rosemarycruse26 437

Preproduction phase: Lights, Camera, Rewrite?

I think the first thing that this project has taught me, is the importance of flexibility. Now yes, getting that perfect angle on a shot might require some flexibility, but the kind I’m talking about comes on the drawboard.  

When Caroline and I first started our group project we had a completely different idea as to how the storyline would turn out. We had planned to go the more dramatic route for our story. We would highlight three unique players on the Paladin Football team through three short interview style videos and a long form narrative discussing their lives and how Furman has affected them. We were also going to create a larger video that discussed and highlighted the new tailgate protocols and fan experience. The more we worked the more things seemed to fall apart…. and this exact experience taught me that sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board. Both of us have the skillset to produce what we had originally planned but, content will never work when you try to do too much at once. Show Your Work touches a lot on this concept of ‘less is more’ and reading this is class helped both of us realized it was time to reign things in and regroup.

Back to the Drawing Board

With a fresh and more concise perspective, Caroline and I were able to create a new and improved story arc for our project. Our project will on one main “Hype” video. This video will highlight the new fan zone experience and show just how fun a Furman tailgate can be. We will also create a landing page for this video that will include a few graphics, the football schedule, ways to get involved, the new tailgate protocols and how to purchase tickets. We will make the landing page with only the most important things, as well as quick and easy to navigate.

Get Our Heads In the Game

So now that we have a solid plan and a story arc that we are proud of, what’s left? Well, to put it in football terms… it’s time to GET OUR HEADS IN THE GAME! Caroline and I already filmed at the first home game so we are set to start editing and creating our content. So I guess all i really have left to say is, be flexible with your content creation and ROLL DINS!

theweekendgallery Paris Karstedt

Reflection on Project Development

3b5f5c6d450c65659bd9a4ccd98fef37

Letting Go

Letting go and bringing a project to completion can be difficult.  

When you finish a project you get to take a step back and reflect on what you’ve created. Whether you love it or hate you’ve created something. You’ve taken an idea from your head and made it into something real. That’s pretty magical if you ask me. 

Though Advanced Multimedia Storytelling Dr. Kwami invited us to be not just students but professional women. She gave us the tools to create something real and valuable within our community. Finally letting these projects go, setting down our pencils and closing our computer screens was difficult because when it comes to your projects you will always find something that can be approved upon or added. The wonderful thing about our group projects and their use within our communities it that we were all able to pass them on to be used and added to with time.

The Final Projects

All your work culminates to produce a completed project.

This is your ta-da moment! 

My group project and individual project allowed me to build my skills in multimedia storytelling. Specifically my website development skills for my individual project and my video skills for my group project. For my individual project, I worked extensively within Wix. I build my website from scratch without a template and found that this gave me much more creative freedom in my design. One of the aspects of my website that I am very proud of is the use of a simple design I drew of an unraveling hand from an inspiration image to create flow through the parallaxing pages of the site.

Screen Shot 2019-05-02 at 2.01.53 PM

Using movement in the site both with the parallaxing and the opening title that I designed within Premiere Pro makes the website visually interesting. Something I would improve upon with more time is by think link it tends to be glitchy. I’m proud of the video and happy with the powerful reminder I now have of the powerful women in my personal life.

Screen Shot 2019-05-02 at 1.12.59 PM

Video creation for the group project was a fantastic opportunity to work with a foreign language in my video. I used subtitles for both English and Spanish. This will be useful in my work after school because I will inevitably encounter foreign languages when working on news stories. Another tremendous learning opportunity in this project was working with someone else’s video clips and bringing to life someone else’s image.  I’m especially proud of the opening sequence in the video and my use of movement in text and stills.

Screen Shot 2019-05-02 at 1.17.09 PM

Take-Aways 

You’ll walk away with so much more than a completed project. By giving of yourself to your work you never know what you will gain in return.

This particular adventure of creating together – now that’s unforgettable.

This class has given me so much than portfolio pieces I’m walking away with friendships, confidence, and a wonderful role model in Dr. Kwami. Since the beginning of these blog posts, I have talked about getting your thoughts out of your mind and into space. For me, this was such a powerful opportunity in my individual project. There were so many times I didn’t want to do the project any longer, but it allowed me to give of myself and make something beautiful something ugly. That was such a powerful experience. This class truly has been unforgettable.

susannahpazdan Susannah Pazdan

All Good Things Have to Come to an End

As I write this last blog post, I am extremely sad that this class is over.  While completing my individual and group projects, I found myself overwhelmed but excited about the work I was producing.  These projects have been far from easy, but have been extremely rewarding.

Team Work

To say that I am proud of my group project and my teammates is an understatement.  We have been on a roller coaster this semester with this project, therefore seeing us get to the end was thrilling.  

For our project, I believe that my whole group would agree in saying that having to communicate in another language was the hardest.  None of us are Spanish speakers, Screen Shot 2019-05-08 at 12.56.22 AM.pngtherefore having to add subtitles into the trailer video and making a whole Spanish website was a great challenge.  Thankfully, we sought the help of a translator, who was a friend of Kirsten’s. Have a translator made the biggest differen

By the time we figured out the Spanish translations and the Spanish website, we moved on to making final touches.  Paris finalized the trailer, I made changes to the websites that Dr. Kearns asked for, and Kirsten created our final presentation! The most amazing aspect of the entire project was how each of us completed a part of the project that fit our strengths.

Even though I believe that our project was a success, there was several ways we could have improved. I wish that our group had been able to film more footage for our trailer, as some of the footage we were given was not great quality.  Asides from having lower quality footage for our trailer, I believe our project was extremely successful. I also believe that as a group, we could have communicated better at some times.

Paris and Kirsten – thank you for everything you did to make this project successful! Without you both, I truly could not have done it.  On our presentation day, I looked at you both with ample pride. I love y’all!

Akwaaba

To say that this was my favorite project I have ever done, is an UNDERSTATEMENT!

Although this project came with many highs and lows. First, determining what to write my long-form piece on was a challenge! My mind raced trying to figure out what to write about, but then I determined I wanted to write about an experience that brought me joy: Ghana.

When I decided to write about Ghana, I struggled with what exactly to say.  My three week long trip to Ghana encompassed many different experiences, people, and places. Therefore, I had to pick the parts of the trip that defined the experience completely.  It was not easy!

Eventually, I formed my story by breaking it up into “Acts”, which I found to be so Screen Shot 2019-05-08 at 12.59.46 AMsuccessful.  By segmenting my story, I found that I could zone into different parts of the trip, therefore highlighting specific emotions and events that happened.  I believe that one of the best parts of my story was the way that I segmented it for my readers.

The absolute best part of my individual project was how I ended up laying it out visually.  I used the platform, Shorthand, which provided me with the tools to not only make my story visually captivating, but also help it come to life.  When publishing my story online, I tried many different platforms, but I found that none of them made my story come to life like shorthand. I was able to use my words in conjunction with photography and videos to express my story.  

I believe that I could improve on the overall wordiness of my writing, as sometimes I can be long winded. Aside from that, I believe that I put my full effort into this project and it paid off.  With that being said, I am beyond proud of how my individual story turned out, and I am thrilled to share it with others!

Thank You

Dr. Kwami – I can not thank you enough for believing in me not only in this class, but through my entire four years at Furman. You have pushed me hard in the classroom, IMG_9384.jpgwhile also showing me my worth.  Without you, I can honestly say that I would not be the woman I am today. Thank you an unbelievable semester full of fun, learning, and ultimate growth.

 

freyasun Uncategorized

Design, Creativity, and the Life of a Project

I never think of myself as an art person. I learned how to use video editing tools in high school but I never really learned how to create videos. I learned how to code a website but I knew coding was not all about web design. One day I became unsatisfied with myself because I realized that anyone with my skills could create the things I created and what I had learned were not what could make a project unique. Then I started to think about it.

  • What is Design?

Screen Shot 2019-04-30 at 2.06.08 PM

  • What is Creativity?

Screen Shot 2019-04-30 at 2.08.02 PM

  • What brings Life to a project?

        … ?

These were the questions that first jumped out of my mind. With these questions, I started my attempts in this multimedia storytelling class. Actually, these terms are familiar to me as a senior communication major. I have learned and practices multimedia skills in digital communication class and I have ‘designed’ my personal social media content and online portfolio before but I feel I never touched the core of these terms.

One of the most valuable things I gained from this class is that how to design a lively creative project cannot be taught by others but can only learn by myself.

syw10

I truly think that just like one can never teach his or her uniqueness to others, creativity cannot be taught. However, it is not that I think all the books and examples we read and learned in class were not useful. In contrast, I think they were great inspirations for my projects. I especially like Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon and Design is Storytelling by Ellen Lupton. The former book introduces the author’ personal ways to acquire creativity. The latter book is not only easy to read but applied the design concepts mentioned in the design of the book itself. Also, the Snow Fall by John Branch exemplifies the power of multimedia storytelling.

Back to my previous point, how to design a lively creative project can only learn by oneself. This is a good example as one of the learn-by-doing things. When reflecting on the whole semester, I feel that this multimedia storytelling class has provided me a good setting for the “doing” part.

Screen Shot 2019-04-30 at 2.31.17 PM

I still can’t articulate definite answers to the questions I have even today but at least I see a road leading to them. I feel confident that by getting my hands dirty on my future projects, I will eventually come to the answers.

kirstenmintun Kirsten Mintun

Constantly Challenged

I cannot explain how challenging I found this class and it’s probably not for the reasons you’d expect. Y’all are incredibly talented- every single one of you (that’s you too Dr. Kwami). With a broad spectrum of specialties ranging from graphic design, personal brand, aesthetic, photography and video and website editing, I walked in knowing just a little bit of everything. And I seriously mean

a little bit.

I tackled each task with my personal best, but it never seemed to compare to the content y’all created. I felt defeated at times. To my friends and family I am creative and artsy, but here I sometimes felt as if I were lacking a certain something. I was so happy with my final individual project, but even after our presentations I found myself comparing my end product to everyone else’s end product. I mean that’s natural right? However it dawned on me to compare my own drafts and look at how far I have come throughout this class.

I have learned more about creating websites, video editing and effective story telling.  I learned about some amazing and fun resources for the future, including thinglink and medium. I was not sold on using Medium for my individual project, but the more I kept using it the more I realized I got to highlight some of my favorite parts of my project- my writing. It allowed me to build a text based personal narrative with multimedia visual and interactive aids.

I really enjoy my thinglink and I love the video I have from Botswana. My project felt very different from my peers’ project. Yet I believe I showcased my strengths and I am proud of everything I accomplished.

//cdn.thinglink.me/jse/responsive.js

I am not walking away a pro in any of the before mentioned categories, but I am walking away better. All of the content I produced throughout this semester got me one step closer to figuring out just what my specialty might someday be. Even more importantly I began to realize what mattered most to me. Through constant reflection I found myself.

I am learning how to best showcase my passions and what I have learned from them. My favorite idea that I had for my e-portfolio was my “Travel” page which showcases what my travels have taught me.  It also lets my future audience know that I am actively reflecting on my life experiences and learning from my surroundings.

My peers have inspired most of the content I have created both in and outside of this class. I am working on a better social media presence and hoping to figure out what my atheistic can be. I am enjoy putting work into my posts on social media sites, because I now understand the importance. I’m also having fun playing around with my brand, because now is the time to figure out what it is I want to be known for.

I have started to go out of my comfort zone to try messing around with applications that intimidated me before- like photoshop. I’m starting to see the importance of post editing and how a picture can be salvaged from bad lighting.

This class has peaked my curiosity and has made me believe in myself. I am not missing anything. I am just as capable as the incredibly talented young women in my class. Before taking this class, you all might’ve put more time into learning multimedia skills, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t do the same now. We all have to start somewhere and I choose for my start to be now. I will no longer back down from a challenge. Instead I will embrace every challenge thrown my way and I truly have Dr. Kwami to thank for it.

Dr. Kwami, thank you for your guidance over the past year.

I have gained a confidence throughout the course of this class and I know it will aid me in all of the future challenges life will give me.

ejclifton Eleanor Clifton

Creative Content Critiques

Through the course of this class, I had a pleasure to work on and complete two very different projects. One project is a personal project that reflected my bond with my grandmother and the other being a group project that worked with the Furman Reflection committee. Through both projects, I was faced with barriers. Whether that be not being able to express emotion in my writing or working with others. Overall, I am happy where both projects are and how they turned out.

Like all content creators, you can never be fully happy with the end results. I can sit there and nitpick over the smallest details, that to others they cannot notice. In the following sentences are things that I believe could be improved upon to create a better coherent and comprehensive project.

Group Project Improvements

Looking through the videos we created for this, I wish I had more time to refilm some videos. There are some shots that the lighting is overexposed causing a harsh light across the interviewee.

Rish’s Reflection Video

I also wish I could have better B-roll for Rish’s reflection video that reflected his words better.

In Gabe’s reflection video I noticed a section where the music rises over his audio, causing a moment that is hard to hear. We did well with his selection of b-roll! I learned a lot more about video editing through this process because I wasn’t making a video for myself but for a client.

Individual Project Improvements

El James

Through my individual project, I have learned so much about myself. Being pushed to open and expand my writing was something I have never experienced. My writing typically is very clinical and blunt, but for this piece, it needed to be expressive and be able to paint a picture.

Through many trials, I finally was able to produce a piece that I am very proud of! The improvements that I would like to make are having more videos of my grandmother. Whether that be in her garden or in her house cooking, I think it could another level of emotional connection to my reader. All in all, I am very proud of this project, I don’t see myself making drastic changes anytime soon. But if I do, they will be subtle and yet very effective.

Premiere, for most, was a challenge to work with. I like to pride myself that I know the basics of the software. But for these projects, I wanted to elevate them and use more advanced skills. After several trials and fails, I figured out how to create several moving graphics that complimented the videos and brought another level of complexity to the editing.

Overall, I was able to learn a tremendous amount of knowledge that I will use through my next two years at Furman. Through the skills I learned, I am eager to showcase them in other classes and even in the work environment. Growing my portfolio to show that not only can I write press releases, but I can also write heartfelt ones too, makes me a diverse job candidate.

 

 

 

 

 

mirabrodyblog Mira Brody

Pride and Premiere Pro: What I’ve Learned

This course has taken me through some rigorous multimedia tasks. I’ve grappled with the intricacies of web design and video editing in ways that I never have before.

Group Project

Working with the Office of Spiritual Life here on campus was a really great experience. While there were a few bumps in the road of communication between our group and the client, but I was very pleased with the overall outcome of the project. We were tasked with updating the Office of Spiritual Life webpage that is linked to multiple different information sources about Daniel Chapel, grief counseling, and student-run religious organizations. As a graphic designer, myself, I was very proud of the fresh and modern visual identity that we provided for the Office of Spiritual Life. I decided to craft that identity around this logo that I created. religionlogotransparent

Because the Office of Spiritual Life’s website was the home of so much information, I wanted to make sure that if anyone outside of the Furman community found any given piece of information on the site previously, that they could easily access that information again. We decided to keep the organization of the website the same, while polishing up the look and feel of the website. One of the most drastic changes for this site can be seen on the student organizations page where we updated the list of student-run organizations and made it easy for users to contact the respective leaders of each organization. In terms of things that I would improve for this project, I would have taken more time to go over the raw interview footage with our client before we started editing to ensure that the client was going to get exactly what they wanted.

Individual Project

I, personally, had a lot of fun with this project. It gave me an opportunity to highlight one of my favorite graphic design projects (rebranding Visit Copenhagen) while also using my writing chops to craft a multimedia piece that really reflects all facets of my creative style. Writing about the design thinking process was a really great way for me to reflect on what I learned both in this course, and in my Copenhagen design course and how they impact my own personal creative process. I really loved utilizing the bright and bold color palette from my brand identity and translating it into web design. I think my favorite part of my Real Talk: Design Thinking website is the portion of the page where the sluts that are used throughout the branding project look as if they are almost scrolling along with the reader as they scroll through the story.

Screen Shot 2019-04-29 at 1.41.47 PM.png

The one thing I would change if I had the time, would be to really tweak and play with different orientations of the body text of the story. I had trouble deciding how to shift the text from side to side so that the reader’s eye follows the suggested “z” pattern, while also making sure that the large portions of body text appeared consistent and cohesive throughout the whole piece. Overall, I am thrilled with how this individual project turned out and would gladly show it to any future employers.

laurenladouceur Uncategorized

My Final Thoughts on Personal Branding

As I sit here and write this post, I am struck with an abundance of excitement. My projects are done, and I am excited to show them to the world, tomorrow is my last day of classes, and I will be graduating in twelve days.

Personal Branding Expert

IMG_0742 2Last week at my sorority’s senior banquet, I received an award, it read: “Most likely to plan a personal branding seminar” and at that moment I realized how much I have talked about my branding project this semester. But, even though the project is finished I find myself still having conversations about branding and career readiness with the majority of my friends. I am proud of myself, I turned something that I was interested in into a tangible part of my portfolio showcasing a more personal side, and more relatable, part of myself.

 

I am most proud of how the video of the project turned out. I originally cut it from my project, thinking that it wouldn’t be produced well enough. But, after re-cutting the video, and adding a substantial amount of B-roll, I believe that it is a final piece that ties it all together.

The Importance of Reflection

But, it goes without saying that this past couple of weeks have been one of reflection. It seems only fitting that my group and I spent our semester learning about what reflection means here on Furman’s campus by creating a landing page to showcase our interviews and provide a space for learning. Yet, I would not even begin to imagine how much reflection would play into my final month here at Furman.

In a very unfortunate accident, a sorority sister and friend of mine suddenly passed away. Our sorority and campus became overwhelmed with shock and grief. I had a hard time dealing with it. But, in an attempt to honor her legacy and provide an uplifting environment to remember her I planned a 5k in her honor. Click here to watch the video recap.

I was shocked to see how much I learned in this class about project management, delegation, graphic design/creating, etc.. would play into making this event possible. This race came together in 2 weeks. I immediately was able to take the skills I learned from interviewing people for the videos in the group project to fundraise money and supplies. I created graphics, and even edited content afterward, knowing the importance of being able to provide the participants with something they could take home from the race!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

According to the National Association of College and Employers there eight core competencies that define “career readiness”. I believe that in this course and through the group and individual projects this course covered and exposed us to all of these topics and gave us situations that would require us to employ these competencies to successfully create and finalize our semester projects!

Final Thoughts

So, to Dr.Kwami, and the phenomenal women in my class thank you. Thank you for pushing and challenging my ideas about myself, my abilities, and my brand. Each of you has touched my heart in a special way and I am so proud to say that I got to spend this semester alongside the most talented women!

IMG_3211

 

freyasun Uncategorized

Connecting the Dots: Thoughts on Multimedia Elements in My Story

Revision leads to improvement, not perfection.

For me, the post-production phrase is where the producer should shift from creating new contents to filling in the gaps in the existing work. This shift started from improving the base of my multimedia story, the long-form narrative. My initial goal for this story was simple: I wanted to leave something as a record of my experience as a Chinese student at Furman and I think it would be more meaningful to capture other Chinese students’ lives as well because they were also part of my life and I am sure there would be many colorful moments they could share with me.

My initial assumption was there must exist a balance between the cheerful moments and the challenging moments I could learn from other students. However, after I organized the interviews to the first draft, I realized that I actually collected many complaints rather than happy memories. This problem led to a unbalanced tone in my story as well, especially when I chose to synthesize the experiences and write the story using a single protagonist. To solve this unbalancedness, I followed Dr. Kwami’s suggestion to add more characters in the story and to delete the redundant paragraphs that may lead to a heavy negative impression in reader mind.

When I finished my second draft, I still felt unsatisfied with the story: The more I stared at the draft, the more unsatisfied I felt with it. I became unsure about the style, the structure, the characters and then I wanted to start over the whole thing. I knew I was getting myself in to a dead end, so I decided to stop for a while and give myself a relief from the narrative.

When I shifted my attention away from the draft, I saw the needs for connecting everything together.

When I started to pay attention to the multimedia elements, I realized that there are many things to consider besides the narrative draft. My planned multimedia elements are a calendar, a map of events, and a video about the Chinese New Year dinner. I already shot the photos and the clips I needed so then I edited them for a rough cut. The major problem I encountered was the unmatched video quality and the lighting issues. This was mainly because I used different devices, sometimes the camera and sometimes my cell phone, during the production phrase. For the first problem, I remedied it by making the overall size of the video smaller and for the second problem, I had to learn light correction to fix it. 

Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 2.19.02 PM

Editing the Video

After I finished the rough cut, I started to make the map of events. Since most of the main events in my story were set to happen at Furman, I downloaded the Furman parking map and tried to add descriptions on it. When I finish the draft, I felt this map was kind of repetitive and I have not decided whether to include in my final project. The same thing happened with the calendar: the information illustrated was repetitive and it added little to my story. This is the part I should spend more efforts on in the future.

inaugurationmap-3

The Furman Parking Map

My Post

The Schedule Example

The layout and the display of the final product are very important for catching the readers’ eyes.

Reflecting on the reading from last few weeks, I know the final display of the story is crucial. For the layout and display, there are multiple aspects to consider as well such as the inclusion of information, the completeness of the functionality, and the design for aesthetics. Luckily, there are tools that are specifically designed for these needs. I am currently arranging my project on Adobe Spark because it seems to work well in incorporating multimedia elements and in making the whole project consistent in style but I may also try other platform later to compare the final result. In addition to the platform, I made a color template for this project to keep the consistency. I used two Furman colors, purple and gray, and three colors from the classic Chinese painting pigments:

Screen Shot 2019-04-02 at 2.13.04 PM

The Color Template

For the personal project, I don’t actually have many data in numbers but I am considering making a relation graph among the characters and maybe more characters than the ones mentioned in the story and give them all a short biography. In this way, I can make the story more inclusive and probably more representative. As I mentioned before, there are tools that can help me with all these things.