Reflection

Overall, this semester has been very productive for me. Going into this course, the only Adobe editing program I had experience with was Photoshop, and very minimal experience at best. I now have a good grasp of all these different programs now, which will serve me well going into my future profession.

My favorite project to work on during this semester would have to be the audio story I created with Adobe Audition. Out of all the programs, I felt as though I had the best handle on Audition because it was the most straightforward to me. As a result, I think I was able to use my creativity to produce a good final product, as I did not have the struggle of trying to figure out the tools of the program. I also enjoyed the that unit because it directly inspired me to produce projects in the future that I had never thought of doing before. When I went to Portugal for spring break, I used the audio clip that I recorded of people speaking in Portuguese on the bus. I think it may be fun to create more audio stories that use those elements. In my future travels, I could interview people from around the world on certain topics and organize their various responses using Adobe Audition.

Me during my spring break trip to Portugal.

My ideal future profession is to become an actor. The skills that I have learned from this course will be invaluable to me as I pursue that career. In this digital age, going for a career in the entertainment industry involves building an online presence. A great way to do that would be to create logos, graphics, and reels that can be put on a website. As an actor, this class has given me the skills to start building that presence in order to make myself more visible to the industry. Adobe Premiere will be especially helpful in putting together my acting reel as I book more jobs and collect more footage of my performances.

One skill that we did learn in this course, but I would’ve liked studying a little bit deeper is website creation. I think it would be beneficial to work with some of the other sites in which websites can be built, just to compare which one we like the best. Other than that, everything else we learned is a good basis for exploring content creation in the future. All of the resources that were used in class were valuable, especially the tutorials for each program, so I thankfully did not really need to rely on any outside material.

I thoroughly appreciate what this course has taught me, as it has provided me with a launch pad for developing future works. There is certainly still more to learn, however I now don’t have to feel intimidated when attempting to create something using one of these Adobe programs. I feel satisfied with the work I have produced in this class, and it will only get better from here.

 

Final Video Story

In working on the draft portion of my video story, Premiere was perhaps the toughest program that I have worked on so far this semester. Adobe Premiere combines many of the elements of other programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Audition, so it was a bit overwhelming trying to figure out how to work things, even with the help of the tutorials. Not to mention that since Premiere is such a large program, it would sometimes work slowly on my laptop and not cooperate. The only experience I have with editing videos is with Windows Movie Maker, which, I realize, does not contain many of the capabilities that Premiere does.

In deciding the concept of my video, I knew I wanted to present it from my perspective. Going off of that, I chose to film different parts of my everyday life, with the video culminating at an audition room, something I am familiar with and is a big part of my life as an actor. I also used a voiceover in the form of my narration to help convey the message.

To make the video, I filmed myself performing different daily activities with a camera in one hand. For the driving shots, I set my camera on my dashboard while I was driving to different locations such as work and the gym. To edit them together, I mainly used Tutorial #1 as guidance because it was the one that contained music, which I used as well. I used quick cuts for each shot, and I also recorded narration for the audio portion of the video. It was surprising to me how quick each shot needs to be in the video in order for it to not seem too long.

After my first draft was completed, I realized it needed work. The message of the life of an actor was not fully conveyed via my video. This was due to a combination of vagueness in the filmed images and the narration, which my instructor noted when commenting on my video. There was also a smaller issue with the volume, in which my voiceover was a bit drowned by the music, which a classmate noted.

To fix the vagueness issue, I decided to insert shots of myself going through a script throughout the video. I did this by filming myself flipping through a script, then cut them in-between some of the shots. One of the new effects that I added was a cross fade with two images on top of each other. I then set the image on top (the one with the script) to 65% opacity to make it look like the two images are combined. I also significantly changed the narration of the video to be much more specific. In the narration, I talk about being an actor going on auditions, and the fact that this is my passion. Lastly, I adjusted the volume using the volume control panel to make the music a bit softer and my voiceover a bit louder.

Music Link: New Life on Soundcloud

Premiere Video Story Draft

For my video story draft, Premiere was perhaps the toughest program that I have worked on so far this semester. Adobe Premiere combines many of the elements of other programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Audition, so it was a bit overwhelming trying to figure out how to work things, even with the help of the tutorials. The only experience I have with editing videos is with Windows Movie Maker, which, I realize, does not contain many of the capabilities that Premiere does.

In deciding the concept of my video, I knew I wanted to present it from my perspective. Going off of that, I chose to film different parts of my everyday life, with the video culminating at an audition room, something I am familiar with and is a big part of my life as an actor.

To make the video, I filmed myself performing different daily activities with a camera in one hand. For the driving shots, I set my camera on my dashboard while I was driving to different locations such as work and the gym. To edit them together, I mainly used Tutorial #1 as guidance because it was the one that contained music, which I used as well. I used quick cuts for each shot, and I also recorded narration for the audio portion of the video. It was surprising to me how quick each shot needs to be in the video in order for it to not seem too long.

I realize that this draft definitely needs some work. I think I’d like to add more to it to make it less basic. I also think that it could flow and be balanced a little bit better. Overall, however, I am happy that I am gaining this Premiere experience because I felt like a professional editor using this program and these editing skills will definitely come in handy for the future.

Premiere Story Raw Footage

Premiere Storyboard – COM 210 – Jonathan Keyes

Premiere Tutorials

Final Audio Story

This audio story draws inspiration from my desire to maintain a career as a full-time actor. I wanted to create a narrative that focuses on just one of the reasons why this passion of mine is so big.

It was tough for me originally figuring out what I wanted to do for my project. During spring break, I traveled to Europe, visiting Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Dublin. I had the audio project in mind, and thought of recording something while I was over there, but couldn’t put my finger on what exactly I should record. In the initial days of the trip, I admittedly did not think too much about the project, until one day when I was sitting on a bus in Lisbon. The Portuguese people around me were speaking so passionately and talking over one another, that I figured it would make for great audio for my project. I had no clue what they were saying, but I could feel the intent behind their words, so I recorded the atmosphere for about one minute.

In figuring out how to incorporate the bus sounds into my audio project, I decided to craft a narrative that would directly correlate with my topic. I used the bus audio as background for the piece, but in a way in which the narrative focuses on it. I speak about how people everywhere, regardless of language, have a passion for various artforms. At the end of the narrative, when the bus sounds in the background have faded, I then transitioned into inspirational-esque music as I speak about my personal reasons for performing.

To create the story, I mainly pulled from Audition Tutorial #2, and walked through the video step-by-step to help guide my process. I used only three tracks for this story: the audio narration that I recorded, the Portuguese bus sounds, and a Creative Commons song that I discovered on SoundCloud.

When I received the feedback on my initial draft from my peers and my TA, the main criticism concerned the volume of the piece. I was advised that the volume of my narration was too loud, and that the Portuguese background noise, as well as the music at the end, were both too loud as well. Upon hearing this criticism, I agreed with it. My voice is kind of deep, which can often make it overbearing over a microphone or through a recording. The music at the end also pops in suddenly and loudly, which could surprise the listener.

In applying these changes to my project, I knew that I had to lower the volume of the entire story. To do this, I used the yellow volume bar on each track to adjust accordingly. I also shortened the length of the Portuguese background noise, as recommended by my TA. Lastly, I added a smoother transition into the music at the end. By adding the transition and lowering the volume, it seems more natural and does not take the listener by surprise. Overall, I am very happy with the final product.

Resources:

Music (used in audio story)

Audio Story Draft

This audio story draws inspiration from my desire to maintain a career as a full-time actor. I wanted to create a narrative that focuses on just one of the reasons why this passion of mine is so big.

It was tough for me originally figuring out what I wanted to do for my project. During spring break, I traveled to Europe, visiting Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Dublin. I had the audio project in mind, and thought of recording something while I was over there, but couldn’t put my finger on what exactly I should record. In the initial days of the trip, I admittedly did not think too much about the project, until one day when I was sitting on a bus in Lisbon. The Portuguese people around me were speaking so passionately and talking over one another, that I figured it would make for great audio for my project. I had no clue what they were saying, but I could feel the intent behind their words, so I recorded the atmosphere for about one minute.

In figuring out how to incorporate the bus sounds into my audio project, I decided to craft a narrative that would directly correlate with my topic. I used the bus audio as background for the piece, but in a way in which the narrative focuses on it. I speak about how people everywhere, regardless of language, have a passion for various artforms. At the end of the narrative, when the bus sounds in the background have faded, I then transitioned into inspirational-esque music as I speak about my personal reasons for performing.

To create the story, I mainly pulled from Audition Tutorial #2, and walked through the video step-by-step to help guide my process. I used only three tracks for this story: the audio narration that I recorded, the Portuguese bus sounds, and a Creative Commons song that I discovered on SoundCloud. This was perhaps the easiest draft so far for me, so I feel that if I had to make any adjustments to my work, I will not have too much of a difficult time.

Resources:

Music in project (SoundCloud)

Audio Story – Raw Audio Footage

Here are my two raw audio tracks. For my audio story, I plan to present a narration about some of my goals as an actor. I will use these two tracks as backings for my voiceovers.

Audition Tutorials

Final Logo Project

When I first began the design process for my logo, I knew I wanted to represent myself as an actor. I figured the best way to translate that into an illustration would be to use a film slate. The slate is widely recognized in and out of the film community, which is why I decided to create the figure. I also used the idea of a slate in my last project, so I figured it would be a good way to connect the logo to the design project.

In the draft portion of my logo design process, I created the image mainly using the pen tool and the line segment tool. I used the pen tool to create the rectangular base of the slate, and the line segment tool to form the lines on the clapper portion. I then filled in the black color lines and used the text tool to add my name. I found that many of the directions from the Pencil Logo tutorial were useful in crafting my logo because the logos were of similar structure. I also used help from the Banner Logo tutorial to assist in copying and flipping the images of the clapper. For the most part, it was easy to construct this image. The only issue that occurred was when I was attempting to fill in the lines of the clapper. I could not find any sort of fill tool, so I ended up using the Blob Brush Tool and painting in the lines manually.

After I had posted the draft logo and received feedback from my classmates and instructor, I decided that I needed to make a few adjustments to the image. The first change I made was rounding the edges of the slate to make it less blocky. I did this by clicking on Effect, Stylize, and Round Corners. I then started messing with other different effects and settled on Drop Shadow, which lifts the image off the page a bit and allows it to appear more three-dimensional. I changed the font of the text to Garamond, a nice, professional font which fits well with the rest of the logo. Lastly, I altered the colors of the slate. For the lines on the clapper portion, they alternate green and blue, which represent my favorite football team, the Seattle Seahawks. I figured this would add a bit more of my personality into the image. Also, I changed the background color to a light grey, to give it more depth. I filled both of these portions by using the Live Paint Bucket, which fixed my issue of having to do it manually with the Blob Brush Tool.

I think this revised logo is definitely more creative and utilizes more of the skills that I have learned through the tutorials. As an actor, I am using this logo to promote myself and the work that I am capable of, and I want that message to come across as soon as someone sees this logo. This logo is balanced and has a sense of unity, which are two significant aspects that must be present when designing work.