Rowan North\’s blog

So, it has taken a while for this intern blog situation to come to fruition but now we’re all up and running without crashing the server.

I have been plugging away here in the CCAM for several weeks now and am still getting used to the facility’s cornucopia of equipment and electronics. I have been working on various campus productions such as filming guest lectures and setting up PA systems for a number of classroom events. Last Saturday a number of us filmed the grand opening of the Longhouse with the three studio cameras via fiber optic cables that are routed back to media engineering here in the CCAM. That was super fun and was great experience in the field doing a live shoot, despite the unpleasant interruption by a curious little boy who set off the emergency fire alarm.

I’ve been helping out weekly with Sally Cloninger’s class, Ready Camera 1. This has been a fun experience getting to know the studio space and switch board and lighting systems as well as camera operations and CG functions. Working with the students is always a pleasure as I know most of the people in the class.

In Electronic Media we have weekly staff/employee meetings and go over work orders and such for the coming weeks which has been really helpful for me because I’ve really never used a calendar to plan my days out before in such detail. I usually just keep everything in my head, but being forced to record all the details of various productions and jobs has been really liberating as it frees my mind up to concentrate on other more important tasks.

The interns meet weekly, usually an hour after our staff/faculty meetings, and touch base with one another on where we’re at with everything. We have been planning on using these times to do technically oriented workshops but haven’t been able to pull one off successfully yet. I think part of this is due to a busyness in all of our schedules as well as a lack of leadership from Peter who is Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

pposed to be facilitating these workshops. We will be tackling these with more determination and focus in the coming weeks and getting more guidance from Peter. One of the ideas we had is to do a cross-referencing workshop between Final Cut Pro and Digital Performer because half of the interns are video people and the other half are audio people. This will be an awesome setup as we pool our knowledge and help each other to new levels of understanding with these nifty technologies.

In addition to my other Electronic Media employee duties I have been learning about the ins and outs of wires and cable systems. Raoul, Jennifer and I meet weekly to discuss everything from the internal mechanisms of cables, to data rates and appropriate uses of various cables.

My schedule has been so hectic and consumed that I have hardly found sufficient amounts of time to devote to the other components of my contract that involve personal learning goals for the quarter. This is not to say that I haven’t been working on them. It’s just that my output in those arenas have been less than I’d like them to be. My girlfriend just moved in with me and there are a couple other things going on in my personal life that have compounded the stress level of late, so I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, but nothing that I cannot overcome and turn into a learning experience.

I have begun work on the topological diagram of the systems within the CCAM. Dave and I walked through the entire facility and went over all of the major systems as well as the subsystems and their components. I have compiled these into a mindmap that will be later fleshed out with numerous details with various nodes that describe all of the functions and various applications of these systems, subsystems and components.

I have done preliminary research on the topic of video and audio compression. I have also compiled a giant list of informative books on the topic that will prove to be helpful as I delve more deeply into this research. I have also started a mindmap for this area of my research and plan on fleshing it out as much as possible in the coming weeks.

I have secured a copy of David Pogue’s Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual and begun compiling a list of all the major parts to the operating system. These are being catalogued in another mindmap that will be filled with useful information about the Mac operating system that I, as well as anyone else who is interested, can use as a learning and reference tool when trouble shooting or trying to more effectively utilize the operating system.

My Apple Pro Training Series: Final Cut Pro 7 book is coming in the mail and once it arrives I will be delving into the droves of information therein. So far I have been watching videos about Final Cut Pro 7 on Lynda.com to aid in my already existing knowledge of Final Cut Pro. Once I get the official training book I will set out monthly, weekly and daily homework assignments that will assure my completion of this portion of the training for Fall quarter. I look forward to applying what I learn in this area to the productions I will be doing throughout the year for Electronic Media as well as my own personal creative projects.

Soooooo, its been a rowdy start to the quarter and I still can’t believe it is WEEK FOUR ALREADY!!!! Oh well, time flies when you’re goin’ nuts. Seriously though, it’s been really fun so far and I thrive on this kind of go-go-go orientation. I’m still just calibrating my system to avoid overload so that I can continue to find that limit of human learning/performance potential that I love to push myself towards.

Well, we had quite a consuming time with editing and final production of our piece last week. I spent a lot of time finishing up the graphics compositing in After Effects for the montage section. Time consuming, but very rewarding. Jhaleh and I spent a great deal of time together in front of a computer screen sorting, organizing, and rearranging clips so they would all fit into a cohesive timeline that flowed and made sense and got our message across. It ended up being 28 minutes long and a bit excessive.

The screening we had on Tuesday in class was really helpful. I feel like everyone in class had become way more comfortable with giving each other meaningful and honest critique. I noticed this throughout all of the screenings and really appreciated it. Anyway, the critique we received for our piece was really helpful and observant. After class Marilyn gave me some excellent advice about being brutal with the trimming down of clips so that what remains is a bare bones version of the footage that represents and articulates the message with clarity. This will also be more effective at keeping the audience’s attention throughout the piece. So we have been taking in all of this good advice and assimilating it so that our final edits this week will be intentional and productive.

We also would like to incorporate another creative abstract artistic element into the piece toward the end but have not decided about it yet. Would be hard work but definitely worth it!

This week has been a lot of late nights working on editing footage of interviews. I’ve been learning a lot about how I light my shots and a great deal of improvements that I can make in the future. Like for some of the shots I set the F-stop a little too high even though it looked fine when I checked it out through the viewfinder and lcd screen. The turnout is some underexposed faces that I know I should have lit better and known the equipment more fluently. Oh well, I’m going to boost the contrast, gain & what not to make up for the mistakes and sure learn from it for the future. I need to check out a cathode ray monitor from Media Loan so that I can have a better idea of what the image will actually look like up on the big screen. I’ve been doing more rotoscoping to finish up that part of the montage. So tedious! It’s a good Zen discipline though, kinda meditative. I figured out what I’m going to use for the background imagery in the area I’m masking out of the clip(s) I’ve been rotoscoping. Stoked about that cause I was a little on the fence for a bit. Yeah things are coming together. We got some real good b-roll shots down at the fountain yesterday with kids playing in the water & stuff.

Lots more to do, but we’re on the right track, and the light at the end of the tunnel is becoming increasingly perceptible.

Last week I was pretty booked for a lot of the day times and evenings with rehearsals and performances of the ballet production Sleeping Beauty I was in. A lot of the time I spent on the project was doing reviews of the footage we’ve already shot. I’ve been placing various sections of clips into the timeline to get a feel for how things will flow and what we’ll use. I’ve also been tinkering with After Effects as well and finishing up the rotoscoping for the montage section. I still have some work to do in that arena but all’s well that renders well.

A big thing I’ve been learning is how much I need to work on issues of time management. I usually have this pattern of setting out with the best of intentions to accomplish a specific thing during a specific time frame and then it gets fudged around. Like for example, during this project we have had some discombobulations with timings of interviews and scheduling for shoots. But we have come through so far. I guess I am just feeling like something I really need to work on is being in control of my time better and maximizing my productivity instead of having too high of expectations or hopes for a particular instance and then ending up making compromises in the fold of things.

Our project is going well though and we have two more interviews to do this week. We also need to film some b-roll as well. Gettin’ down to the wire for sure, but we’ve got our stuff together and will pull through with an excellent product.

Wheeww! What a week. Part of the reason why this week was so hectic is because of the rehearsals I had to attend for this ballet production I’m in. But anyway, I started out with the meeting we had as a group with Marilyn which was a helpful time to touch base and make sure we were all on the right tracks. I was also able to move my critique time with the group to Friday in lieu of doing it on Tuesday of next week. This was extremely helpful since I have to leave for the islands tomorrow and not get back til Wednesday for a shoot.

On Tuesday we filmed my nieces and nephews playing over at my big sister’s house who lives here in Olympia. That was great fun and we got some really good footage that will be used effectively for a montage section in our piece. They are always fun to visit as well. We also experimented with shooting some footage of rain droplets in reflective puddles for some b-roll. Wednesday we picked up a bunch of APS equipment and went to capture the footage we had filmed on Tuesday. I stopped by Foam & Fabrics over on the Eastside as well as Joann Fabrics to pick up materials for building a green screen. That evening we planned out our day for Thursday when we would be shooting all day in San Juan Island.

The next day we woke up at 3:00am and left Olympia at 4:00. Drove all the way up to Anacortes and caught the 7:45 ferry over to the Island. Once we got there we coordinated with Jerry and Louis who basically run the school we were shooting at (Spring Street International School, my old highschool) and planned out all that we would be shooting for the day. We got some good interviews and set up the shot with the green screen that will be used for a montage section in the piece. We left San Juan Island on the 5:30 boat and made a stop at Lopez to film an interview with Heather Moore, a parent of two children who attended Spring Street. Then we hopped on the 8:40 boat back to Anacortes to begin the long journey home. We got side tracked on our way out of Anacortes by an amazing nighttime scenic view of these huge factories with huge smoke clouds billowing out of their towers. It was a must for some b-roll. Neither of us had eaten in a while so a pit stop at Applebees was in order. By that time it was midnight and we headed off, making it back to Olympia by 2:30am. What a day.

On Friday I went in to return the equipment and check out a deck to capture the footage with. Also met with the affinity group to critique some of the footage we had gotten the day before. Their comments were really helpful and pointed out a couple of issues I had had with the exposure on a couple of shots as well as some audio issues. Nothing too major but it was helpful to figure out what worked and what didn’t.

This weekend I spent logging and capturing all the footage while watching to see what will be useful and what won’t. We got some really good stuff in the interviews as well as some beautiful b-roll from the ferry rides among other things. Tomorrow I’m heading back up there to do some more shooting and will be doing some interviews here later in the week. I’m pretty proud of our productivity level this week and plan on keeping it up!

Last week was a time of delayed production and intense study. A few of the people we had interviews planned with notified us of their last minute plans and unexpected crises that conflicted with our shooting schedule. Oh well. I spent the time wisely by devoting myself to the laborious learning curve of Photoshop and After Effects. Utilizing the tutorial sites videocopilot.net and lynda.com I was able to go from being clueless about the most simple actions in both of those programs to being able to carefully crop and composite multiple layers of images, graphics and footage while animating them through various methods using keyframes. This is excellent because I was feeling pretty daunted by the prospect of manifesting the idea I have for a montage section of the video. I still have some things to learn and am constantly trying to step it up. I plan on scheduling some time in the MML to ask either Aaron Kruse or anyone else there about some fine tuning that needs to be done as well as a couple other technical questions involving compression and resolution.

Jhaleh and I have been continually refining our script to match the arc of our piece and the message we wish to convey. It is coming along wonderfully and we plan to make it up to Seattle in the next 10 days or so to record the narration section in my friend’s studio he has up there.

A lot of time was spent last week coordinating with other people for shoots and making sure that we effectively partition our time. In week 5 it will all come alive with a busy, hectic, crazy, and super fun production schedule.  Can’t wait!

Last week was the time when I tackled the leviathan of self-inflicted chaos that I’d proposed for the quarter. Originally I had planned to do three video projects for Mediaworks on top of the other two videography jobs I’m doing over the course of the quarter. After Laurie convinced me to only choose two I had a meeting with Marilyn on Tuesday and she convinced me to only focus on one. This was a major relief for me because now I am putting more effort into this educational doc instead of compromising its quality. Jhaleh and I fleshed out more details of our proposal and in the process decided to drop the satirical skit we were planning on doing. We’ve got it pretty well under control at the moment and spent time over the weekend developing and writing the script. On Thursday I met with the good ol’ affinity group, which went well as usual. We talked about the possibility of coordinating our schedules to maybe share/pool production resources. That day I also got my proficiency for the new stop-motion animation program, Dragon Stop Motion, and am looking forward to the animating I plan to do for the short section in our video about the roots of education in America. I’ve also been reading a lot of our materials, gleaning and assimilating as I go. Production starts this week and we’re ready to commence.

Well, its week 2 and the title says it all. At the beginning of this week our affinity group met with Marilyn and had a productive, muffin-filled meeting. Everyone’s projects sound very cool. I’ve been mostly working on organization this week–aggregating all the materials, ideas and plans I have for the two projects I’m doing.

I met with Jhaleh on Tuesday and Thursday (our usual days to meet for the quarter) for some productive planning time. We brainstormed about the different elements of our education doc and what direction we want to take with the overall tone of the piece. Since it is going to be a fairly short video, around 10-20 minutes, we decided to hone the theme into a focal point of interest that we will be addressing. So the project concept is now officially addressing the fundamental inadequacies of mainstream education in the areas of child-centered learning and creativity. We decided on infusing various elements into the piece including some animation, a satirical skit as well as anecdotal stories and traditional interviews.

In regards to my other project I have mainly been working on crystallizing my vision of what I want for the piece. It is only one minute long and I find that for these types of pieces the best approach is to have the finished product done in your mind before you start planning production. It has been coming along well and I am close to starting my production plan for this project.

I met with my affinity group yesterday and we all discussed our projects, asked questions and gave each other suggestions and support when they came up. Then we watched Amadeus during the second half of the meeting. Mozart was a badass. Our group is to.

This is a cool way to aggregate and find interesting sites on the web since there are way to many to just go find. Check it… http://www.stumbleupon.com/