This project was actually really fun compared to what I thought it would be at the start of the semester. I think I did the best job I could to help out our team. We were all very involved in the planning process and deciding on an activity to do. As soon as we had everything decided I volunteered myself to be the main editor for the competition video. So I edited the 16 minute competition video we have that focuses on the activity we did. I also edited my bio video, wrote my bio piece, and found the headshot of myself for the competitors page. During the actual competition we all had a say in the set-up of the cameras and how we would do the mid competition interviews. I tried to set up the audio for the competition but something messed up with the audio on one camera, so we had to use just one camera for audio. The only thing I would have done differently for our assignment is film the competition before spring break. We were able to get all of our work done before we needed to and stayed on task but if we were able to film before spring break it would have made the whole process a little bit earlier. I spent a couple late nights editing the video just because of how much footage we had it took a couple hours to render and export the video the couple times I had to. I think everything in our group went well. The only real problem we had was getting stuff to show up on wix sometimes but a little bit of messing around and we it to work so nothing to complain about!

This week we did not have much to do. We thought we might get stuck presenting last week, so we finished everything up before then. So, I have gone over the website a couple times to practice what I will be presenting for the final. I think we have a pretty good website and a lot of content for people to view and see. We used wix to do the website, so it has a very nice layout and is super easy to navigate. Wix does not have it own video player to hold some of our longer videos so we had to upload them to YouTube in order to have them on the website. We plan to meet up after Wednesday a couple times to do some practice runs of our presentation which should help us out a lot. I am supposed to go over the competitor page of the website. Which we were able to get a written bio, headshot, and a video intro into what each competitor did for the competition. Each intro video is between 45 seconds and 1 minute long so it gives a very quick behind the scene look at what everyone did to get ready.

This week I spent a lot of time editing the competition video. I probably spent over 6 hours editing the video between all the renders and everything. It was not that hard to do to be honest. Most of the time I spent on the video was waiting for it to render or export it different times. I put a crossfade on for all of the video transitions along with audio transitions of exponential fade and constant power. I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit the entire video. While I ripped the background music off of YouTube and changed some of the audio setting for it in premier. We had a little bit of a problem that when we recorded the competition only one of the cameras actually picked up audio so we got a little bit stuck with that and what we were able to do in post. Instead of being able to switch between two different camera angles. We did take close up videos and little midway interviews with a different camera that the audio did work on so that was perfect to break up the video so it didn’t get to boring. The whole competition was 30 minutes but I cut down the video to under 16 minutes so there are some sped up parts of the video so you don’t miss any of the action but don’t have to watch a full 30 minute video.

This week we finished up our filming and started editing our videos together. We also worked on our website more now that we have the competition done. The competition was really fun to do as a team and all the footage I saw looked good. I think we should be pretty close to being finished in a week and a half. Our plan is to have it all finished super early so if we need to refilm anything or create something new it won’t be a hard thing to do. Once the website gets all the way done it will be super easy to just plug in our footage with the site. I think that will be our hardest part going further is just finishing up the layout of the website and making it easy for us to plug everything in. We should have about 30 minutes of footage from our interviews and actual competition to go up on our site so that will really help. I think we’re going to have a bunch of small clips around the site and then one page with the full 30-minute show of the competition. It should be really easy to finish everything up within the next couple weeks.

This week has been super busy for us. Monday night we all met together and filmed bio interviews of each other for the website. Tuesday night we are all meeting up together to film the cake decorating competition. We decided on a spring theme for the competition, so I spent my day Tuesday planning what I am going to decorate my cake as. I also spent part of the day going and busying supplies for the competition. I am really excited to have the competition part done this week as we will be able to start focusing on the website now and getting everything put together and in its own place. I think the competition will go really good tonight as the interviews last night were a breeze to do. We have cameras and mics all ready to be set up and film us. We plan on doing outtake interviews to which could end up being really funny if someone messes up their cake horribly. I plan on trying to do an easterish type of cake with a white base frosting and pink highlights. I wanted to buy peeps and put around the cake but target did not have any when I went there.

For this week I did not do much to be honest. With it being spring break, we all took a week off basically and just tied up some loose ends if we needed to. We are currently scheduling the day for us to host our competition. I am honestly super excited for the competition it will be a lot of fun setting up the filming. I did spend some time over break thinking about everything we will need to film the competition. The hardest part will be getting enough mics on everyone as we film. If we are not able to do that, we will need to hope the mics on the camera or good enough to pick up voices not too far away from them. I figured we would set the people with the mics far away from the camera and the others closer to try and be safe. The longest part of the post process will be syncing up all the audio to the video. It shouldn’t be too hard to do as long as we make a loud clap before anything starts so we have a big spike in audio to judge off of. Hopefully we are able to film it within the next week.

This week we are not doing much as a group. With spring break happening this week we are just taking a break from the project really. I am leaving the state for spring break so the only thing I could do would be remote work. The week after we get back from spring break we are going to try and set up our competition. After we get the competition filmed, we are going to figure out everyone specific role on the website.

While over spring break I do plan on watching more YouTube videos about cake decorating. I started off watching Tasty 101’s video called “Five beautiful ways to decorate a cake.” After that I watched some more compilation videos. I like those videos because you can see a lot of different ways to decorate a cake pretty fast. I have been getting a lot of good ideas for my cake and I think I might be able to run away with the trophy. I am pretty excited for the competition just to see what everyone does. The thing that will make our project good is the personality of the competitors coming out in the videos and bio pieces. With everyone writing up their own bio piece it could be really entertaining.

This week we do not have much to do. With spring break right around the corner, we are just trying to put together some loose ends beforehand. This week I worked on some research about how to set up our website. There really is not much more for us to do until we meet up and film the actual competition. I did watch some more youtube videos about cake decorating. I have realized there are some really really bad videos about cake decorating. As a group we have all put together some solid pieces so far for our project. I looked over all the footage we were able to piece together from all different sources and everything seems good so far. The couple bio videos we have will work perfectly for what we need them too. I watched a couple cake decorating competitions too. This has given me some good ideas for our own competition. Like having mid-point interviews with each of the contestants. Seeing all the presentations in class is also giving me good ideas for our website. I think if we get our filming done the week after spring break it will give us a lot of time to make a great website.

This week with being able to meet with our group during class made it super easy. We all worked on small parts of our preliminary content submission. I was in charge of writing our media overview to explain what we would be doing with the media we had already pulled together. We plan to have all our parts done for the preliminary content submission by Sunday afternoon. This way if someone is having trouble with their part, we can all step in to help them. Planning that extra day to do finishing touch-ups on our project is a great plan for us, I think. I plan to get a little bit more footage of me preparing for the competition this next week also. It will fit into our media perfectly. I plan on finding some articles on cake decorating to read from that way we can link to them on our website after we have finished the competition. We decided on a layout for our website this week to follow so we can find content that will work perfectly for our website. This way there is not one or multiple of us recording the wrong content and having to redo it all in a panic at the end of the semester.

This week was has been a super weird week with not having the class to meet up. Without class we just kind of did our own thing to get ready for our presentation we need to give in class. Everyone kind of worked on their own thing with getting their footage ready. I wasn’t able to do my originally planned idea, so I had to improvise a bit with my work. Everything seems to be going smoothly at this point and in a couple of weeks we should be ready to actually do our event together. Once we are all able to meet up at the same time and film the event the rest of the semester will go super smooth. There is not much we can do as a group until we host our little competition in a couple of weeks. So the workflow will be a little slow and then pick right back up after that as we put together all the pieces. I’m looking forward to our presentation this week as it should show the individual steps everyone did to get ready for the competition and it will be interesting to see what different things everyone learned. Hopefully, everything works out the way it should!