MLKJ PSA Project

I learned quite a bit while working on this PSA project. The part about videography that I improved the most on was video editing. I have never worked with a video editing program before, so this was a fun way to practice the skills that I have used recently. During the filming process, I figured out that clips shot with the use of a tripod turn out much better than when I just hold the camera in my hands. I also noticed that good lighting can make a huge difference in the quality of the video.

Kendell and I used many different techniques while filming and editing this PSA video. During the filming, I mostly just used medium length shots; however, I did use several different angles while recording the actors. For the editing, we used the fade in and fade out effects to bring all of the clips together. We also used a black and white filter. Some people may not like this aspect of the video, but we used it to make the video not about the colors. The actors were not all wearing complementary colors to each other, so that may have been distracting to the viewer. The black and white also made the video a little bit more serious.

If I were to improve the video, I would have made it several seconds shorter. We did not stay in the time limit set. I would have also filmed a couple of different distances with the tripod. Our original plan included several more people, but we did not have unlimited time or resources to get everyone involved.

Podcast Assignment

Celebrity Read Poster

In this Read Poster assignment I expanded my knowledge on the use of layers. I learned how to select my body and delete the green screen. When I did this, by hair and shirt still had a green tint on it. I used the color replacement tool to get rid of the greenish hue. 

The hardest part of the assignment was to make the back ground. I used the same shade of blue and made it darker at the bottom, and lighter at the top. I then added some sparkles. After that I "covered" the whole background with mosaic tiles. This added the textured look.

I also learned how to make myself look not so "copy and pasted" in. I turned the opacity down, and added a drop shadow. I also tried to blur the edges.

This final and easiest step was to add the text. I used the overlay setting to make it more interesting.

This assignment made me more familiar with the effects of Photoshop, while being fun and worthwhile in the process.

Photoshop Tutorial #2 1-26-2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrPS7JcSKzc

     This tutorial was made without an original picture. In some ways that made it an easier project, but in other ways it was much harder. The object of the tutorial was to make an aurora effect. First we started by turning the background to black. This made the base for a night sky. After that we added ellipses of color and blurred the edges. This made the background colors for the aurora. To add the streaks we clicked render and made difference cloud. We turned the background and moved it to behind the blurs of color. Then we made the middle by using difference clouds again and using the smudge tool to streak out the edges. The last step was to add the decorative dots of different sizes and then blur them too.

     This taught me many different skills to use in later Photoshop projects, but I do not necessarily like the way this project turned out. Kendell took the lead on this project, so I would have done a couple of things differently. First of all I probably would have used some different colors. These are not always colors that I would use, but the variety made for an interesting affect. Secondly, I would have redone the fuzzy caterpillar in the middle of the pretty picture. An effect like that takes a little bit of practice, and we did not have time to do it correctly. I would probably add more dots to make more of a bokeh effect. That was not the point of the tutorial though. 

     In the end, I learned to let someone else to some of the work and put their own ideas and opinions forward. This made a great picture that I will eventually learn to enjoy. 

Photoshop Tutorial #1 1-26-2012

Before

After 

For this tutorial Kendell Hoyt and I went to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTuXTxkAQgo

     In this project we practiced how to change the eye color in a photograph. First we colored on the eye with the paint brush. We picked the colors in rainbow order, but we could have used any colors we wanted to. Then we used the Gaussian blur tool to blend it all together. After that we used the overlay setting to make it look more realistic. 

      We learned how to use the blur tool. Before this project I did not know that there was more than one type of blurring. I also learned to erase the edges around the eye to make it more sharp. Another process that we used was the contrast tool. This made the colors brighter and made the picture overall better.