Final Blog Reflection Post

My favorite project during the semester was the final video project. I liked it the most because I feel as if I was able to show off my topic better than any of the other projects. I was able to give a multi-faceted explanation of high jump in terms of high jumping itself and what goes into the jump(preparation). This was also the project that was most fun to edit. It did not feel like a chore like the photoshop and illustrator projects did.

I learned many skills in this course. Obviously, I learned the four adobe programs, but I also learned many computer skills. Some examples are using zip files, making folders and maintaining a website.

I am a business major, so I can almost guarantee that some of the skills I learned in this course will come in handy. Whether it be editing images for a marketing campaign or working to create a logo. I may also want to put together a professional personal website while looking for careers.

One skill that I would enjoy learning is putting together a business card. i think that this would be a pretty simple skill that would have real life applications.

I did use a few outside materials when I was working on certain tutorials and projects. One of my favorite youtube accounts was named AdobeHelp and they had very helpful and in-depth videos. I also used a few online blogs that troubleshoot. This way if you are really stuck you can get multiple opinions on the issue.

If I had to recommend this course to a friend I would make sure that they have a personal computer that will run the software. I had to use school computers and it made it kinda tough for me to get all the assignments done. All though the course is time consuming  learned a lot and am glad I took it!

Final Video Story

Background: For my final video story I wanted to do something that was comprehensive and related to all dimensions of my topic. I decided to do a video briefly detailing, in my opinion, the three most important aspects that go in to becoming a good high jumper. Training/Preperation, The Jump itself and Recovery. To do this I took clips of my friend Trevor, a pole vaulter at WSU who is proficient in all the same movements as high jumpers. I focused in on olympic style lifts and took 4 seperate takes to aqquire all the footage. For the jump itself, I imported my lifetime best jump to show what all this training and recovery goes into. I added in a few creatve commons images relating to high jump as well.

Revisions and Editing: Peer feedback as well as self-critique was very helpful on this project. I had so many critiques that I decised to start a new project in Premiere. The first change I made was making sure that all my photos and videos were to scale. I was having this issue until I went to lab and I learned that I needed the sequence to be set at 48 khz widescreen. I added both an audio track and a narration track. I used the razor tool to trim and move the narration track so it was in line with the video. I added 2 different types of transition to give the video a bit more depth. Something that I experimented with was slow motion. I slowed my video down by selecting he track and right clicking, then choosing to slow the video down to 60 percent.

Challenges: Even though, this software is very comprehensive, I did run into a few issues. The first issue I ran into was how to adjust the volume on an audio track. I ended up going online and watching a tutorial. I also ran into a few issues slowing the video of the jump down and matching it with the proper duration. The final challenge I ran into was when exporting the file, I did not realize that I had cropped about half the video out in the top right. Once I figured it out it was an easy fix with the razor tool!

Conclusion: I wanted this video to be simple and not have too many effects to distract from the video itself. I also wanted it to be very comprehensive and educational about my topic. I know there is not enough time to explain everything about high jump, but I believe I did a good job explaining in a brief amount of time.

https://www.google.com/search?as_st=y&tbm=isch&hl=en&as_q=high+jump&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&cr=&as_sitesearch=&safe=images&tbs=sur:fmc#imgrc=dOcI5wxyFuVnlM:

High Jump VC: Brad Walker

http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dexter_Britain/Creative_Commons_Volume_2/Summers_Coming

Sheeran WSU headshot: Permission to use

Rough Draft Video Project

Fot my video project I wanted to do something that really encompassed my topic. I decided to highlight the three phases of jumping. Preparation, Competition and Recovery. In order to do this I videotaped my friend Madeline doing certain activities. I also imported a photo of myself and another WSU high jumper. I also imported a video of myself high jumping. I will admit this is still a raw edit and I need to make a few more changes to perfect it. I did utilize a handful of tools in Adobe Premiere though. I was able to use several tracks to have text appear over images as well as utilizing sequence. There are a few changes that I believe can make my video drastically better. The first is cropping some of my images and videos as well as importing the in higher resolution. Many of these are a bit small and for some reason show up grainy. I will try to re-import these images as well as crop them properly by using the effects on the top right. The next thing I plan on changing to my final is adding transitions. I want to have my final slide fade to black and use the dissolve transition on the rest of my slides. The next thing I want to do is add a music track. The song is titled “club foot” by Kaspian and I am not sure it is creative commons material. I also think that I will take some new video of someone who is a high jumper at WSU and replace it with Madeline. I believe that this will make my video more credible. I Overall, with these changes I think my video should end up pretty sweet! The video of me high jumping and picture in the closing credits belongs to me. The Immage of WSU High Jumper Trent Arrivey will be linked below.

Trent Arrivey

http://paulmerca.blogspot.com/2008/05/trent-arrivey-wins-ncaa-west-regionals.html

Video Link

Premiere Tutorials

Raw Video Footage

Sample Storyboard: Title of the Project

Visual Elements	Audio Elements
0:00-37 Stretching(hip stretch, IT Band, important areas for high jump). Weightlifting clips, clean, frontsquat). Visualizing jump, etc.	High jump starts with preparation. Both Mentally and Physically. Weightlifting, stretching and foam rolling and visualization are all tools that an elite high jumper uses to ensure that he achieves maximum performance.
0:37 -1:10 Repititions of jumps in slow motion and at different angles as well as drills	After proper preparation a high jumper must put it to use. You must remember all your cues to have a technically sound jump in order to maximize your height over the bar. By time you are in a competition this should come easily because of the many many repititions that you have already taken in practice. All that is left to do is jump!
1:10-1:42Tour of training room, normatec. Contrast bath, yoga, somebody sleeping, more stretching and trainers in action	Recovery is an aspect that many athletes often overlook. High Jumping is extremely taxing on the body and it is imperative that you invest time in proper rehab and recovery. The things I like to do are stretching, yoga, contrast baths as well as comprssion sleeves. But, the number one thing is giving your body time to rest and getting an adequate amount of sleep everytime. All these things will lead to less injuries and maximal performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6njrcPh6p5s&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnsu2GogjAI

 

Final Audio Story

For my audio story, I did an interview with Peyton Fredrickson. Peyton is a high jumper at WSU who has jumped seven feet! I discuss the many aspect of becoming an elite high jumper with Fredrickson, such as, diet, strength training, technique and more. I did this interview in two different recordings and it took me a handful of takes to make it sound good. First, I recorded an intro giving a brief description of the interview and an introduction of Fredrickson. Next, I grabbed Fredrickson for an interview. I set up a script for him to look over beforehand so that he would be able to think of more focused and meaningful answers to my questions. Then, I went in a quiet room and interviewed him. I have to say that his responses were very thorough and made it easier on me. Obviously, the interview was not perfect. There were a handful of times where either of us used “um” or repeated a word. I edited out all of these that were obvious, but left a few small errors to make us seem a little less robotic. There were also many pauses that
I edited out using the razor tool in audition. There were not too many technical difficulties I encountered. For the most part the audition software is very intuitive. The one problem that I ran into was saving the multitrack mixdown when I had one of the tracks on mute. This was an easy fix, as I just had to export a new multitrack mixdown without the track muted. I changed a few things in my final audio story from my draft. The main thing I did was add music. I found a 10 second hip hop/jazz track that I thought blended well with the interview and put that as the intro and outro. I found this on a creative commons music website that I will link below. I also faded the volume in and out for a smoother effect. Unfortunately there was a technical error, so I was not able to get peer feedback. I did construct a self review though. I thought that my draft was solid but I needed to smooth out the interview a bit by using the razor tool as well as add music that was suitable to the style of the interview. These were the two big things and I was able to do both well. My inspiration for this video  was a video published by Eastbay Magazine on youtube entitled “Jesse Williams Interview”. Jesse Williams is a world champion high jumper from the United States and he discusses training among other things. This audio story relates directly to my topic of “Track and Field Lifestyle”.

Audio used: file:///D:/268690__tyops__hip-hop-sample-01%20(2).wav(accesed from FreeMusicArchive.org)

Final Audio Story

Draft Audio Story

This audio file is related very closely to my blog topic. I chose to interview Peyton Fredrickson. Peyton is a high jumper at WSU. I asked him a few questions about the many aspects that go into becoming a successful high jumper. I first recorded a short inro giving a little background on Peyton and the theme of the interview. Next, I grabbed Peyton for an interview that took right around 60 seconds. I asked him questions about weight training, diet, high jump technique as well as the “mental side” of high jumping. The audio parts that I recorded were still pretty raw, so I had to go into Audition and do a little editing. Peyton repeated himself a few times, so I had to edit a few different words out. I find that the easiest way to edit out words is by using the razor-blade tool in conjunction with the zoom(time) tool if needed. There were also a few long pauses that I edited out with the razor-blade tool. These were pretty quick and simple fixes to make in audition. The one technical difficulty I encountered was because my time cursor was not set to 0:00 originally, when I saved the multitrack mixdown session, it did not save the entire track to the computer. I also had to find some inspiration for this interview. I used a pretty standard interview format. First introducing my interviewee and next asking him four set questions. I used a script but it was loose and I did not follow it precisely. I was inspired by a video done by Eastbay Magazine titled “Jesse Williams Interview”. This was a very well done interview with olympic high jumper Jesse Williams. For my final project I plan to add music and fade the volume in and out in difeerent spots. I will have to toy around with it to figure out how to make it sound right.

 

Raw Audio Footage

This is an introduction and then an interview with WSU high jumper Peyton Fredrickson. He discusses the aspects that go into high jump.

Audition Tutorials

Here is the embedded file: 

Direct URL: https://soundcloud.com/beau-sheeran/sets/comm-210-audition-tutorials