Overall, this was a really fun project to participate in. It isn’t often that a school project leads you to joking around with friends while getting to decorate and eat cake. A lot of the group was spread out across members so we each played an important role. Everyone had to do some type of preparation for the competition, or lack thereof, and create b-roll of said preparation and edit it together with a pre-interview footage. As well, we each created out own bios to detail both a bit about ourselves and our preparation for the competition. On the night of the competition, we obviously each decorated our cakes. As well, I aided in obtaining close-up shots of everyone’s cakes and setting up the camera for the overall shots of the competition. All the footage had to be edited, of course, so we split up the work for the editing process. Personally, I edited the results video as well as my own bio video. The webpage itself was a team effort with each person helping to edit the pages, with Ben on lead, and with the overall layout being based off sketches that I drew.

Most of the challenges that we encountered with this project were technologically based, such as the audio of the camera being insufficient at times. As well, while our original plan was to take a decorating class together, when we couldn’t find any we each did our own individual preparation on varying levels. However, I think this ultimately aided the project and gave it a more humorous edge. I would definitely do this project again, especially if it involved eating even more cake.

This week was mostly cleaning up our website and presentation. We have our in class practice presentation on Wednesday, so we need to be sure our website is, mostly, done and ready. We have a few things we are still tweaking, such as the “Failed It” reveal videos and the accompanying audio. As well, there are a couple videos and pictures that still need to be added. I think in general, we wanted to add another page on the website detailing out credits to the help we received and including the video of our group watching “Nailed It.” We figured out the first time we tried to meet, that not all of us can work on the website together. Instead, we can all sit there and watch one person work on it, because the rest of us cannot log in and help. Therefore, most of the updating and editing the website has been done alone. We have met up a few times this week, though, to discuss how we think the progress is going and what else we need. We might need a bit more practice before our final presentation, but I think we are definitely prepared for the in-class practice.

This week the main objective was editing all of our raw footage and compiling it onto the website. Because we had so much material, we split the amount of work between each member. Each person was responsible for their own biographical information. This included a personal photo (or headshot), a written bio  about that person, and a short video combining his/her preparation for the competition and the pre-competition interviews. As I didn’t have any preparation, my interview is interspersed with me watching Netflix, eating frosting, and taking a nap on the couch, very intense work. In addition to this, I was working on editing the “judging” video. Following the competition, we each judged each other’s cakes on both appearance and taste. Then we each picked a winner. I edited this footage together to be put on the results page of the website. Because it isn’t a very serious topic, I tried to reflect that in my footage keeping in some of the more humorous comments on the cakes’ appearances and taste. We attempted to work on the website together earlier this week, but realized only one person can edit the page at a time. Instead, we just compiled everything that would go on the page into folders on Box and are taking turns putting it together.

This week we entered the second stage of our project. Now that the filming is completely finished, we are putting together out final website. Although we had it all mapped out before, it is still a bit more complicated than anticipated. I think we have an extensive amount of footage, overall, and some of it might not be necessary to use. So, we are having to go through the shot footage and determine what is beneficial to the project and what might ultimately be scrapped. To do this, we’ve gone through each page we’re going to have in the website and decide exactly what is going to be on it. As not all of us have worked with Wix, before, though, some of this is guesswork at this point. Meaning, we know we are going to put a poll in our website to determine the best cake, and this is an accessible feature on Wix, but we do not know the specifics of what the polling will look like. Fortunately, these details are minor and will not heavily affect the overall outcome of the website. It seems as if we have a lot left that we still have to do, but, realistically, once the tasks have been divided it seems much more approachable. The next step is editing all the footage and making it ready for the website.

This week was our busiest this semester in terms of our project. After doing all our planning and preparing we finally had our decorating competition on Tuesday. Before the competition, we met to do pre-interviews and discuss both what we’d done to prepare, again, and how we thought that would give us an advantage/disadvantage in the final competition. It will be interesting to see the pre-interviews now that the competition is through.

The following day, we had the actual competition. Even though we had prepared for quite some time, there was still some difficulty in execution. Part of the problem was spatial issues, in that ideally we would have used multiple JVC cameras for recording the competition but that wasn’t available, Instead, we used a JVC camera, a couple DSLRs and a iPad to create a myriad of footage. The actual competition was very entertaining. We gave ourselves 30 minutes, which turned into about 40 min, to create cakes within the theme of Spring. Some people brought props and others didn’t even bring their own cakes- as someone else had baked it for him. Despite how we each anticipated ourselves doing, though, I would say the competition went as we were expecting. Those who had been taught by other people had the nicest cakes, while those with less preparation “failed it.” I will say, though, I did zero preparation and made a cake that was clearly a bunny, possibly a deformed bunny, but still impressive. I would say it was all a success.

This past week we do not do a lot of work towards our project, or any realistically. It was Spring Break and was a well deserved week of not doing any work. Although, I will say I was still stressed about the work I was not doing, but I think stressed is just part of my personality now. We discussed as a group when to schedule our final competition. We had originally planned on doing it this week but that ended up not working out with scheduling. Instead, we will, hopefully, be doing it next week, at the latest. I am excited for the competition but have become a bit worried by the time crunch. Once we get all of our video together, it will be interesting to pull together our website, too.

I read the comments from our Preliminary Content Submission and had not considered the difficulties of implementing a voting system on the website.  Some of our ideas for the website may not be doable in the time and skills we have so we might need to revise some of the more far fetched goals. I am looking forward to pulling it all together.

This week continued the presentations of the interactive analysis projects in class. This meant that again we did not meet during class time. We also didn’t feel the need to meet outside of class time as al of our preliminary work has been accomplished. Although, spring break has made the rest of the semester seem much shorter. Therefore, we have plans to do the competition itself the week after the break. During the break we will need to find a proper setting for the competition, but make in fact make the cakes separately and do the competition in a study room or something similar. As well, we need to finalize our plans on the types of footage we want from the competition and if we will have multiple cameras, someone who isn’t competing, etc. It will be interesting to see how our preparation, or lack thereof, plays out in the actual competition. I don’t have high hopes fo myself, but, honestly, I don’t think anyone else does either.

This week was a slower week for our project. We finished the final details on the preliminary content submission before turning it in. I had done all of the drawing of the ideas for the website and each of its pages last week, so this week just required putting it into the word document. 

In class, we continued with our interactive analysis presentations and did not meet as a group, in class or out. Our focus is now on the following steps on our project. Personally, I have to reshoot some of my preparations for the competition, or lack of preparations, because they were shot the wrong way on my phone. As a group, our next step is to figure out a time to practice the competition. This would be mostly to find the location where we will be doing this and map the angles we want. After that, the next step would be to have the actual competition and create each of our cakes. We will need to do this soon so we can begin our editing of the footage and the website itself. 

The focus on this week was creating and editing our preliminary content submission. This is a detailed report, essentially, of where we are in our project thus far in the semester. Our submission contained a multitude of elements within it. It contains a project overview, explaining the intricacies of the project we chose. Again, this was a completing a cake decorating competition based on differing levels of experience and preparation. These preparations included being taught by someone who frequently bakes, watching YouTube tutorials and a lack of preparation. Following the overview, each member detailed their owns specific preparation. My preparation was nonexistent, short of watching the Netflix show “Nailed It” and eating frosting, obviously, a very taxing and difficult preparation. We then detailed our nine planned steps of the project and where we are within our own plan. We have accomplished four of our nine steps, thus far, and are preparing for the next step. We included the rules for the competition that we decided together, as well as the tools each competitor will be able to use and/or practiced with. Below that is our website overview. This includes pictures that can be a bit difficult to read, as they are photos from a very reflective background. Underneath each photo is a description of the plan for the page and further explanation of what it will entail. The final page contains of the preliminary content provides a link to a box folder which includes each of our individual video for our individual research/ preparation for the competition.

This week was similar to last week in that it revolved around individual work instead on team work. This week we again did not meet as a group during class time. Of course, there was a snow day, so we didn’t have class at all. However, if there had been class, we wouldn’t have met either as we are still working on our interactive analysis presentations. Individually, we are still working on recording our own learning experiences for decorating a cake. I think most of us have the entirety of our video for this piece of the project, or at least most of it. We are creating a shared box folder where we can all share our individual material and keep it all in the same place. That way, editing the material will also be easier, as it will all be in one spot accessible to all of us. The next step of our project will be to meet in the room where we plan on doing the competition and have a practice session. For this, we will have a “practice cake decorating session” for which we will be using paper and crayons. The point of the practice session is not to have a premier round of the competition but instead to see the camera angles that will be beneficial for the actual competition. Essentially, it is to figure out the logistics of the competition. We should hopefully be executing this in the coming week.