Reflection Blog Post

Hello,

Today is my final post on this blog, and here I will give a brief reflection of my time this semester. My favorite project that we did during the semester was the final video, I thought this was the most intriguing and it was nice to combine a few of the units all together. Some valuable skills that I learned in the course that will benefit me in the future, is quite honestly everything we have learned. I had no previous knowledge on anything about Adobe, I did not even know that you could Photoshop things this well until this semester.

I am taking a class next semester where Communication 210 was a prerequisite, so I am excited to have a class that does everything we have done with more detail. I believe all four of the projects we completed will help me in my class next semester.

I think this course provided just the right about of skills and if there would have been more skills to learn it would have become stressful. I also believe if we shortened the unit to just three skills, it would have been too slow-paced and too easy.

YouTube was an outside source that helped me tremendously through the course. Sometimes the tutorials were very confusing and I felt as if YouTube helped me more. It was hard to keep up with some of the tutorials because so much information was thrown at you. I think a suggestion I would give is to divide up the tutorials, for example, making 3 parts of the tutorial due on Monday and the other 2 due on Friday. Overall I did enjoy the class, it is very unique to anything I have ever taken before and I have learned quite a bit!

 

Thank you for reading me and following me on this journey.

Final Video Story

Hello,

Thank you for viewing my final video for this unit. Since my topic this semester has been revolved around fitness, I thought it would be interesting to show what my day in the gym looks like. I was going to incorporate healthy foods, different muscle groups, and workouts – but I thought this might be a little too complicated. Leading me to choose just one of those topics.

I tried to make my video very personal to me, which is why I included footage of me actually working out, as opposed to showing clips that are available online for anyone to watch. I also decided to add a few clips of my friend, I thought having a male in there would appeal more to my male viewers while I appealed to my female viewers.

My video starts off with me introducing what I will be talking about, followed by three exercises; deadlifting, flies, and a chest press. I thought it was important to include do’s and don’ts, just in case my viewers decided to try these workouts I wanted them to be as safe as possible. Before anyone starts a workout, they should know exactly what to do, as well as what not to do. I feel as if it is almost more important to know what you can’t do in an exercise to avoid hurting yourself.

Posting my draft to the video and hearing my peer’s responses helped me quite a bit. I took some advice, while also ignoring some advice. The most common response I got was to raise my voice and make it less monotone, which led me to add a video of me introducing the video at the beginning with a smile to make it more focused on my voice, while also re-recording my entire audio. I did not want to come across as monotone so in my new recording I made sure to talk very loud and energetic. A piece of advice that I chose not to take out was the audio from the gym, I understand what my peers were saying when they said that the audio was focusing away from my voice, but it is important to hear the weights and the rhythm at the gym. This led to me to add a part in my audio saying, “If you listen carefully you will hear that the plates touch the ground at the same time, which is what you want to hear while deadlifting. Sometimes I will take out my headphones to ensure that I can hear this through my whole set”.

Navigating around premiere was a lot easier the second time around, creating my draft helped me learn the site a little more, as well as looking back at the tutorials helped me quite a bit as well. After some time, I finally accomplished my video. I hope you can see the hard work I put into it and I hope you enjoy!

Draft Video Story

For my draft video story, I was in between a few ideas. Since my topic is fitness I was unsure if I wanted to talk about my personal story with fitness, or talk about some healthy food options, discuss workouts for different muscles, or go personal and show some of the workouts that I enjoy doing.

After quite some thought, I decided to show some workouts that I like to do at the gym. I felt as if it was a little more personal actually showing myself doing my workouts, as well as one of my friends doing some too. I decided to ask my friend to help me with the video because having a male could appeal more to men and I would appeal to more females.

My video starts off with me introducing my topic then three exercises, deadlifting, flies, and a chest press. I thought it was important to show the exercise and talk about the do’s and don’ts because if any of my viewers decided to try these at home I want them to be as safe as possible. It is very easy to tear a muscle or cause any injury by doing these workouts wrong, especially when a high amount of weight is thrown into the mix.

Navigating around premiere was a slight struggle for me. I did not have the opportunity to do the tutorials so I felt very out of touch and relied on many videos on You Tube for help. I went back to the tutorials this week to look at some things I had missed, and seeing the 10 second framing assignment we had helped me quite a bit. It helped me understand that angles mean everything and a certain angle can make or break a video.

After some time, I finally had accomplished my video. I am excited to see what feedback I receive from my peers, and hopefully I will receive some tips as well. Please feel free to leave critical comments, I am excited to learn more about this feature!

Draft Video Story

 

Sample Storyboard: Working out

Visual Elements	Audio Elements
0:00-0:26 Matthew is doing incline chest presses with 70 pounds.	Here is a video of Matthew doing what is called “Incline Chest Press” with dumbbells. Matthew has been working out for quite a while now, and is able to lift a heavier amount of weight than a usual person could.   It is important to keep control of the dumbbells at all times, to ensure safety to yourself as well as others around you.   One must breathe out while pushing the dumbbells up with your chest. Once you reach the top, you should lock your arms and hold for a second, then slowly lower the weight down.   This is a chest strength exercise that can be done by anyone at any point in their strength training career, all that needs to be adjusted is the weight of the dumbbells.
0:27-1:08 This is footage of me deadlifting 95 pounds.	This is a video of myself doing what is called “Deadlifts”. Deadlifts are very common while strength training,   Form is very important while deadlifting, it can be seen as a full body exercise with a dramatic focus on your back. Doing this exercise wrong can lead to back injury and pain.   One must stand with their feet shoulder width apart, with toes facing forward or slightly outward. Never face your toes inward.   Then place your arms to the outside of your legs, directly over the bar. As you lift, keep your chest high and hips out, you want the bar to stay in line with your legs and be able to touch your leg through the whole exercise.

Audio Final

For my Audio Final Story, I spent about a minute talking about my personal story, as well as interviewing a close friend of mine, Matthew Trejo. We both discuss how fitness has impacted our lives while giving an insight on our personal story. My audio tape is more revolved around my story, while Matthew discusses why people should follow a healthy lifestyle.

I begin with introducing myself and my topic, which is fitness. I wanted to be more personal with my audio footage, spending some time talking about my personal story and how fitness has impacted my life. I tell the story about my personal weight gain and how I am very inspired by hearing other people’s stories so I wanted my audio footage to be very intimate and personal. I also appreciated Matthew’s interview as well, I felt as if his words were very inspiring and a good note to end off on. I specifically liked his line where he states, “Unlike career success, or any other way one can measure accomplishment, anyone can get into the best shape of their lives. It doesn’t have to wait until later in your life, which is why it’s so important for a young person”.

For my audio I combined Matthew’s recording with mine and made some slight changes. I also added some music, the link to this is: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/corporate-pop . I experienced many technical challenges with this software, I am not super familiar with it and have spent quite a bit of time trying to familiarize myself with the program. I am proud of myself for spending so much time learning this application. I hope you have enjoyed reading this as well as listening to my audio tape. Thank you so much!

Audio Story Draft

For my Draft Audio Story, I spent about a minute talking about my personal story, as well as interviewing a close friend of mine, Matthew Trejo. We both discuss how fitness has impacted our lives while giving an insight on our personal story. My audio tape is more revolved around my story, while Matthew discusses why people should follow a healthy lifestyle.

I begin with introducing myself and my topic, which is fitness. I wanted to be more personal with my audio footage, spending some time talking about my personal story and how fitness has impacted my life. I tell the story about my personal weight gain and how I am very inspired by hearing other people’s stories so I wanted my audio footage to be very intimate and personal. I also appreciated Matthew’s interview as well, I felt as if his words were very inspiring and a good note to end off on. I specifically liked his line where he states, “Unlike career success, or any other way one can measure accomplishment, anyone can get into the best shape of their lives. It doesn’t have to wait until later in your life, which is why it’s so important for a young person”.

For my audio I combined Matthew’s recording with mine and made some slight changes. For my final, I want to add a transition so the change of speakers is not so abrupt. Maybe I will add something like, “Here is my friend Matthew, who is going to share his idea behind fitness”, or something similar to that. I might also shorten each of our audio files by a little bit so I can interview someone else and get a different perspective on fitness. I experienced many technical challenges with this software, I am not super familiar with it and will definitely spend this weekend playing around and learning the different tools that come with it. I am excited to see my progress through this unit and create a more competent audio tape.

Raw Audio Footage

The audio story I am planning on sharing is my personal experience with fitness, as well as my friends.

 

Final Logo Project

My topic this year is fitness, specifically my own journey. To resemble this in my logo, I decided to include my initials as well as the word fitness to show the viewers what my topic was all about. I wanted my logo to be extremely clear and not confusing for who sees it.

I made quite a few changes through the process of making my logo. My original draft consisted of a woman lifting up these weights, and after deeper thought about it I decided that it didn’t really go hand-in-hand with my topic. My topic for this blog is my fitness journey itself, and a stick figure woman did not symbolize that. Due to this, I decided to take the figure out, and include my own name to make it more personal and relevant to me.

Some other changes I included was making the lines more bolded, I felt as if the weights did not stand out in my original photo so I decided to give them a nice red outline. Also to make the logo more appealing, I decided to include three stars with a very bold red outline to draw attention to it. I wanted my logo to come across as official but still fun at the same time.

Adobe Illustrator was quite a challenge for me, so I spent a lot of my time re-watching our tutorials we did last week. My rough draft took me quite a bit of time as well, it was hard for me to use certain tools which is a part of the reason I shifted gears for my final draft. I wanted the final image to look clean and neat, and I knew that having writing would help. Every day I took a little bit of time to add something new and I am glad I did, because this final draft is exponentially better than my rough draft. I did not obtain any photos from the web and all of these images are my own creations. Thank you for reading!

 

 

Draft Logo Project

For my draft logo project I decided to create a woman lifting weights. I wanted to make it very clear that it was a woman, so I decided to add a ponytail to make it distinct. This idea relates to my topic because I am discussing fitness and the impact that it has on people. My design process was originally just to have a stick figure lifting weights, then as I explored illustrator I decided to add some gradient scales and make the picture more colorful with the pop of red. The red character is the most significant element I have in my design, because it is the focus. I made the character a red color to help my viewers see that the person is the main idea behind my logo.

My design process started off with my initial sketches. I looked at other logos for inspiration and then discovered the Plancast Penguin, which was one our readings. They discussed a “Directional shift”, and for them, it was bringing in a character. I thought to do the same so I added a character in mine. Then later added the gradient circle in the background to really tie everything together.

After creating my logo then re-reading our assignments this week, I think I will want to add some lettering to my photo. Jessica Hische, a San Fransisco designed that we got the opportunity to learn about, inspired me with her lettering and illustration. I want to take some of the concepts that she talked about and put it into my final draft for this project.

Adobe Illustrator was a little challenging for me so I decided to stick with the basics. I mainly used the rounded rectangle tool for most of my logo, creating the weights and my character. Then played around with color and the gradient scale. I did not use any photos from the web and all of these images are my own, I am thinking for my final draft I might use a photo of a stick figure from online to help it look more neat. I already have a few ideas in my head to improve my logo for the final draft. Thank you for reading!

 

Logo Sketch

These are two ideas I have configured for my logo sketch. I like the top one the most, but I am afraid it is too simple for this project. Maybe I will add some vibrant colors or cool patterns to make it look more alive.