My Journey

Joining eComm

When I first came to ONW as a freshman I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. At first I really wanted to be a Marine Biologist, so I was thinking about transferring to North and joining the Geosciences program but then I realized that that involved a lot of science and that isn't my best subject. Then I thought about being an athletic trainer and going to North for that, but then I realized that I also get really queasy at the thought of looking at and feelings broken bones and injured bodies. 

It took me while before I could figure out what makes me truly happy, which is sports. My mom and I talked for a while about a career path and she brought up being a sports reporter like Erin Andrews. That really got my attention. I was informed that ONW had an eCommunications and it seemed like something I would really enjoy. I applied for the program and that was it, I was in!

A Whole New Ball Game

Believe it or not, I was actually really excited for school to start sophomore year. I was extremely excited to get started with eComm and learn how to film and edit. I was also in the web design class because I thought it would also be pretty cool to understand how to make some sweet websites. On my very first day of eComm, I thought it was so BORING. All we did was talk about cameras and how to use them for about a week. It was frustrating because I got a pretty good grasp on how to use them after the first two days. It was actually pretty cool when we started to learn about Final Cut Pro because editing videos is really interesting for me. 

When we finally started to get into actually filming and editing, I was in heaven. I thought all of it was a fast process and wouldn't be as fun as I thought, but it was actually pretty complicated but yet so fun. It took me a while to catch on to making semi decent videos though. My first few weren't my greatest work of all time and I knew it when I was making them too. It took me some time to figure out the 6 shot system and how to make shots look good because I was actually so far behind from the other students because they all had a year of experience on me. 

Web Design was a whole new ball game. It was something that I don't think I ever caught onto. My favorite thing that we did in that class was when we used photoshop to make fun things. We made things like little mascots for websites and we made a little family of circles (cuter than you'd think). It just wasn't something that I took a whole lot of liking to like video production did.

Finding Myself

Coming into my junior year, I made sure to enroll myself in the sports strand of the eComm program. It was probably the best strand for me to enroll in that will propel me into my future career. I have really really enjoyed the SID class, especially because my videos get to revolve around what I love, sports. Of course taking the summer off from filming and editing would make my skills sort of rusty. After a few weeks of class, some class mates and I made a video for our football team against a rival team. Out main focus was to get the football players and our student section pumped up for the game. I thought the video turned out pretty decent. We had a good song that was different than what was expected now-a-days. We had gotten good feedback on it. The group and I were allowed to express ourselves in a fashion that we enjoyed.

Another story I really enjoyed making was a story about a football player at our school that wasn't born in America, but in Africa. His story was incredibly interesting and the video turned out to be super phenomenal. The video showed a lot of good interviewing skills and the on-field footage was great. This video was something that proved I was moving along in the progress of film making and editing. 

There are two more videos that I made that go hand and hand with each other. They were fun videos to make because we got to go out to the student body and actually interact in a care-free video setting. The footage isn't perfect and the video is a little shaky, but that's that makes these videos perfect the way they are. They have some comedy in them and some serious answers. I have grown with these two videos immensely. I am actually really proud of how I'm progressing.

Future Goals

1. Emotional Videos.  I want to dig deeper while making videos. A lot of my videos have been light hearted and funny. I want to make more emotional videos that will make people feel something and make them remember this video and this story.

2. Take More Opportunities. This semester I haven't been taking the opportunities that I needed to. I didn't go out and film a lot and whenever I did film, it was more in school stuff. I think that if I went out and filmed more, I would have better videos.

Final Thoughts

I have grown a lot as a person and a student in eComm in these past few years. I went from being way behind all the other eComm students to being able to keep up with them in videoing and editing. I really enjoy film making. It's a true passion of mine. It was really smart decision on my part in joining eComm and especially joining the sports class. 

Word from the Halls with Ryley and Brooke 2

My partner Ryley DeMaro and I decided to make another Word from the Halls due to all the good praise we had gotten from the first one we had made. This time we decided that it would be a smart idea to do a basketball edition because the boys and girls basketball season had just started here at Olathe Northwest.

In this edition we decided it might be smart to interview more of the upperclassman because in the last video there were more underclassman. We asked them questions about how many ravens are on the basketball court at one time, how many points is a free throw worth, and a trick question, will Andrew Wiggins have another break out season with KU? We also asked them to show us different basketball moves such as a pick and a box out.

The video had got a lot of praise from the student body. Also it got praise from the video teachers in the eComm program that I am in that gives me the ability to film these videos.

Digital Innovation and the Future of Storytelling

1. Television is now going into the Golden-Age. It is now expanding to the internet giving Netflix a run for their money. Also, TV story tellers are trying to reach out to customers and share their story. They are using their story telling abilities to reach audiences on the internet and mobile devices.

2. The author is arguing that the digital innovation effects the future of storytelling. It is now being able to be seen on others things than just TV. This is proven when they said they had the opportunity to sit down with Kevin Spacey about the future of storytelling. HBO and Netflix's records are another source that was used.

b. The article clearly states that storytelling is being transformed. They really throw it at us to make it a strong and concise argument. They use plenty of sources to make their argument valid. The problem is, they don't show the other side. They are only sticking to their argument and doesn't give the other side a chance.

c. The authors conclusion is that the brands who do the best a harnessing the power of these technologies to share the stories that are yearning to be told, so it the companies can strengthen their relationships with their customers.

3.  The argument does support his main points with all the evidence that is used.

b. The evidence is convincing considering it is clear and concise.

c. If their is new technology coming out to work with and broadcast with, then it would affect me as a broadcaster because I will need to understand how thing work to get my story across the correct way.

d. I don't think this article was very interesting. When things aren't interesting to people, it is hard to get things processed and understand what it was trying to say.

4. I don't think this article is incredibly relevant to us in the eComm classes. They talk as bout HBO being on the internet like Netflix, which doesn't affect us.

5. http://www.wired.com/2014/10/digital-innovation-golden-age/

Word from the Halls

My partner Ryley DeMaro and I went through the halls of Olathe Northwest High School asking our fellow peers about some unknown football questions. The purpose of this video was to trick our student body into giving us funny answers, and getting some correct answers to create a video that would get some laughs. This video premiered on the weekly ONW Now: Halloween Edition. This weekly edition was supposed to be funny, so this video fit perfectly.

The video had a lot of goof camera work. Some shots were unstable and what not, but that fit perfectly with the theme of the video. I also think the questions that we had asked were extremely effective. They gave us the answers we wanted. We also did a really good job with the editing and sound choices we had made. The feedback of the video was very positive and people want to see more Word from the Halls. We could have white balanced a few videos a little better than we did, but otherwise I really enjoyed the video.

Audio Slideshow- Joe Kolega

In class, Mr. Allam gave us an assignment to find a partner, ask them what they are known for in the raven nation, and then come up with 21 questions to create an audio slide show with. I interviewed Joe Kolega about his role as an eComm student in the raven nation.

I think I had pretty decent pictures. His interview audio was also very good. The sound was loud enough and there was good nat noise.

I feel like I could have taken out more talking, but I didn't know whether it would ruin the audio or not. Overall I think I had a pretty decent video for my first video of the year.

Feature Story - Zee Pinkerton (Also our q&a)

In my SID class Ryley DeMaro and I made a feature story about a guy named Zee Pinkerton. Zee had moved from Ethiopia about 6 years ago. Football had made a really deep impression on Zee when he moved here, and it shows on the field. Zee is a solid player on the field and the journey he has traveled has been a factor for him.

The interviews were really set up well in this video. The lighting was also a positive factor in the interviews. Luckily, the guys that were interviewed had given us solid answers to use in the video. Also the guys (Brennen and Connor) had filmed the games and got really good footage.

The video probably could have used a little less talking. Also, the audio levels were a little off with each interview. Whenever Zee talked it was a little louder, and the Adam and Manny's interviews were a little softer so we had to lower the music just for them and it did begin to sound a little off.

Video - Hype video for the Homecoming Game

In my SID class, my partners, Ryley DeMaro, Brennen Wohlford, Connor Gerdes and I made a "hype" video for the Olathe Northwest Homecoming football game. The majority of the video includes many plays the team made that were positive plays. We coordinated a very intense song with the video to give it an exciting feel to get the players and the students pumped up.

I believe that the editing with the music went really well. The special effects we put in such as, slow motion, rewinding, and fast forwarding really brought the theme of the video together.

We could have benefited more off the video if we had closer up shots of the football team. It would have been pretty cool to be able to get some footage of the football huddle as well. 

Responsive Web Design

*Responsive Web Design (RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors).

*RWD has become so important for web design because responsive web design ensures improved visibility on the search engines. As the website adjusts itself according to the users’ screen size, it offers a high flexibility. It gives a better user experience. Responsive web design offers a great user experience. Building a responsive web design also increases your chances for greater ROI, since your website will become uniformly user-friendly across different devices. It provides smooth navigation and a clear scrolling system, making it easy to take a tour of the website with ease.

*Media Queries is a CSS3 module allowing content rendering to adapt to conditions such as screen resolution (e.g. smartphone vs. high definition screen). It became a W3C recommended standard in June 2012. and is a cornerstone technology of Responsive Web Design.

*In software development, a breakpoint is an intentional stopping or pausing place in a program, put in place for debugging purposes. It is also sometimes simply referred to as a pause.

More generally, a breakpoint is a means of acquiring knowledge about a program during its execution. During the interruption, the programmer inspects the test environment (general purpose registers, memory, logs, files, etc.) to find out whether the program is functioning as expected. In practice, a breakpoint consists of one or more conditions that determine when a program's execution should be interrupted.

 When you narrow the page, there becomes one column. The  images do stay the same shape but they get smaller. The text doesn't seem to get very much smaller and appears under the picture.

 In the medium shot, the pictures become bigger than they were in the narrow shot. There is also one column of pictures. The text size doesn't change from the narrow.

In the wide shot, there are two columns. One of the pictures, one of text. The images are the size of the narrow shot. The text also seems a little smaller. 

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_queries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakpoint

http://www.gotechark.com/responsive-web-design-important/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design

Kick my Habits.

Kick my Habits.

Kick my habits is a website that asks you what your habits are out of a selection of habits. If you say that the selection is your habit, then it will ask you how much you spend on that habit a week. At the end you "kick your habits" and it'll tell you how much you spend a year on them! The design is a super cool idea. It's cartoonish but very modern. 

Made by Tim.

Made by Tim. 

I love this design because it looks so hand drawn, by pencil and paper. The creativity in these images are stunning. The guy who did these images is a hard working man who spends most of his days in the design studio. I also like how his site is named so simply. Made by Tim. 

Illustrator for Web Design?

When people think of making a new design for their new web page, their mind commonly thinks of using Photoshop and Firework. Many don't know the helpful benefits that Adobe Illustrator can provide. One benefit is that it is quicker. Unlike Photoshop that requires you to create more layers to add more things, Illustrator has an artboard that allows you to click, size, and do whatever you want to anything you had added which saves you more time. It also allows you to create very complex, clean looking logos by using very simple tools. Your designs are very consistent and you don't have modular design limitations that Photoshop does have. You could create some of the most amazing, pixel perfect designs with Illustrator, all you have to do is give it a try.