surfing through Instagram. People were creating scenes with action figures and taking photos to be viewed online. As a hobby, I am a huge collector of action figures. I collect many kinds from anime, wrestling, star wars, comics, and the list goes on from their. And seeing stuff like this gave me the idea to do something with the many figures that I own.

I had a scene mapped out in my head where I would use action figures from the 1960’s Batman show along with anime characters from Lupin the 3rd, Lupin and Fujiko. The story is set where Lupin and Fujiko look around the corner and see Batman capturing Joker and Riddler. They notice that the batmobile is unattended. So they wink at each other, sneak over and steal it right from under Batman’s nose.

I wanted to shoot this scene in the city where I would have actual building corners to set up my subjects as well as having pavement for the Batmobile to ride on. So I went downtown and shot this near a store I normally go to.

My goal was to apply what I learned in Visual Literacy and make a good sequence of shots. The most difficult one was where Lupin was jumping into the car. I thought that adding the credits roll was cool. That’s where I added the names of the real life actors who portrayed the roles of these characters. The cool thing about action figures is that even though the real actors are gone, you can basically use toys with their likenesses however you want and add them into whatever universe you desire.

Another cool thing I added in the end was a tribute to Adam West. I thought the project turned out pretty well and I hope everyone enjoyed seeing it come to life.

Not a lot of good ideas popped out at me when I had to decide a theme with 5 in it. So what did come to mind was my 5 favorite hikes. So I stuck with that. I ended up spending most of the weekend hiking, filming and editing. I wanted to improve my video skills so I watched a youtube video on how to make impactful videos. They had some really good advice. The biggest tip that I took from that video was to record movement. Either someone moving, or create movement by moving. 

To record I used a crosstour action camera. It is a wide angle lens, high definition action camera, much like the go pro. I also used a gimbal. The gimbal is a handheld mount for the camera. It reacts to your movements to keep the camera level at all times. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement with my video, the gimbal really helps keep the camera much more stable. Especially if you are walking. Even with the gimbal, I was still getting a bit of stopping of the camera with every step. I also tried some close up techniques to try to make the video more interesting. I would try to find something straight and run the camera down it. I think I can be more effective with this technique in the future. 

I also brought along a Canon T7I. The T7I is capable of capturing good video. But without the advantage of a gimbal for it I recorded video with the cheap action camera. I used the Canon to take pictures to accompany my video. I was able to take some really nice photos, but they seem to be losing quality with every transfer between the editing program and posting to youttube. That will be something I will see if I can improve on for my next video. 

This is not my first video production. I have made a handful of videos in my time based tools class. But I have also made a few outside of school work. When I say a few, I mean 3. I would say check them out on Youtube, but don’t. They aren’t very good, and kind of embarrassing. I did really enjoy making this video. I was regretting picking such a time consuming activity, but in the end, I’m glad I did. It was much more fun having free reign to do a project that was all my own. 

Hope you enjoyed the video!

Creating a video project about the number 5 seemed challenging. After all, not many things come in sets of five…. So I settled on the simple 5 Senses: Touch, Smell, Hear, Taste, and See.

I enjoyed working with this topic because the Five Senses is something that often seems under – appreciated. Just brainstorming about the five things I love about each of the five senses reminded me of how much I use them (and overlook them) every day!

When the time came to start creating my video, I first started with the audio. I recorded my voice, and then created a long checklist of all of the things I would need to take pictures of. I noticed that a lot of my pictures were “zoomed-in”. I should have balanced them with more distant shots, but I really enjoyed the challenge of getting new, close perspectives of everyday items around my house.

At one point during the day, I went on a relaxing, long walk around the neighborhood to capture some photo and video footage of the beautiful fall trees and some of the last few flowers in bloom. The weather was cold, but the light gray clouds were perfect for the lighting of my pictures. On the other hand, taking pictures of the food was by far the hardest job; I’d much rather eat food than photograph it!

Using Premiere Pro to compile this video was fun; I fell in love with it after getting introduced to it in the Time-Based Tools class. Although I’m an amateur, I love to use Premiere Pro to renovate old homemade video projects I’ve done a long time ago. Each time I use it, I keep learning.

If I had extra time and energy for my video project, I would have worked on my lettering and fonts in more detail because strangely, my words were blurry in Premiere Pro. I was worried, but thankfully, they appeared rather normal in the exported video.

So here it is! I hope you enjoy this video and won’t forget just how amazing it is to be able to touch, smell, hear, taste, and see!

For my image editing project I decided to do something around veterans because of the Veterans weekend. I chose the the Five Emotions of a Veteran to showcase what many veterans deal with certain emotions. Emotions tend to be tossed out of the equation to either cope with loss or to just not to show weakness. I took up this short video project to share a lightside to the idea that the veterans are tough as nails and have no time for “weak” emotions. The video also was for myself to ease up and make fun of that side of me. I may not speak for other Veterans but I know that this lack in human emotions extends to those that have gone to war. In this video you get just that angry face that is the most familiar face that expands to all emotions in the military. Looking from the outside in, Vets can seem very intense without trying to and it is not intentional at all at times. At times? Okay most of the time, but it is not directed to the person. On a serious note, deep down inside of us there is an ongoing physical and mental war that keeps many of us on our feet. And I sure as hell know that vets are not the only ones. Those struggles give us that warrior face which can give us this angry edge that is showcased in the video. This project was a pleasure to make.

Making the 5 Emotions of a Veteran was a fun project. The idea came to me as the Veterans Appreciation Week at Lane was coming up. Took some few discussions with my girlfriend to actually hammer down an idea. Once I got my idea outlined, I texted Aaron Williams to star in my video. Like myself, Aaron is an Army Veteran that I felt was the right guy for the job. I then set us up to do some recording at the Robert Maxwell Vet Center on campus. I used my Canon Rebel T6 to record the bit. Took no longer than 30 minutes film. I had my girlfriend assist which made it easier. Once done, I paid my actor with food and mead for his help. To edit my video, I solely used Premiere Pro. I did a ton of chopping and made adjustments to the video. The editing is possibly my most favorite part in this project (besides having mead with Aaron). I added music from Kevin Macleod off of Incompetech and an image from Pixabay. The only problem I had in the whole process of editing was trying to work with my  Premiere Pro project on campus. I had forgotten that I was using the latest 2020 edition of Premiere Pro and so I had to just finish my project at my home studio. All and all, It all worked out and now hoping it proves to be enjoyable to the viewer.

Going it to this project I had no clue what I was going to do. This led me to brainstorm ideas with some classmates and one of them suggested five dog tricks (Thank you, Jocelyn). I thought this was a perfect idea because I know a dog that can do tricks! I also thought it would be fun to make an adorable video. I loved the experience of filming. It was fun to figure out what shots I wanted, as well as how I wanted to display them. I did a small storyboard of how I wanted the shots to look and planned it out pretty well. When it came to filming, due to time constraints I had to do a lot of my shots on the spot. Doing some things on the spot was fun and spontaneous and I think that making a storyboard helped but I’m happy I kept the process fluid. The puppy I worked with was also super cute. I loved the editing part of the project too. The best part about editing was finding music that would match the cuteness of the puppy. A challenge I had was trying to find the shots I wanted and piecing them together to make the video flow. I wanted the style my video to be similar to a home video and I think I was successful in that. It was also hard trying to find a way for my niece to be in the video. She desperately wanted to be in it. I decided this could be a good chance for her to practice her counting by counting how many tricks there were. The worst part about this project was wanting it to be longer than two minutes. The best part of this project was playing with the puppy!

Going it to this project I had no clue what I was going to do. This led me to brainstorm ideas with some classmates and one of them suggested five dog tricks (Thank you, Jocelyn). I thought this was a perfect idea because I know a dog that can do tricks! I also thought it would be fun to make an adorable video. I loved the experience of filming. It was fun to figure out what shots I wanted, as well as how I wanted to display them. The puppy I worked with was also super cute. I loved the editing part of the project too. The best part about editing was finding music that would match the cuteness of the puppy. A challenge I had was trying to find the shots I wanted and piecing them together to make the video flow. I wanted the style my video to be similar to a home video and I think I was successful in that. It was also hard trying to find a way for my niece to be in the video. She desperately wanted to be in it. I decided this could be a good chance for her to practice her counting by counting how many tricks there were. The worst part about this project was wanting it to be longer than two minutes. The best part of this project was playing with the puppy!

I enjoyed making this video. I have always wanted to make one, but I feel like I could have done better. It was cloudy on the day I shot the photos, and that didn’t help me while I was I taking the pictures. I wish it had been sunnier. In order to edit the video I used a different app other than Premier because Premier is only available at school and I worked at home. Instead, I edited the video on my phone because it was the only device I had that has photo and video editing. 

I’ve never done video editing before, but I’ve always wanted to edit videos and photos. I’m into photography and video editing so I was excited about this assignment. I want to learn more about both types of editing in the future. 

At first I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do for my video. I think I was making it more complicated than it had to be. I had a lot of ideas, but each of those ideas would have taken more time than I had, so I decided to make a video of five of the bandanas that I have. The person in the video is my brother. I told him I wanted to make a video with him wearing all my bandanas. He was down with my idea. I told him to go on top of the house just for fun and I took some pictures while he was on the roof. I also videotaped him on the ground. I had him sit in a chair with the different bandanas on his head. My brother was also wearing a handmade mask. At first, I wanted to use different colors of masks, but then the attention would have been on the mask. Black doesn’t take attention away from the bandanas. All of his clothes were also black and only the colors of the bandanas changed.

While I was editing the video, I decided to add a couple of effects. You can see some of them at the start of the video. I also put the color of the bandana next to the picture, along the side of the frame, so people are more likely to notice what color of bandana my brother was wearing. I put that because I think that will make people focus first on the bandana and not something else in the picture. I want people’s eyes to go right to the bandana. 

The app that I used for editing didn’t have a lot of editing choices. It would have been nice if I had more choices. For the sound, I downloaded music from Freesound. That site has a lot of sound effects that I can use for free. I wanted to use a different song, but I couldn’t because of copyright issues. I liked working on this assignment. I’m happy with my project. I feel like I did well, especially considering that this is my first time making a video.   

This video assignment for MUL 101 was a lot of fun. One of my most favorite past time with friends is chatting over tea. While in Portland for the weekend, I met up with my friend Ly for just that. In keeping with the theme of fives, the place we patronized is called Coffeehouse-Five. Within the video footage itself, the number five is seen five times. My friend Ellen sent me an audio file of her band rehearsal to use for the music. 

I enjoyed having a chance to use Premiere Pro again, which I haven’t since Time-Based Tools class with Mel Stark. I found that I remembered the basics of how to use the program, but there were several things that I had a vague memory of having the capability to do, but not sure how to execute those. I accessed YouTube many times to find tutorials for a refresher on how to accomplish my desired outcomes.

Overall, I am extremely happy with the results of this video. One thing that would severely improve the quality would be to have less camera shake, which is particularly noticeable at the end. There are lots of forms of equipment, such as a Motorized Gimbal Stabilizer, certain steady cams, and dollies that would eliminate that problem, yet, were not within my time or budget over the weekend. I believe I could have tried harder, with more time, to accomplish smooth camera movements with less shake. As this is one of the first things I have filmed, I did not realize that this problem would be so severe.

In post, I used several stabilizer effects to smooth things out a bit. I made the opening title in Photoshop. I put an image of the coffee cup in Ps, then used that as a template to decide the placement of the lettering and to select lettering that closely resembled the font type of the stamp on the cup. I off-centered the title, because I wanted to see more of that pretty brick wall, but in retrospect, I keep questioning if that was the right choice.

I spend most of my waking hours dedicated to five clients. I mean five classes in the Media Arts program. I guess five clients too, but that’s my day job and the number varies. The thing about clients is they’re rarely coordinated with each other, so that is on you, the contractor, to resolve.

I think Media Arts covers scheduling project load and managing client expectations in a course scheduled for next semester?

Anyway, I have a hard time of it or I give myself a hard time of it. Without an external creative director, I tend to go all-in and can quickly spiral down a rabbit hole of elaborate ideas with no concern for feasibility or complexity.

For this project, I wanted to box myself in with a small concise concept that would be accomplishable while respecting overlapping deadlines from all five of my “clients” projects. Initially, I thought about doing someone with a 5-second attention span, but that’d require a lot of quick cuts. I thought it’d be a really difficult concept with which to achieve a cohesive story.

Two minutes is more than enough time to get across commonly identifiable concepts, so I pivoted to another concept involving time. The premise was I had 5 minutes left to throw together a video. The video itself having a 2-minute limit meant that I couldn’t work in real-time. Which is probably a benefit, as editing can have a lot of dull moments where you’re just waiting. So I set up a screen recording and recorded myself creating the video sequence.

This project was a lot of fun and it generated a lot of thoughts around a million and one ways I could have done things differently. But in the real world, people get paid based on timely results. It takes a long time to build the reputation and network that can support/insulate creative work on longer/larger/more involved projects. This is also something I try to remind myself of constantly. I tend to be a “Jack@#$ of all trades” and can quickly overwhelm myself trying to bite off a bit of everything. It takes a focused effort, on my part, to make deep progress in a specific direction. I am happy overall that this project was a reminder to dial in and focus. I look forward to being on the other side of this journey and having more autonomy over which projects I take on at any time.

Thanks for reading!
-Greyson

P.S. – My computer did literally crash five times during the making of this video. Now I’ve another project to diagnose why that occurred!