Making this video was two things, a nightmare and a good learning experiance. Olivia got the interviews from Sam and helped her interview the two people who were affected by hurricane Sandy. But, it was my job (Paul) to do the editing. Each interview that we got was about 30 minuets long and trying to tell the story we wanted was not to hard. But, the hardest thing about the whole proccess was what do we cut out? The interviews had very good material and every time I had to cut something out it did not feel good. For this project though it needed to be cut. Now, when it came to editing, whatever could go wrong did. I had to fix the audio because for the guy speaking, the sound was only comming out of the left side. So the only way you could change it is if you make it into a stereo to a mono track before you put it in the timeline. So, since my draft was already edited I had to take all the boy parts and edit them in a seperate project to get a mono track and had to re-edit the whole thing again. Now when I had finished editing the video I was so relieve, but there is more challeneges ahead of me. When I went to export the video, Adobe Encore Media had stopped working for no reason. I found out that there is a corrupt file and I have to delete it, but that will take me hours to do and I do not have that time. So instead of exporting it in a higher quiality setting, I had to convert the video into a youtube preset which is not the best quality. Also, I would have liked more b footage photos and had the names of the People in the video , but I emailed Sam and she did not get back to me. Even though there is not that much B footage I still feel that it is a good enough video. The emotional expression on their faces is what makes the video for me.

In this campus story I did a story on the Wagner Hockey team championship. I interviewed my brother who was the captain of the team. I asked him a series of questions about the team and how they all felt about winning. Originally I wanted to have two people to interview , but because no one had time to be interviewed and a few were shy. I had enough of A and B roll footage. When it came to editing I did not run into a few problems, everything went smooth. The only things that I had problems with is the sound. My brother would be answering the question before I finished asking it so it was kind of difficult to cut that out. Overall my brother did a fantastic job when it came to giving me answers. I also put an environmental sound of a hockey game that I played in the past weekend throughout the video. I have it in the whole video because I felt that it gave the video more flavor and it keeps the interview from getting boring. I guess I thought the video got boring after spending a couple of hours watching it. But, I think the environmental sound is a good fit for the video.

Producing this piece was very time consuming and difficult. The easiest part for me was the editing because in the past I am used to working with programs like Adobe premiere pro and Adobe photoshop. The most difficult thing for me was trying to tell the story through pictures.  I have never done that before so it was something very new to me. The interview with Kadijah was time consuming to edit the first time , but I thought it came out very well and she told a beautiful story about her relationship with her family and college.  So when it came to taking pictures it was difficult to try and tell that story when her family lives far away from the campus. So I did my best to get pictures of her with her friends on campus and her cheer-leading team.  Kadijah was nice enough to give me some photos of her family and her mother who she talks highly of in the audio.

When it came time to put the audio and the photos together, this is when it got difficult for me.  When I put my pictures in order to the audio, I noticed I did  not have enough pictures. So, the first thing that I did was edit down the audio and take out what did not go with the pictures. Cause at some points it was had to express what she was saying in any photo. Also we were able to take some more pictures to fill up the gap.  Also I listen to Prof. Mulé criticism in the last audio project about the abrupt laugh and I took it out. Another thing I tried to do with the project is the picture of Kadijah silhouette at :50 seconds is a symbol of what she is saying. When you look at a shadow there is no real identity and more of a shape.  You cant really make out what the shadow is, but you have an idea of it.

Looking back on this piece the one thing that I would do differently would be to try to maybe tell a story that is easier to take pictures of. Like I said before it was difficult trying to take pictures of Kadijah family when they live far away. So I would also take a lot more pictures next time because I thought I had enough , but I clearly did not. So next I do something like this I know exactly what to do and not to do. I will make sure to learn from my mistakes.

Audio Profile

In this audio piece, I am trying to show the connection that Kadijah has with her family. Kadijah, also says that her family was her motivation to go to college and get a degree. This was an easy story to tell because she gave me so much material that I could use and show that connection with her family. In the beginning of the profile I had Kadijah talking about how her college experience has been so far. In this part you hear that it was hard for her to leave her family, but she is moving on and making new friends. While she is talking about her college experience in the first 48 seconds of the profile, I had put the environmental sound in. My choice to put the environmental sound in was because she started to talk about people in her life. I thought to have the sound of people talking in the background fit the section because it made me feel as a listener, and as an editor that she is not alone no matter were she is. I ended the environmental sound clip by fading out. Originally I had it just cut it, but it did not sound good with the sound just stopping. It did not have the flow that I was trying to do with the profile. But, by fading the clip made it sound better.

At 1:40 of the profile Kadijah started to talk about her mother, and what she does for living. You find out that her mother is a successful woman in the financial world. Now, this is when I used the natural sound in the profile. When I recorded the natural sound, Kadijah was on her laptop and I was able to pick up the sound of her fingers hitting the keyboard. I thought the sound would go perfect at this part of the profile because when I think of someone working in the business field, I see someone at a desk looking at a computer typing. The problem though with the sound of the keyboard is that there is a loud hum in the background. I do not know what it is , but next time I record natural sounds I am not recording them in the library. I also ended this sound with a fade. But, the reason behind it was not the same as the first one. Kadijah says that her moms business is slowing down, so I thought that fading out of the keyboard would be a symbol. Less work means less typing at your desk at the keyboard. I really hope when people listen to this that they get that idea.

My last sound that I used was a persons loud laugh that I caught when I recorded my environmental sound. This sound came at 2:48 when Kadijah talks about how in the past it was ok not to go to college. I thought this was a good choice because today in our society , most people would laugh at the idea of being successful without going to college. This laugh was perfect because it is a loud and obnoxious .

Editing this profile took a few hours. But, it was only because Kadijah gave me such a great interview. When she gave me an answer, it was long and detailed. So trying to tell a story was easy because of her. I thought that people would be interested in hearing how her family was the reasoning for going to college and how that she almost did not go. Since Kadijah gave me such a great interview I had to cut so many things out. For example I had to cut out how Kadijah is part of clubs and other activities here at Wagner. They just did not fit into the story I wanted to tell. Also I did not want to use a lot of other sounds because I thought it would take away the story that Kadijah was telling. But, next time I record sounds like natural and room tone, I will make sure that I am in a quiet room  , so that the sounds that I am trying to capture will come out more clear. The thing that actually took the most time was taking out the “Ums”. After editing this profile I never want to hear that sound again.Another problem I had with the editing is with some of the cuts. I tried to fill in the cuts with the room tone , but in a few parts you still hear some cuts. Overall I am happy how my audio profile came out and I hope others can enjoy it.