Blood Drive Critique Blog Post

Evan:                  1. Voice overs set up interview well

                            2. Film more B-Roll, end with a quote
Nick:                   1. Titles bars were good
                            2. Audio levels need adjusting
Allison:               1. Meaningful interviews
                            2. Voice overs overlap/overrun soundbytes
Courtney:           1. Well developed voice overs
                            2. More variety in interviews
Dema:                 1. Enthusiasm in voice overs
                            2. More steady camera shots
Rosie:                 1. Good B-Roll variety
                            2. More meaningful interview soundbytes
Kierstyn:            1. Well set up shots
                            2. Better soundbyte editing
Rylee:                 1. Story-driven voice overs
                            2. Missing title bars
Catherine:          1. Meaningful interviews
                            2. Interview soundbytes are too long
Alex:                   1. Well shot B-Roll
                            2. Too many long pauses
Mitch:                 1. Story driven voice overs
                            2. Interview and voice over overlap at one point
Nicole:                1. In-depth interviews
                            2. Incorrect use of L and J edits
Drew:                 1. Most B-Roll follows rule of thirds
                            2. A few quick jumps
Emily:                1. Interesting B-Roll
                            2. Yellow tint (white balance the camera)
Conlin:               1. Even variety in B-Roll
                            2. More variety in interviews
Cyle:                   1. Good variety in B-Roll
                            2. Interviewer's voice should not be in the soundbyte
Jacob:                 1. Intriguing B-Roll
                            2. Audio levels need adjustment
Delaney:             1. N/A
                            2. N/A
Abbey:               1. Story driven voice overs
                            2. Incorrect use of L and J edits
Amy:                  1. Well set-up lead
                            2. Voice overs could be stronger
Chelsea:             1. Story driven interviews
                            2. Interviews are hard to hear
Alyssa:               1. Different point of view
                            2. Framing during interviews could be better

Things that I learned from the critique session that I would apply to my future projects would be to adjust the audio levels so that everything is equalized in volume and is easy to hear. Another thing I will apply is to make sure my title bars are the correct theme and format. The rule of thirds is also something that I want to keep in mind for the next project.

Tutorial Blog Post

This tutorial will show how to use the rotate options in order to create a radial pattern. The rotate options is frequently in the design world, and how to use it effectively is important.

1. Draw your desired shape using the shape tool. Make sure it is big enough for a pattern. Nearly any shape is suitable. Center it on the art board for recommended effect.

2. Copy and paste the shape and overlap it with original shape.

3. With the copied shape selected, go to Object>Transform>Rotate to access the rotate panel. With the rotate panel, enter the desired angle of rotation, for example, 25 degrees or simply 5 degrees. Use the Preview button on the lower left to help you find an ideal angle.

4. Copy and paste the rotated shape and overlap the copy over the first rotated shape.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you are satisfied with results.

6. Add something extra to the radial motif. Change the colors, use a gradient, adjust opacity, use the pathfinder tool or the shape building, or simply just experiment with other tools and option panels to create something that fits your style.

Professional Project Review

This work is the album cover to Tame Impala's latest album Currents, and is based on the scientific principle of vortex shedding, which is the particular way a liquid or gas moves around a solid object. It uses a purple and pink/yellow color scheme, reminiscent of the 70s & 80s eras of music. It represents a collision of classic 70s and classic 80s music in an electronic/synth fasion. One element I would take away from this album cover is the style of having a repeating pattern and creating something that interacts with that pattern in a way, which is an interesting design concept. One element of this that I have already learned is the smooth gradient applied to the neon stream. The creator did well with the overall execution of the streams, as it looks very natural. One thing I feel could have been done better was the shading on the silver ball/marble, because it does not look entirely correct shading wise. Overall, I thought it had a great design with a great execution.

Graphic Design Pattern

Motif:  The scope of the motif was to create radial pattern that would work for a ceiling tile. I came up with the idea while messing around with the rotate tool. I created it by drawing a star and rotating it by 5 degrees until it made a complete circle. I then copy and pasted that into the empty circle space and used the pathfinder tool to remove certain sections and create the above pattern. I thought this was fun because it was simple and easy to do while also having a wide range of possibilities.

Repeating Pattern: The scope of the repeating pattern was to create an interesting, solid color repeating pattern that would fit among others as a ceiling tile. I found the concept when researching different kind of designs online. I created in by placing four circles in a square and using estimate the correct amount of pucker and bloat to make the shape that was created by the circles meeting together. I then filled in the remaining spaces by the rectangles edge with the blue color. I thought this was enjoyable because it allowed me to find a design that appealed to me and recreate it using what I have learned in this class.

A More Productive and Fulfilling Newsroom

This article was about a Florida newspaper that was failing due to pumping out mediocre content for the purpose of filling up space. The paper decided to switch things up by focusing on major stories with better content and letting the newsroom experiment with journalism, which resulted in a happier newsroom and a higher quality newpaper. The author's argument is that by allowing more freedom to the reporters and valuing quality over quantity, a newspaper can become more interesting and brings joy to the journalists "... [due] to new opportunities to dig up enterprise stories and try out new ideas" (Nesmith). The strengths with the author's argument were that they were supported by anecdotes of the people who worked at the paper and who could give their experiences. A weakness of the article could be that it never acknowledge any possible opposition. Overall, the author wants a much more flexible newsroom. The author's arguments does support the main points of the article, because the success of the paper was convincingly contributed to the reasons the author's argument makes. The author explores additional reasons also, and shows how they might have helped to the success too. Being in Convergence Journalism, this applies because given more freedom and resources means more possiblities for us too. All in all, I believe the author provided a convincing argument that had great supporting anecdotes.

Professional Video Blog Post

The video I chose was a short animated video about a lazy intergalactic delivery service. The general scope of the video was to portray a quick, dark, but funny short video. The story is about a how an incompetent delivery man land on a tiny planet, and unknowingly manages to bring terror to the planet and its inhabitants, and eventually disintegrates it. I decided to analyze the video through its cinematography. I thought it was fairly well made; although there were a lot of long and centered shots, it did also use the rule of thirds frequently and the long shots never felt drawn out or boring. For example, there is a scene where one of the aliens is running from a giant can, and while the shot goes on for quite some time, it does not entirely bore you by throwing little jokes here and there (although I agree that the team should have split it up into different shots). One element I might use from this video is the use of a wide shot to not set the scene, but to show the characteristics of characters, like the wide shot of the delivery man's messy ship. Something that I had already learned that I thought the video did well on was how to position the rule of thirds, by placing the subject on a line and having something interesting in every box. Overall, I believe the cinematography was pretty decent, was pleasant looking, but could use some improvement in adjusting shots and drawn-out shots.

Graphic Design Pencil Project

For this project we had three sections to work on. The first section was to create a basic pencil using a tutorial sheet, as well as creating a can to put the pencil in, and it helped you learn how to create a basic object with basic shapes. The second section was to create another pencil, but have it personalized. My personalized pencil was colored in Royals colors and it was writing on a piece of paper. The last section had you create something of your own using shape tools and other useful tools in Illustrator. I decided to create a synthesizer using the mainly the shape tool and the text tool.

One of the main things I learned when doing the project was to always save frequently. At one point at this project, I forgot to save my progress, and right towards the end of class Illustrator unexpectedly crashed. Consequently, I had lost all of the work I had done that, which pushed me back progress-wise from the rest of the class. From that moment on, I try to save every time I make a major change, and I will try to make that a habit for later on in the year.

As for tools, I learned how to use the shape tool. For example, I learned that if you simply single click on the board, you have the option to input specific measurements for that shape. Also, if you hold the spacebar it locks the movement of the shape to a certain path. If you hold down the shift button when expanding the object, it locks to the original shape, allowing you to keep the same height and width. I also learned what the Live Bucket Tool is, which is a special kind of bucket that creates objects out of what's drawn, and then fills it in with a color.