interfaithv2

Response #8 - Jermaine Jackson

What does is mean to be alone; with no one to turn to? What does it mean to be homeless; with no place to rest your head at night? What does it mean to be hungry; with no guarantees on where the next meal will come from. I fortunately have never had to go through any of this or ask myself any of these questions. However, for many veterans, they are faced with daily problems, which no one should ever have to go through, especially those who risked their lives in order to stand up for our nation’s freedom. Working on this project impacted my life, art and work.

Coming from a military family I felt deeply connected to the men and women we had a chance to speak to. Just hearing about their situation really left a number on me, considering the fact it could have happened to my dad, uncles, cousins, or any of my friends who are also in the service. It is satisfying to know that there are programs such as interfaith out there that are dedicated to making sure these brave veterans get back on their feet. This applies to my life specifically as well since I have also considered joining the service after I graduate.

Through my experiences I have also had a chance to improve my skills in my field of study. I had many opportunities to work with the camera. I learned a lot about Depth of field, and was fun working with a camera that shot in 24p. I love the cinematic feel it has to it, and look forward in taking what I’ve learned as a cinematographer into narrative film. Since I always tried to avoid audio, it was actually a good thing that it forced me to study it more in depth. I learned about recording in stereo so that I can have two lines of audio when capturing my video. There were also some new things I learned in final cut about the differences between capturing as a 16:9 and capturing as a letterbox. There is also a trick in final cut pro where I can capture the audio as a stereo and not a mono pair.

Working with this project and Interfaith was essential to my experiences as future employee in the industry. Although it was unpaid it was important to realize that Interfaith was our client and our group was hired to produce a video for them. This taught me more about communication, storyboarding, planning, and producing something, which the client is pleased with. Even though no one wants to run into problems, it is good that we had some issues with our project in a controlled environment. With these issues we were able to learn a lot about trouble shooting and problem solving. Whether these problems consist of technical issues, (such as audio or video) problems with interviewees, scheduling, or lack of equipment, my group and I learned how to adapt to any situation we were faced, troubleshoot, and make due with what we had to produce something to the best of our ability. This experience is critical and helpful when transferring into the professional industry.

Final Post - Ryan Anderson

Before entering this class I was unaware how much time and effort it takes to make a short video. I've learned a lot from this class including how to work in a group and working with a client. Working with Interfaith was a great experience because it gave me motivation to start creating videos of my own and start working with video. I thought the hands on experience in the field was a great way for new students like me to get a foot in the door when it comes to video production.

I loved working with all the professional equipment such as the sound/lighting/cameras. I learned how to successfully light a subject to gain the right tone for a video. Sound was a little challenging at first because there are so many sounds a good mic can pick up. There were a few shots where we had to reshoot because we had a lot of background sound that ruined the shot. We learned from our mistakes and fix our mistakes in the end.

This class has given me motive to start working with video production and start on a few little project of mine. This was a great introduction class to gain a solid video foundation. I hope to build on this foundation and do great things for the future.