Edgar Mendez Blog#8

Edgar Mendez

Blog #8 

By working alongside my group members as a whole, and making a video for NCCSE ATP center located in San Marcos. I learned that without constant communication we never would have succeeded in making this video. The overall final outcome of our video in my point of view is high, due to the large hours of production applied throughout the semester. This project has improved my editing, and camera skills by going through the motion of the interviews we completed.

Working with the ATP students and employers, it brought to my attention the great need that our local community is unknown to, and by bringing forth this project and presenting this to the organization we are working with, this video will enable viewers to take part in the involvement of this organization.

On a personal note, I have always had the upmost respect for disabled students, but now that I personally worked alongside with these ATP students I realize how much these students have to offer to our community, these students have so much to offer and have the ability to work at a well respected job, which is not being done right now in our society.

Overall I enjoyed working on this project, and has changed the way I look at video. Video production is much more than what meets the eye, video production has taught me the great importance of collaborating with one another in order to achieve our main goal, in this case a final video.

Gerald Tovar Blog #8

Final Blog #8: Reflect on what this project and experience has given you in your life and art. Choose three or more of the following to discuss in your blog: how it has effected you personally, how it has increased your understanding and awareness of the community, how it has made you more sensitive to the needs of the community you are serving, how it has increased your leadership or collaborative skills, how it has effected the way you understand art and video production in relation to others, how it has increased you professional skills

In the time that we filmed this project it was a fun experience being able to interact with the different students and being able to watch them learn and grow as adults in the community. Personally it bettered my understanding of the development of people with with special needs and really opened my eyes to their hard work in becoming more independent people. Watching the community interact with these individuals though their work experience and their ability to travel all over through the transit systems and learn new day to day activities, I have become more understanding of their development and how they leaner, which is a very fun experience for them from what I could see. It has increased my leadership skills by being open to group work and really showing that i am a responsible leader in being apart of a film crew.  I have learned many things in the time that I have been with my group and it has begun my process of learning with production. The experience overall has been amazing and this being my first productions class has really showed me some of the things that I will be using in my future years at San Marcos, and I am very excited that I was able to start my career path here. The experience working with our community group allowed me to understand the challenges from each persons roll in my group and I am very excited to learn more. 

Ali Terwilliger Blog #8

Final Blog #8: Reflect on what this project and experience has given you in your life and art. Choose three or more of the following to discuss in your blog: how it has effected you personally, how it has increased your understanding and awareness of the community, how it has made you more sensitive to the needs of the community you are serving, how it has increased your leadership or collaborative skills, how it has effected the way you understand art and video production in relation to others, how it has increased you professional skills.

This project has been a great experience. I have enjoyed collaborating with my group members as well as the members of NCCSE to provide them with this video. I was excited to work with these kids and had so much fun in the process. There was one deaf student at the ATP center who was interested in photography and video production and I enjoyed communicating with him about his interest. He was always excited when we came to film and wanted to watch us set up and break down. I remember the first meeting we had with the NCCSE members; they expressed how desperate they were to have a video that represented their company. I feel that what we have accomplished for them has exceeded their standards and they have expressed their gratitude many times. I am so grateful to be given the opportunity to work with community members. I feel that through this project I learned how to be more professional and work with a client to complete a job the way they want it. This process has helped me grow personally and the skills I have acquired will help me in the future. Working with the group was also awesome. We all had unique qualities and worked together well. I learned from members of the group and believe that other member have also learned from me. I feel that one thing that helped our production process run smoothly was our constant communication. All group members were active in email communication to express concerns, set up shoot dates, or just shoot info back and forth. I really enjoyed working with my group and this class was an amazing experience!

Daniel Gamboa Blog #8

Final Blog #8: Reflect on what this project and experience has given you in your life and art. Choose three or more of the following to discuss in your blog: how it has effected you personally, how it has increased your understanding and awareness of the community, how it has made you more sensitive to the needs of the community you are serving, how it has increased your leadership or collaborative skills, how it has effected the way you understand art and video production in relation to others, how it has increased you professional skills.

Working with this project overall was a great experience for me. As an individual I have not had as much experience with production itself. Being the production manager was also a different experience then the previous management experience that I have, but still a good one. One of the biggest lessons was that of what I learned through the program and its involvement in the community. My previous experience with community programs was only with recreational programs. The ATP program was a very different program within the community that served a great purpose and made me aware of how these programs function. Their involvement in the community is almost ignored by most and the jobs the students in the program are involved in serve an important purpose.

At the beginning of the project I felt I had adequate management skills, however this project definitely added to my knowledge on how to manage a bigger group of people. Along with the team members managing the time and equipment was also a task that I had some trouble with, but was able to fix early on. I also felt that it taught me that collaborating with a big group can be a good thing as long as you have a hard working team, which allowed us to have smooth progress throughout the project.

Personally the project has taught me a lot about what my interests are within this type of industry. Project manager was a position I had some familiarity with, but it was the actual post production that affected me personally. I knew that my role in editing the video was limited due to time constraints, but the personal experience was a spark to become more knowledgable with the post production side of things.

Ruth Rosales Final Blog #8

Final Blog #8: Reflect on what this project and experience has given you in your life and art. Choose three or more of the following to discuss in your blog: how it has effected you personally, how it has increased your understanding and awareness of the community, how it has made you more sensitive to the needs of the community you are serving, how it has increased your leadership or collaborative skills, how it has effected the way you understand art and video production in relation to others, how it has increased you professional skills.

This project has given me more of an understanding of film as an art and the various styles one can take when creating a film. By changing the filming styles, one can change the dynamics of  the video as a whole (ex: handheld vs locked shots, interview vs verite). I feel like this is something you see throughout the video as we roll through interviews.

 Personally, i have become more aware of the community we are working with, interacting with, and portraying through our film. By working with this group, my sensitivity towards this community has increased in more ways than can be mentioned. Prior to this project, I had been exposed to the challenges that these individuals face, but actually working with them helped me make personal connections with the students that has made my work all the while more meaningful.

 Moreover, working in a team has helped me develop collaborative skills as everyone in our group was at different levels of experience with filmmaking, so there was always the adjusting and emphasizing of skills and development of new ones which was fun. Also, getting a chance to edit and learn from Ali (in terms of audio) has really helped me develop my skills because i was very weak in the audio department. All in all, this whole project was a great learning experience.

Ruth Rosales Update on project

Last week we got an interview with a parent and I came up with a 2nd rough just to show the NCCSE where we are at.


I also took the liberty of screening the rough draft to other individuals to see what they felt was missing.
It was suggested we get more b-roll of the students working on those "life skills," this is where we are at today (gathering more B-roll of students cleaning, cooking, etc.). We have even suggested they re-enact some of these skills to better suit the video.


NCCSE ROUGH CUT 2

Moreover, from what you see, we are condensing it, everything we have in the 2nd draft is for reference (still to import Edgar's footage who is also still filming right now), Ali is going to fix audio, and we are finishing up gathering more B-roll.

We have shown this product to the NCCSE crew and they have given us some feedback which we will work on once we get all of our footage.

-Ruth Rosales

Edgar Mendez Blog #7

Progress reports/blog (#7): Report on the video to date -- where you
think it is successful, where it needs more work, what you can do to
improve it.

I am very happy at where we stand. We have included a Interview from
an ATP student gradute like KC for example, who is out in our society
working in a real job. We also have interviews from employers,
parents, staff, and NCCSE represetatives. Im happy to say that we have
succeded in filming everyting we intended to film from the very start
of this video group project. Visually the interviews that we have
turned out great, the lighting in all of our interviewees were well
lit, which only enhaces the final outcome of our video project.  The
main challenge we have now is trying to make it a free flowing story
with easy interpertation for the general audience.

Daniel Gamboa Blog #7

Progress reports/blog (#7): Report on the video to date -- where you think it is successful, where it needs more work, what you can do to improve it.

I feel like today was a good production day we had to fill in the missing elements of the video that we will need to finish up our project. The video's last cut was good and had a pretty good flow to it but we still need a to make it flow to have a point come across, which is to create awareness for employers as well as families. Adding in the parent interview along with the last adjustments to the student will give us the missing pieces that will bring the video together. Having the video continue to give a laid back vibe that also informs is what we are hoping for. 

Ali Terwilliger Blog #7

Progress reports/blog (#7): Report on the video to date -- where you think it is successful, where it needs more work, what you can do to improve it.

The video is coming together nicely. Today we had a very productive work day. We got 3 interviews done (Karen, Gail, and a ATP parent) we will use these new interviews to better explain what the ATP center does and to also break up Mike's interview. We are going to go to Dogtopia tomorrow and attempt to get a better interview and footage of KC on the job. I think that are video is on track we just have to work on editing it all together in a smooth way. Next week we will probably just finish doing color correction and lower thirds and adding the final touches to our project. We are excited to see all of our work come together and we know our partner is excited too!! 

Progress Report/Blog #7

Progress reports/blog (#7): Report on the video to date -- where you think it is successful, where it needs more work, what you can do to improve it.

We just finished filming 2/3 interviews we planned for today. 

For this video to be successful we still need: 

• Interview from Karen at NCCSE
• Parent interview (to be done today, April 16 at 5:45pm)
• KC re-interview (is it even necessary? we're trying to figure it out...)
• Gail interview
• More B-roll
• among the Tighter/smoother cuts/transitions (music will be dragged longer, Mike's interview will be better selected, an ending montage might be added, etc.)
• Graphics and lower thirds need to be added as well

Attached is the link to the Rough Cut #1 of the NCCSE blog

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

For the most part, after today, we will have most of our footage together and we would just need to get to doing more editing, color correction at the end, etc... We are all excited to have this project taking form. 

Edgar Mendez Blog #6

Indvidual progress reports/blog (#6): Each person submits a progress
report about what you have accomplished this past week and what you
have left to do.

Edgar #6

So far this past week, I met up with some students from the ATP Center
along with a representative from NCCSE, at our local Cal Sate San
Marcos Child Care facility.  Since this was more of a freestyle shoot,
I took a T3i DSLR for the shoot and focused mainly on the interaction
between the ATP students and the children.

-What is left to do is find someone to narrate our video, which will
make our video complete. Besides trying to find a narrator, we also
are thinking of re-shooting certain interviews, that we thought could
improve. As far as our production schedule, I really believe that we
are definitely right on track into completing this video piece. As for
editing, I am responsible for editing the kids care footage, which
will definitely add a different feel to our piece.

Alexandra Terwilliger Blog #6

Indvidual progress reports/blog (#6): Each person submits a progress report about what you have accomplished this past week and what you have left to do

So far in this project I have had multiple roles. I have helped with filming, set up and break down,  taking production stills, and also organizing footage into bins. This week we went to the ATP center to get more footage of the students. We filmed them getting on the bus and also filmed them making breakfast and surfing the internet. We also showed some of the people at the ATP center our work in progress and we got some great feedback, we even showed the students the video and they were very excited! We also did more filming at Dogtopia. We still need to get footage of the students doing their work at Palomar College as well as re-do our interview with KC. We would also like to try to get one more interview of a parent and child. We need to work on editing the video so that it flows well between the different segments. 

Daniel Gamboa Blog #6

Indvidual progress reports/blog (#6): Each person submits a progress report about what you have accomplished this past week and what you have left to do


The last week before break we shared our video with a couple of the teachers at the ATP center and after posting it on the blog they were all able to view it and we give feedback about what they saw. We got some great feedback about the video about some things to add and some things to think about when finishing it up. Even though we have a rough edit together we still have a lot of work to add in to make sure we have enough video.

Whats left to do ?
-We want to get one of the interview re done for audio purposes as well as getting a little more b-roll.
-We also want to try to get a production day together to interview one of the parents for a quick testimonial.
-  We are wanting to get some footage at the last site we have not shot at to add what is a big part of what they do there in the program.
- Lastly is putting it all together with these last pieces we feel we will have a solid project and video for the program.

Gerald Tovar #6

Indvidual progress reports/blog (#6): Each person submits a progress report about what you have accomplished this past week and what you have left to do

Working with the group I have helped label bins while editing, I helped choose some good footage that we could use in our videos and helped ruth add some work to the edited cut. While we where at Dogtopia I was the Dog Whisperer and helped keep the dogs away from KC so we could get some good footage of her interacting with a few dogs but not all of them as they would swarm around her. While we filmed at the ATP center I helped film and set up, along with making sure the sound worked and that the interview of mike was smooth. While we filmed at San Marcos High I filmed along with everyone else a little bit of what I could. Filming at the ATP center and showing them our rough cut of the video and filming in their environment, working with each other and filming them getting ready for transportation to school. What we have left as of now is to have someone narrate the video and to finish some transitions and also to add a few more progress shots.

Gerald Tovar #4

In your own words, describe the social issues your project is addressing. Besides the media project you are producing, what else do you think can be done to solve the issue or problem?; 2) update me on your progress in your team

The social issue is dealing with disabilities and creating an environment that feels safe to the people at hand. It is to help these disabled students feel comfortable within their community and to safely go about their day using transit systems, working, going to school and interacting with community. I think to solve the issue, people, instead of staying in their comfort zone, should go out of their comfort zone to make disabled people feel comfortable. But then again, all people might feel more comfortable if anyone did that. From that point we filmed at the ATP center, have a few interviews done, may need a few more. Had filmed at San Marcos high and set a date to film at Dogtopia which we had.