Category Archives: Past Student Work

Video Editing Project-Homework.

Ah, at it again with another post all based around homework.

 

I promise that I’ll get back to cameras and lenses… eventually. But back to the topic.

This was a last minute ordeal. Too much work and too little time management skills on my part really ruined a good opportunity. Then again, it also lent me a gratifying illusion: free time. Taking this assignment as an excuse for a break from everything else and exploring my campus as a personal project, I simply shot what I see everyday in the pattern of five. Five flowers, five modes of transportation, five signs… you get the gist.

Honesty, all I wanted to accomplish with this project was to complete it. It sounds bad, but all I really like about video is the compilation/editing. I personally think that for an editing project that the project should be based around an established video and edited. For example, taking the epic The Ten Commandments, and editing it down to five minutes with a coherent storyline. That, to me, would be closer to the point of the assignment. But I do get how creating content is key to becoming a better media artist.

All in all, it was simply a nice break from everything else. It’s certainly not video heavy, but then again, it’s not my forte.


P5 Image Editing

 

For my project 5 I did a top 5 touchdown celebrations. What I was originally trying to accomplish was just a very basic video that counted down some famous touchdown celebrations. Once I got everything filmed and started editing I realized I don’t have a lot of variety in how I filmed. So I decided to make the video as cute and funny as humanly possible. I used my son as the actor and I found that was a huge pain. He did not want to do it at first because he is very shy. Once I got him in front of the camera he was fine, but then there was the issue of teaching him these iconic dances. He had a lot of trouble picking them up. This was both bad and good. It was bad because it was very frustrating. The good in it though was that is “version” of the dances I think made the video better in the long run. The editing of the film was definably the easiest part for me. The sound and titles took a little more work. They weren’t necessarily hard it was just difficult getting the sounds and text to match the dances. Overall I had a lot of fun making this video as dorky as I could and was a good learning experience.

Brief Continuum – P5

 

This is my video for P5 Image Editing. I wrote this song just for the video, and had a lot of fun doing so. The song itself is a bit slow and sombre, but I feel it was a subconscious thing in the writing process. I guess I’ve been in a bit of a depressive mood lately and this song kind of reflects that. I’m just happy it came together the way that it did.

The song uses a 5-string bass to coincide with the “five” theme of the assignment. The other video clips within the video that aren’t of bass-playing are shots of things in my backyard and house. I feel as though they get a bit brighter (or “happier”) as the song progresses and resolves. “Brief Continuum” is an oxymoron in the same way of saying something is a “contained infinity,” but it may also be a subconscious thing; depression doesn’t typically last long, but it feels like an eternity.

What I was trying to accomplish with this was a sense of emptiness in the beginning of the song (maybe not in the very beginning of the video), as it’s just one low, slow instrument playing. It then picks up a little bit with drums and a second bassline, then resolves with a long, low root note, fading to a shot of sun and flowers. I just wanted the song and video to be a reflection of how things can seem grim, but will always be brighter in the end.

by Ryan Scott


5 Gifts to Give Your Sweetheart this Valentines Day

This is technically my first real video project and I had so much fun creating it. Honestly, comedy is not something that I have any experience with, especially visual comedy. So I figured I’d challenge myself with this video. I surveyed at least 20 people and asked them what they would like to receive for Valentines Day and then I took a couple of those gift ideas and made jokes out of them. Writing out the storyboard took up a ton of my time, so in an attempt to ration my remaining time, I cut out the idea of any dialogue. By doing so, I avoided writing a script, checking out a snowball mic, fixing levels, etc. On the other hand, without dialogue, the video relies entirely on the props to make the jokes. Acquiring the props was one of the best parts. Imagine a giant pair of underwear, ketchup and Die Hard in my shopping cart. Shoutout to my partner Keasey who was a great sport when I forced him into a robe on camera. This was actually quite a lovely, little Valentines Day activity for us. Apologizes to Teresa for starring in my own video, but I was all I had at the time. The most difficult part of this process for me was staying within the 2 minute time limit. I had between 6 and 9 shots for each scene (I went a little overboard, but passion for videography will do that to you). After a great deal of time, I finally managed to whittle it all down to exactly 2 minutes. Another aspect I struggled with was the music. Each song worked out alright, but they weren’t exactly what I wanted. Besides a little couple challenges, I had such a great time. There’s nothing I would love more than to do this for a living one day.

5 Things That Suck in Life by Nate Emerson

Cast: Itay Vagner, Jonathan Ray, Bartholomew Kaur, Sierra Owens, the voice of Nathan Pierson

Written, Directed, and Edited by me

So this assignment was… different. When the prompt of surrounding the video around the number five was announced, I knew I wanted to do something involving sketch comedy. However I knew that making 5 sketches wouldn’t be enough, those sketches should be centered around the number five, primarily why it’s evil! As soon as I was told that I needed actors, I knew immediately who to call on; the South Eugene High School Comedy Club! For a little background, most of the people who were starring in the video were people I met through a sketch comedy club we formed in my freshmen year of high school. As I knew, they were all more than happy to work with me on this project, making filming them an absolute joy! The real trouble I ran into this project was editing. I had at least 5 minutes worth of footage recorded and I had to cut it down to 2, all while I was getting over a cold. As a result the video ended up going much faster than I thought it would, which actually added to the comedy in my opinion. With that said I still needed to come up with some creative solutions. In between each skit I had a little title explaining what the following skit was about, but thanks to the 2 minute time limit, they were impossible to read. In the end I decided to keep the first title, but for the remaining 4 skits I used visual representations. Looking back, I wish I had removed the 3rd title since it shows up for less than a second and can barely be read, though I felt like the skit wasn’t self explanatory enough to not label it so I was kind of stuck. Well I hope you enjoyed my first attempt at directing people, I put a lot of time and effort into this, so be honest in your feedback!


P4-Audio

For my audio project I made a mock TNT NBA game promo. My goal was to be as realistic sounding as possible. I wrote out the script trying to copy the hooks I have heard hundreds of times. To try and sound more like a real ad I took real game clips and mimicked them for highlights in my promo. I found that this was a lot more difficult then anticipated. No matter what I did it seemed like I was reading directly off a piece of paper. There are 21 different cuts on this audio file so they feel of reading it in one go was extremely frustrating. I did have a lot of fun doing this project, the sports audio field is where I want to be, so I worked extra hard on this project. I’m still not the happiest with my final project but I am satisfied with the end result.

That One Time (or Why I Have No Friends) by Nate Emerson

WARNING: There’s a short, pretty sharp audio spike at 9 seconds in.

Before you ask, no I am not a serial killer. With this story, I wanted to make an affectionate parody of what most fan fiction ends up being. I firmly believe that good fan fiction does exist, however it is hard to deny that roughly 90% of fan fiction ends up being self indulgent fantasy in which the author is the main character and posses no flaws and is adored by every other character. This is what’s known as a “Mary Sue.” This is why I made my self ridiculously over powered and is far to into how amazing he is. An example being my character inexplicably having a lightsaber or gaining power from his “insanely hot female love interest” (I also loved doing that voice). I also wanted to play with status with the twist at the end. In the first part of the story my status is high being the ultimate savior of the universe, however when the twist at the end hits my status immediately shoots downward and I’m revealed to be a pathetic character with a clear history of mental issues. My overreaching goal was simply to make people laugh, or more so, to make something I thought was funny. My “style” of comedy relies heavily on not making any sense, there isn’t a whole lot of cleverness or wit involved, which may turn a few people off. My personal motto (which I invented 10 seconds ago) is “make something that makes you laugh, and hope someone agrees.” With that said, please be as brutal as possible.


Beaches of California – by Karl Reindel

Describe what you were trying to accomplish.

What I am trying to accomplish with this assignment is a piece of art that is well done, surpassing the minimal standards set by the assignment.  I want to invest feeling into my work, and give it meaning.  Beyond that I want the feeling and meaning conveyed to the audience who listens to my piece.  This project is a poem, written by myself, about the beaches of California where I lived until I was about nine years old.  Hopefully it will convey the things one can appreciate about the seaside, day and night.

Describe your experience with this assignment.

In describing my experiences with this assignment, I found there were things that were easy, as well as things that were challenges.  The recording part was easy, once I was on a roll.  Finding the sounds came easily to me, as I had an idea of what I wanted from the start.  One challenging aspect for me was reading the poem, even though I wrote it.  It was challenging to get the words and inflection just right.  Once I got it going, it became easier.

I started with Audacity, and switched to Pro Tools to finish the project.  I needed to work at home and could only use Audacity for that part.  I like the results of using Pro Tools, which I am learning in Audio 120, so I wanted to use that program to polish the work.  I also wanted the experience of using Pro Tools as much as I can, to learn the program.

I enjoyed finding the sounds.  Making different mental pictures and considering the possible interpretations each sound could lend, was enjoyable.  It was like making mental trips to the beach over and over again.  I have ended up with four versions with slightly different background music.  I have narrowed it down to two.

In all I enjoyed the opportunity that this assignment offered to work with both audio programs.  I learned a lot about how sound can impact the mental picture one makes.  My repertoire for finding sound resources is increasing.  My ability to sort through sounds is getting better, and I am getting faster and more efficient at putting things together.


Audio Project: Meeting Marvin

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(Image pulled from Google images. If you’re the owner and don’t want it here then please say so!)

By: Christopher Palanuk

Not all of what I do is photography. Sometimes (and usually when class requires it) I dabble in audio or writing. In this case, I did both. It’s not much in terms of good. It’s probably bad, and most likely ugly, but it was rather fun.

I just took a excerpt from a random idea I had and fleshed it into spoken word. Unfortunately, with only three minutes, I wasn’t able to even get to the themes I wanted to tackle (sexism, racism, justification of violence/language, how ridiculous some stories are in video games). Yet, overall, I’m happy to have had the opportunity to have made it.

The technical data definitely should have been stronger. The atmosphere, or lack thereof, needed to be improved. The backdrop was supposed to be an equivalent to an icy snow planet and there isn’t one hint of that in the ambiance. Another hiccup was that there wasn’t a female voice actor. So, sadly, the robotic voice and the “female” voice sound roughly the same because of both being my voice differentiated only by pitch. Ah, well.

Some backdrop: One high level programmer (female), who built part of a new virtual reality console, is tasked with fixing it. Unfortunately, it’s problem is located virtually, not physically. So, to combat the program’s dangers, she hires a random character (the hero), to help her get to the problem (Ironic, right? Trying to tackle sexism in video games and a male hero is used to physically help the female sidekick? Oh well.). When they enter the world, they meet a rather unusual character… and that’s where the sound-byte begins.

SO…. what do you think?


W16 P4 Audio: “Depression”

For my P4 Audio Project, I did a reading of a poem i wrote back in the earlier days of high school, simply titled “Depression.” As you may have guessed, that is exactly what it is about; the feeling of bleak monotony, boredom and ennui that is depression. I had written it to try to describe to people what the feeling was, since talking to people face-to-face, especially as a kid, they try to write it off as just being sad, or worse, medicate it out of you. All anyone I showed it to got from it was that I stayed out too late and was too lazy to clean. But i digress. I did not want to use my own voice for this project; I feel that my voice is far too warm for the tone and message I was trying to convey in my writing.

 

And as a footnote, vaguely related to the class, I have owned the copyright to this poem for some time, and in no way, in turning this in for the class, hand over those rights. I do not mind this work’s use, and give full permission to show it, BUT I OWN THIS. I will fight for this in court if I have to. Nobody, NOBODY is going to get ownership or credit for this when they had nothing to do with it. PERIOD.

 

-Riley Clayton-Sanders