e9 Semester 1 Reflection

Some of my areas of strength this semester were my video skills, like using all six shots, and the ability to tell a complete story. I'm also pretty good at sketching original ideas, and color theory.

However, I do have areas where I need to improve, I'm defiantly not perfect by any means. In video, I sometimes forget to use the rule of thirds, and often times my shots go over a few seconds. In graphic design, I need to improve in using adobe illustrator and time management.

I loved exploring my different abilities in these fields, and I especially loved the different classmates and teachers I met along the way. I met great, long lasting friends through this program who I am extremely thankful for.

If I had to change something, I would make sure that I use my time more wisely, and make sure all of my assignments get turned in on time. Other than that, I wouldn't change a thing.

Overall, I learned to put myself out there, gain friendships and be as creative as possible. These classes have no restrictions when it comes to creative possibility, which I find great.

My goal for next semester is to use my time wisely, and to improve my skills and develop more connections and friendships. This program is about more than just using your creative skills to make videos, animations, and graphics. It's also about important interpersonal skills that I will learn and carry with me for the rest of my life.

e9 Web Design

Our latest project in e9 was to design our own website using Adobe dreamweaver. We first started by downloading the template for our website from our teacher, which had lots of technical difficulties but we persevered. We then brought the template into Dreamweaver and did a few of our own edits, like adding our name and picture. We added our elevator pitch into the home page, and on the side bar we added a few links to the e-Comm website, the school website, and our blogs. We then created a seperate page for our projects, which would contain, you guessed it, our best projects from quarter 1 & 2. I added my dandelion design, and my six shot film from first quarter. After that, we added the text to the side of the projects, explaining what they were and what we learned from them. We linked the project page to the home page. We then personalized them by adding our own choice of color and fonts.

This project took about three days. We watched videos from one of our instructors on how to do it all, and some times there were issues that would slow us down, such as the problems with downloading the template zip file. I used my time pretty productively though, and still got everything done with my website that needed to be done.

Again, I faced the challenge of downloading the zip file, as the file wasn't on the file where it was supposed to be because another student accidentally took the file for themselves instead of just copying and pasting it. Another challenge I faced was getting the exact colors I wanted, and the font as well.

From designing the web page, I learned the basic principals of coding and a little of how to use Adobe Dreamweaver. I also learned a bit about Adobe Photoshop, as we used that program to size our pictures.

Overall, I find web design fascinating and would like to learn more about coding and how to do different things involving Dreamweaver. I'm considering going into the web design branch later in my e-Comm years. Im also pretty proud of my Website's fail outcome and I feel that I did a pretty good job.

Presentation

     In class, we learned about the importance of presentation skills. There are many important aspects to a good presentation, including eye contact, professional appearance, vocal and facial expression, a loud voice, and posture. All of these components make the difference between a presentation that is completely terrible, and a presentation that is completely fantastic, no matter the information that is being presented.

     As a class, we watched three Ted Talks presentations: one of Bill Gates, Bjorn Lomberg and Jaime Oliver. We then had to rate them based on the afformentioned components listed above. Gates scored high on eye contact, voice, and posture, but fell just a bit short with facial expression. Lomberg was great with eye contact, and loud voice. but lower on professional appearance and posture as he moved around just a bit too much. Oliver was amazing with expression, and great with eye contact, but was dressed very casually and moved across the stage WAY too much.

     Then the time came when we were to present our personal logos to the class. Overall, I feel that I did a pretty good job. I had a loud, clear voice, and made eye contact. However, I sometimes turned my back to look at the screen, and felt I could use more expression and a better posture. These are things I know I can improve on to make any presentations I give in the future much better.

Logo Sketching and Illustrator

For the past week, my e-Comm class has been working on creating our own personal logos. We started by sketching three different logos, and then chose one of the logos to draw again. After our drawings were complete, we recreated the drawings in Adobe Illustrator. This was kind of hard for me, considering I'm not very good at working in illustrator.

For my logo, I started with a pinkish-beige background. I then made the outline of the glasses. i chose this as my logo because I have huge glasses that cover like half of my face that I literally cant see without. I consider them a huge part of who I am so it just made sense to make my logo about them. After I finished the glasses, i made sort of an abstract version of my initials to the side. While i know it's not the best logo ever made, I'm overall satisfied with the final result considering how bad i am at the program.

Sketching and Illustrator

In e-Comm Graphic Design, our latest project was to draw either a tree, bird, house, or a flower twenty different ways. I chose to draw a flower. It was difficult finding twenty different ways to draw one thing without them being too similar to each other.  I tried to think outside of the box and drew a dandelion after it died and had those fuzzy white seeds, which is what I then based my illustrator project on.

In illustrator, I first made my background a gradient white to black, and then drew the stem. I then used the line segment tool to draw the stems of the seeds in a dark grey (which took forever) and then dotted the ends of the seeds with black. Overall, I'm very proud of this project, and i think i did a great job.

The Illustrator Experience

In graphic design, we use a program called Adobe Illustrator to make different shapes and designs. Our first assignment was to create different basic shapes like  a rectangle, circle, star, hexagon, and square using the different shape tools available. After the shapes were formed. we colored them in using the fill tool. From this assignment, I learned how to make basic shapes, and how to change the color of items.

For our second illustrator assignment, we could create basically anything we wanted using the tools provided. I chose to make a basic diagram of the solar system. From this assignment, i learned how to make the background a different color, and gained a better understanding of Adobe Illustrator in general
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Social Media Awareness

We read an article today in class we read an article about social media awareness. It talked about how some colleges look at applicants social media pages in order to see if they are the type of person they want to accept into their college. If a students media page is the reason they don't get accepted, they don't get to know that, which I think is unfair. Colleges also don't take they time to find out if they got the right social media page, so they may be basing your acceptance on an account that isn't even your's.

From this article, I learned that I need to be more safe with whatever I post, tweet, snap, pin etc., and make sure the content I have posted is the type of person I want colleges to see me as. If you wouldn't post it with your grandma watching, you shouldn't post it at all.

Elevator Pitch

     An elevator pitch is a carefully worded and short marketing message about yourself. It should be over in the time it takes to ride an elevator, hence the name.

     My name is Amber Morgan; I am an e-Communication student at ONW. I have strong creative ability, and great leadership skills. I am often complimented on my artistic ability and interpersonal skills. I’m looking to gain knowledge about all of the branches in e-Comm, and to see if I have a potential in any of these areas of study later in life.

Chase Scene

     For our chase scenes, we worked in groups of threes. We had to, as the title explains, film a video of someone chasing someone else for whatever reason. We started with coming up with our idea for the scene, drawing up the storyboard, filming and editing. 

     I gained a better understanding of the axis line, and how to work together to meet a deadline.

     If I was to to this project again, I would add audio and take more time filming so it didn't seem so rushed. I enjoyed working with my friends to complete the project.

Technical Blog

          The six shot system is basically the six different shots you can use to shoot a film. 50% of all shots should be close ups or extreme close ups.

An extreme wide shot/establishing shot is what typically gives the viewer the location of the film.

 

A wide shot shows the entire object or human figure.

Medium shots show the figure waist up.

 Close ups show the figure shoulders up.

Extreme close ups show just a certain part of a figure.

Over the shoulder shots (pretty self explanatory) are shot over the figure's shoulder.

A to B film

     We had to work together with one of our classmates to make a film of someone walking from point A to point B. We first drew out our storyboard, film it using the rule of thirds and all six shots, and then edit it using Adobe Premiere Pro. 

     From this project, I gained a better understanding of the rule of thirds and the axis line, as well as interpersonal skills like working with someone you don't already know.

     If I was going to do this project again, I would edit the audio better, but I would keep the outline of our story the same.

https://youtu.be/pL4gsSaSDVM

Six Shot System

     The last few weeks, my e-Comm class has been working on creating a thirty second film, using the six shot system, or different camera angles, including extreme wide shot, wide, medium, close up, extreme close up, and over the shoulder. We also had to keep in mind the rule of thirds, or to keep the subject of the shot slightly off center of the frame, to add depth and perception to the shot.

     The first thing we had to do in the process was think of a concept for the video, and then draw up a story board. I decided to film my friend's bulldog Lola, because you can't go wrong with a video about a cute, fat dog. We then had to film the video, of course, because you can't really present a film without actually filming it. So I pretty much invited myself over to my friend's house and borrowed her dog for twenty minutes, who was extremely fun to work with. My main priorities were to keep the camera angle as steady as possible, and to use all six shots. On some frames I forgot to use the rule of thirds, which I will definatly keep in mind in the future. I filmed using an iPhone 6, and I was surprised with the camera quality. After I sent all the clips to my email, I downloaded them on one of the macs we use here at school, and then uploaded them to Adobe Premier Pro, the editing program we are using. I like the program, I think its fairly simple and user friendly, but I know some of my classmates would disagree. After we were done editing we uploaded our videos and presented them to the class.

     I learned how to film using the six shot system, the rule of thirds, and how to edit using Premier Pro. If I could do something different, I would probably film with a tripod, instead of balancing the camera on my knee or a box. My next project, I will make sure to use the rule of thirds on all the shots. I want to learn how to add audio to films without the white noise in the background, and which shots should be used for certain scenes. Over all, I enjoyed the process and think I did pretty good.

My e-Communication Experience So Far

     A few days ago, we were assigned groups, to work together collaboratively to design a flag that represents our individual personalities using symbols and colors. My group decided to each draw our zodiac signs, and choose a color, and then draw and write things that represents that color.  I chose green for peace and nature, and my zodiac sign is pisces. We drew a star in each corner to represent each e-Comm branch.

     After we drew everything out and finalized our design, we went outside to draw our flag on the concrete in the courtyard. And, of course, just our luck, it was raining.

And it was picture day. Yay.

     Mother nature doesn't care if you spent about an hour curling your hair, or that your eyeliner was seriously on fleek that day. It was raining, and that's final.

     So, needless to say, my hair was straight when I took my pictures seventh hour, and the chalk was washed from the concrete by fifth. It was a great bonding experience though, and I walked away from it with a few new friends.