Multi-Media PSA - Week 5

The past two weeks have been spent collaborating with my team of 4 others to create and produce a multi-media public service announcement. It was a little challenging to meet with others and make a plan of action, but it came together in our online meetings using Google's Hangout venue. Using this allowed all of us to meet easily and freely. I must say that it was so nice to split the duties of production. Earlier in the course we learned how to effectively plan and utilize the idea of storyboarding and it paid off in this project. We decided that our PSA would be about School Zone Safety, and from there we decided our shots, and then narration. The challenges (no surprise) lay in the audio recording and uploading and in trying to upload video that would survive editing and remain in tact as far as quality. I am pleased with our outcome for our first production, and am eager to use the techniques, strategies, and hints that were offered in the weekly readings in order to shoot and produce better videos.

Week 2 podcast....and other stuff

This week was a little more challenging for me, probably because I have never dabbled in movie making or uploading videos, podcasting, etc.,
I guess I got a little confused as to what the final directions were - do we create a video? or do we create a video of how to create a video? or do we just create an audio of the editing software we use to do one or both of the above. These things can confuse  someone who is just trying to learn the first steps in creating and posting. One thing I learned that just because you create a video or podcast, doesn't mean it is uploadable. It still needs to "reside" somewhere. There was a large learning curve for me this week. Unlike some of my cohorts, my day-to-day duties do NOT include using technology to this degree - and boy do I feel behind in this new arena.
Practice will perfect my knowledge, and of that, I am sure there will be plenty!

While I have created several PhotoStories for friends and relatives for anniversaries, births, and graduations that were stories told through music, I have never created one that focused on one of my stories - and certainly have never narrated one. This was much harder than anticipated. I found the writing area very helpful for narration. Usually an "ad-libber," I used this as a jumping off point for each picture. As mentioned in Mr. Lambert's digital story cookbook, telling one's own story is difficult because of all the media saturation that exists in our heads today. (Lambert, 2007). And I could very well be the person he mentions that works hard to incorporate everything possible within the creation, at the expense of just telling the story. I get overwhelmed but i know just enough about editing, visuals, adding music and special effects, etc., to know nothing about putting it all together.
This is the one class I have looked most forward to - and unfortunately, this week has had me bound in chains. I hope to review the readings a little better later - because it was all I could find time to do was to complete the assignment. I guess that's telling on myself.
All in all, I enjoyed the process, and hope to recreate it better each time. What do I want to learn from it? I always have great issues with how to save. This is compounded by the fact that I work from a MAC. I created it on my husband's PC. I want to learn to use my MAC video software - just haven't had the time.