The End of the Line

As I was watching the final cut of my slide show for the fifth time to make sure that it was as smooth, and polished as possible I found myself being able to stand back and admire what is capable with the use of multi-media work. Throughout the semester I have struggled to keep up with the technical prowess of those around me while at the same time attempting to broaden m,y knowledge and use of said technology. Up until this semester I had never had any extensive use of a digital camera, or recorder. I know that may sound absurd but I have never truly jumped on the tech-bandwagon but have rather resigned myself to walking contentedly next to it. However this class helped me to realize that not only can ANYONE utilize these tools to their benefit but that they can in fact come to appreciate and enjoy using them. Although I do have numerous qualms with MovieMaker(saving files was an absolute nightmare), I was amazed at what can be done with Audacity and how much can be accomplished with just a digital camera and recorder.

My project does not come equipped with mind-blowing photography or sound recording, but I believe that it does compliment the subject of my project. The shots and sounds in the slide show represent what I saw and what I heard. They are the sounds that occured while I was there, and I tried my best to take photos that accurately represented the farms and their owners. I am truly pleased with the end result, and am thankful that I have had this experience.

For me, the most enraging and rewarding task was the editing of the slide show. Coupling the photos with the sound to make them synche together was at times more infuriating and frustrating than anything that I have done in recent memory. But as I look at the end project I can see that it all lead to something that I am ultimately proud of, and something that I hope people will take some pleasure in.

Observations from Project Presentations

For me, the "screening" of our projects was incredibly valuable because it allowed for me to view the entire clip from start to finish on something other than a computer screen, and I got to witness audience reaction. Watching how people reacted to both the photos and audio from the clip helped me to discern what should stay in for the final cut and what should be left out.
Hearing from the class after the viewing allowed me to hear specific critiques pertaining to my project and I was able to narrow down the problem areas. I found that the biggest areas for me to look at were the speed of the audio in the first interview, the placement of captions or a title, and the end of the project. I knew going in that I would have to work on both the ending of the clip, and the introduction. I had not placed any titles or background before the piece, so the audience was left to find out along the way what the project was truly about. I know that can be fixed with a few well placed slides and text, and the ending can be clarified by adding credits.
I enjoyed watching all of the clips because it allowed me to see how other people had composed their projects. Viewing the different narrative structures coupled with the varying audio and photo graphical techniques made me look at my piece in a new light, and I was able to stand back and see what I could do differently to make my piece move more coherently.
The group critique was by far the best way to go about preparing the project for its final cut, and there was popcorn. . . .delicious, sweet, kettle-corn popcorn.

Project Trailer

I spent the better part of Sunday and Monday working on whittling the hour-plus amount of audio I had into something resembling a coherent 5-minute project. I succeeded insofar as I was able to reduce the length of the audio to just under 9 minutes. The problem for me isn't too little information, but too much. My topic began to grow ever broader as I listened (repeatedly) to the three interviews I had conducted. The project went from simply discussing the impact of the economic crisis on farms to a much broader outlook on the reality of the life of a small farm owner. I learned that although the economy certainly had an impact, it did not worry the farmers as much as passing rain clouds; weather, it appears, is the biggest fear for farmers. Not because of what it does to their crops but what it does to their customers. A rainy weekend can drive away visitors, reduce crop intake, and ultimately deal a blow to the overall financial health of a small farm. So, I found myself including far more than I had anticipated and I am now left with a very rough first-draft of the final project. This trailer, hopefully, will shed some light on both the intent of the project and the story and human emotion that lies at its center.

Editing an Interview

The biggest problem that I ran into this week in editing my audio interview was trying to decide what should stay and what should go. Selecting which topics and issues discussed during the interview should be included in the five minute piece was hard enough but selecting which precise sound clips should go on was excruciating. Once I had decided on what key points I wanted to convey to the audience, I had to go through and decide which parts sounded the best. This, was another problem. The quality of the sound was great (I am truly pleased with my audio recorder and I feel as though I figured out how to properly record sound) but the actual interview was flat! My subject, Bill Tole, was perhaps the worst person to interview for a multimedia piece. He wanted absolutely nothing to do with having his picture taken, and the presence of the camera and audio recorder seemed to make him nervous. He answered with succinct, innocuous answers and was hesitant to elaborate on any point. It took quite a bit of coaxing to get him to expand on almost every response. There are some points during the final clip in which my voice can be heard asking questions due to the fact that there were many answers he gave which make almost no sense unless the audience is given the question. I was never able to get him into a free-flowing conversation, and that resulted in a very difficult interview to present to a listening audience. So between deciding what should stay, and what I could actually use proved to be challenging. The final "cut" for this assignment ended up being a little over a minute. I found that as the interview became more concise it played far better. It was no longer a chore to listen to. Working with MovieMaker proved to be so much more simple than I had thought going in. I found it to be a very user-friendly program that lends itself well to those who don't have extensive use with this kind of software. I am still getting my feet wet with most of these multi-media components but I felt at ease using this. Inserting the pictures into the slide show was fast, and straight-forward. I had no issues placing with that aspect, or in dealing with actually editing the sound. The visit from Tom Snyder was so great due to the fact that we actually learned how to use the software before we dealt with it. Learning from Tom about MovieMaker was informative and getting first-hand knowledge while editing his interview was truly invaluable. It was by far the best visit we have had so far during the course; Tom was engaging, funny, and he truly taught us how to work with sound. He did not just talk about his experiences with sound but he showed us what to use, and how to use it. I felt much more confident about using audio after his visit.

PROJECT: Part I

For my multimedia project I will be covering local area farms and how they are dealing with the current economic crisis that is facing the nation. I am looking primarily to see how the farmers are changing the way they do business and what have been the changes they have noticed so far. I also want to delve deeper into the issue and see how the local community is responding; are they buying local, or are they shopping more at the large food chains?

My first interview was with the owner of Emery Farm, which is located in Durham. He proved to be a most difficult subject for a multimedia project considering that he refuses to be photographed. Apparently, when I called and scheduled the interview I wasn't clear enough when I said that I would be conducting an interview and taking some portraits. He was more than gracious in allowing me to tour the grounds and take any photos that I cared to take but he was adamant in his refusal to go before the lens. Considering that the assignment for this week was to conduct n interview and photograph the subject, my frustration was substantial. I put that behind me and continued on with the interview, only to find that Bill was just as much a talker sa he was a model. He was very succinct and concise with all of his answers and I had to change my tactics about two minutes into the interview. I got rid of the prepared questions and simply spent a few minutes walking around with him while he did simple chores around the farm. Instead of trying to make this seem like a process, I tried to make him more comfortable with me before I started to pose more questions. After a few minutes of gentle prodding, he began to open up in his responses and by the end of the interview he had even become cordial and affable. He spoke about how he and his brother had been leasing the farm for the past 18 years, and how the biggest change to come about during this period involved the farm becoming more family friendly; including hayrides for families, field trips with guided tours, a petting farm, a play area for children. He stated that this allowed the community to embrace the farm more closely and that business had in fact tarted to climb as the change to the more family-friendly format took hold. When asked about the current problems facing the farm, he said that the economy had not affected them in any way and they were in fact enjoying a time of increased business. He and his brother have not altered the way they buy, sell, or grow their crops because of the economy and they were in fact more worried about the weather this summer than the current economic crisis. When asked if he foresaw any changes in the future, he was certain that unless catastrophe struck they would continue to do business the same way they had for the past 18 years. By the end of the interview I felt as though Bill ad I had actually connected on some level and that he was finally comfortable looking at me. But he still was not going to let me take his damned picture!

I spent the next 45 minutes walking around the grounds and taking AS MANY pictures as possible. This proved to be a challenge because at the current time of day the sun was very bright and caused many problems as far as shadows and lighting in general. This actually proved to be a valuable learning experience because I was able to experiment with angles and I got some experience in dealing with outdoor photography with less than ideal conditions for photography. My favorite photo that I was able to take was of a scarecrow that is sitting among a row of pumpkins. Without a human model, he was the closest thing I had to take a portrait, so I took a few different shots and chose the best one for the slide show.

As far as the technology aspect of the course, I am beginning to overcome my fears about using all of these various tools but I still find myself struggling to get them to work properly. I spend hours uploading photos and changing the formats of files so that I can use audio from my reorder just to listen to a short clip. But in tackling these problems head on and ultimately bringing them all together in a large project I am confident that I can come out of this with a stronger understanding of these tools and how to use them, and a greater appreciation for the results they can produce.

Stills and Audio

For this week's assignment I decided to document an everyday occurrence that I felt would provide me with both interesting photos and audio clips. I went back and forth as to whether I should film a bus ride along campus, or somebody preparing dinner; I went with the latter. Dinner preparation would provide me with the chance to shoot both people and inanimate objects, and it provided me with the opportunity to shoot indoors. Up until this I have mostly been shooting all of my video and still outdoors and I wanted to try my hand at extensive photography indoors. This would give me some practice at dealing with reflection, artificial light, etc. The biggest problem for me during the shoot (which was shot at a friend's house during a family gathering) was that the kitchen was relatively empty of people, and the way the room is set up there is only one way to shoot the preparation area. That made it incredibly difficult to experiment with the zoom, and try different angles.

The sound component of the assignment was by far the most challenging because I was trying to decide on-the-fly what adjustments should be made to the various sound filters and controls. I was constantly trying to switch between low-cut filter and the noise cancel function. I found that the sound from the cutting board was not as crisp and precise as I would have liked, and it ended up sounding piercing and "clunky". The various noises being made throughout the kitchen made it difficult to focus the microphone on one area and I'm not sure whether the sound came out as good as it should have. The other problem I encountered was trying to juggle the recorder and the camera at once! It created a few problems for me during the process.

The visitor we had last week proved to be informative as it pertains to shooting video but I wish he would have tried to break things down into simpler components. I felt as though we got a broad overview of the process instead of a detailed, precise procedure for shooting video. I think that going through the process step-by-step would have been a great way to learn more and get a better understanding of shooting- video and all it entails.

Video Assignment

The footage that I shot for this week's assignment consists of me travelling from one commuter parking lot to the next, and riding along the Campus Connector shuttles.


I wanted to capture the experience of what it was like to be a commuter and go through their daily routine. I filmed the parking lots and the surrounding areas of the West Edge and Mast Road lots, and filmed at Lot-A. My "journey" began at West Edge, where I spent roughly ten minutes acclimating myself to the controls and handling of the camera. Although it was incredibly easy to actually record footage I found it difficult to frame the shots the way I wanted. Zooming in and out proved to be a challenge for me, and walking with the camera produced shaky, uneven footage. The best material from West Edge came when I found myself riding the shuttle bus solo; I was able to pan around the bus and not only visually capture the emptiness but listening to the sound after I had shot it, I realized that the lack of human voices and ambient noise really produced a nice effect. That sense of solidarity and calm proved to be a them for this footage, as I found myself filming parking lots teeming with cars and very few people.

From West Edge I made my way over to Mast Road and once again filmed the parking lot and surrounding area. I even managed to capture footage of the graveyard that sits just yards away from parked cars. I then made the journey on foot over to Lot-A and once again went about filming the lot and the surrounding area. My favorite shot of the whole video came during my visit to Lot-A; I went through the pedestrian tunnel (again, I was alone), and the lighting, sound, and atmosphere really provided me with a nice sequence that I though played out quite nicely.

Working with iMovie proved to be both educational and immensely frustrating. Loading the video was simple and I felt that this would be relatively easy and fun. But after spending hours sifting through and cutting footage of shaky camerawork, I felt somewhat nauseous and mentally exhausted. The time it took for me to whittle the hour and a half of footage into five minutes was well over four hours! Had I recorded footage that provided a clearer narrative structure, this probably would have been easier, though.

The visit from Fred Field worked well for me when he dissected some of his work and went through the process step-by-step. It was both inspiring and educational to know what lighting works well, what time of day to shoot at, how to make your subjects at ease. I wish he would have spent more time going over the pictures rather than simply showing them to us.