Reflection Blog Post

I have taken Com210 this semester as my major requirement, I didn’t expect I would like this class in the beginning. However, it became my favorite subject among all the courses I am taking. I have learned a lot of technical skills and essential knowledges about audio and graphics editing and the use of blog posts.

Among all of the projects in Com210 this semester, I like the Audio Story Project the most. For this assignment, we needed to create an audio project telling our own stories. I chose to tell the story about my trip going back to Australia with my family and boyfriend last Christmas holiday. Starting from this assignment, I started to use Adobe Audition CC, it is a great audio editing program that allows you to edit your recordings to suit your needs. I found it interesting and very useful on practical terms because I recorded myself using the recording tool on Adobe Audition, then I cut the recordings using razor tool, I also chose my own background music so it enlightens the mood of my story. It was challenging but fun to edit the recordings, through this project I learned invaluable skills: I learned the basic concepts to audio editing and the overall structure of editing programs. I also learned to put effects to my music to suit the need of the project.

Other than the invaluable audio editing skills I learned through the Audio Story Project, I also got the chance to learn and practice my Photoshop skills using adobe Photoshop, I edited several different pictures about my trip to Australia. Throughout the process I picked up a lot of knowledge from the tutorials regarding the basic concepts of graphics editing such as layers and cutting. I also learned how to apply some of the basic effects to my images and texts, this provided me with countless varieties and opportunities to my posters. These skills opened up my interest towards audio and graphics editing, there are challenging and sometimes difficult to understand, but the sense of accomplishment I felt when I look at my finished work was worth it all.

My dream career would be to become a successful broadcaster or journalist. From my point of view, both of the careers require technical and communication skills. Audio editing skills can benefit both my career as a broadcaster or a journalist. The understanding of how these programs work will provide me with a higher starting point than those who don’t, and increases my efficiency when working around projects that involves audio editing. Photoshop skills will be an essential element for me in the future because as a journalism major, it will be useful for me to know editing skills to edit pictures for newspapers or magazines. However, it would be more amazing if I could get to learn how to change the effects of my video, for example to adjust the sound, the light and the filter. Although this skill is not that much related to my desired career in broadcasting or being a journalist. It is a very useful skill that I am interested in myself. If I learned this skill it would definitely open up my potential career paths and my opportunities.

There were other ways that I found quite helpful while I was completing my projects. For example, I searched some tutorial videos on YouTube that were very useful to me, for example, when I was doing premiere tutorial, I looked for some videos of what is the difference between wide shots and close shots, and how to put recordings and videos together. The videos helped a lot to my project, I would recommend this source of information to all of those attempting for any similar project. My only suggestion for this course is that: sometimes I have troubles doing the project, I found it difficult to use the graphic editing programs. Therefore, It will be better if during one lab session, the TA could show us how to use the programs. It doesn’t have to be detailed, it could be introduction of how to use the programs, what are the tools for and giving some useful tips.

In conclusion, I have gained a lot of experiences and learned a lot through course Com210, it has also became one of my favorite classes I have ever taken. I am looking forward to practicing more technological skills in the future and I am sure what I have learned in this class would be extremely beneficial in my future career.

Final Video Story

 

For this video story, my idea was to create a video about my college life. As a sophomore at Washington State University, I have been here for almost two years, and throughout these time I started to like this school more and more. Therefore, I would like to share my college life with all my classmates. For this video story, I planned to interview my two best friends Jackie and Sandra, because they are very important to my college life.

First of all, I created a storyboard for my video at a length of 1:30 minutes, I also wrote a script of the interview question I was about to ask my friends and what I was going to say in the video. When everything was planned out, I went to different places to collect pictures and videos to use in my draft video, I then recorded myself reading the script in order to put together with the recording. After everything was collected, I started to edit all my clips on Adobe Premiere. I put the clips in order and numbered them, then I embedded the recordings so that they could go together with the clips. I also inserted background music when I finished editing the clips so it could give my video a more relaxing vibe. The most challenging part of making the video was to collect all the resources, I had to walk to different places to take videos and pictures. In addition, combining the clips and the recordings together was difficult because I had to keep cutting the clips for them to have the same length as my recording. It also took me a while telling my friends about my project and getting them to practice what they are going to say, but we had lots of fun shooting the clips. What I like about my video was the angle of the shots and the background music. I collected my resources in different places, so that audiences took get a better image of my college view. I also shot my video from different angles to grab the viewers’ attention so that they wouldn’t feel bored watching my video.

I received some comments from my peers in the feedback such as adding a beginning and ending to my video, and also to add a title that names my interview subjects, and also add text that includes the names of my friends when they are introduced into my video. Therefore, I made some changes based on the comments from my peers. I added my name on the covering photo so audiences could know who made the video. I also added the texts of my friends’ names Sandra and Jackie, so audiences could get a better idea of who they are. For the ending of the video, I put up another slide with the text: Edited by Anyi Zhang” with the date, because I thought the ending seemed a little rush in my draft video. Lastly, I added some effects to my background. I changed the volume of the music at the beginning and ending of my video, so music is not longer loud at both points and also give the viewers more relaxing feelings.

In conclusion, I find this project the hardest among all the projects in this course because it combined all the skills and techniques we have learned in this course so far. But I’m so proud of myself for competing this and I had so much fun creating this video, hope I could create more stuff in the future based on what I have learned in this course.

Video Story Draft

For this video story assignment, I decided to make a video about my college life. I have been studying at Washington State University for almost two years, and throughout this time, I started to like this school more and more. There are many reasons I love about my college life, and I want to share this story with my classmates in Com210.

First of all, I created a storyboard for my video and planned the video to have the length of 1:30 mins. I then wrote a script of what I will be covering in the video and made a plan. I interviewed my best friends Sandra and Jackie about their opinions about WSU, and I recorded myself introducing myself at the beginning of the video. I also went to Gortzgen Hall, Regents Hall and some other places to take videos and pictures to use in my video. After all the resources are collected, I started to record myself so that I could add the recordings to the video. After I am done with the recording, I am finally ready to start making my video. I edited my video on adobe premiere. Firstly, I numbered all the videos and pictures to put them in order, and then I embedded recordings to put them together with the videos. It was kind of hard for me to edit the videos and recordings together and it took me a long time to match the length of the recordings with the time. I had to cut the videos or to record myself more for them to go together. The most challenging part in making this video was to gather all the recourses I need. It took me a long time to go to different places to take pictures and videos, and also telling my friends what to say in my video and practice with them, we kept on laughing during recording but it was fun.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed making this video and the premier tutorial really helped, I kept on going back to see if I am doing right. I’m looking forward hearing suggestions from my peers and improve it better.