Anne with an "e"

This class has had a major focus on video production. We have learned how to storyboard, how to set up a shot, how to evaluate lighting, how to mic for sound, and how to edit. We have been really fortunate to have access to multiple types of video equipment from our phones to lighting kits to Lav mics to a fancy 4k video camera.   I had worked on video projects before this class, so I understood the basics of how to set up a shot and light it and stuff, but that was all supervised. For this class, my professor ran us through how to use the equipment and then sent us off on our own. I am not going to lie; it was a little nerve-racking. This camera is so nice and expensive it was like being allowed to test drive a Ferrari without a customer service representative.   It was quite amazing being able to run out with the camera set up the tripod and shoot things like the college’s front fountain and the Raleigh skyline. There were a few not so good shots and it was HOT out, but over...

It is amazing to me how sound works. It can travel through the air around us so fast and we can hear it almost instantly. Alexander Graham Bell found a way to harness that and created the telephone. Around that same time, James Edward Maceo West took that same technology to create the microphone.   One of my favorite movies is Singin’ in the Rain . It is about a film studio transitioning from silent films to films with sound. The microphones that the company uses are the size of my face. It was hilarious watching them trying to disguise her microphone with a flower on her dress because she couldn’t manage to speak loud enough to for the microphone hidden in a plant next to her.   Now microphones are smaller than my thumb and have no cords. They are now more powerful than the microphones of yesteryears. There is also new technology to dampen natural sound or only pick up specific sounds. Editing software can now isolate specific parts of an audio file to get a background noise ...

Since the 1950s video has grown to be not only a source of entertainment but also a way for people to share their lives. I remember having the bookshelves of VHS tapes and having to be careful when handling them so we didn’t mess up the film strips and the fateful day we accidentally pulled the film out and couldn’t get it to work right ever again. Then we moved to DVDs that had everything stored on a disk that you had to be careful to not get too scratched and now everything is digital! As long as you have Wi-Fi you can watch videos until your heart’s content.   With the rise of YouTube, sharing video has become easier than ever. You can watch a YouTube video on how to make a YouTube video. People have moved from writing blogs to filming “vlogs” (video blogs). Video is a way for people to share more than just words. Video you see color, mannerisms, and hear the tone of the person’s voice. Video actually shows people what the world is like outside of their bubble. How do you like t...

Photography is something that was once a thing that only a few could afford to do, is now more accessible than ever.  Smartphone cameras have come so far to the point now where I take more pictures on my iPhone than I do on my DSLR. I love my DSLR and it still goes places with me, but I always have my phone in my pocket. Let’s be honest an iPhone is way easier to carry around than a DSLR. Now with Portrait mode, my photos look like I have spent hours planning and editing a photo when in reality it took me a few seconds to set up the shot and just had to take the picture.   Portrait mode is meant to show up-close shots with shallow depths. It creates the effect of a soft blurred effect around the subject that is in focus.  The fact that I can do this on my phone blows my mind. The other photo mode that blows my mind is night mode. I upgraded to the iPhone 11 from an iPhone 6 and I was so excited for night and portrait modes. Night mode combines a low shutter speed with the...

It’s about to get graphic………. Get your mind out of the gutter, we are talking about computer graphics. Graphics add a different element to web-based content. They can be used to break up a bunch of text or illustrate a point that is being made in a presentation.   Graphics have come so far, even in the last ten to fifteen years. I went back and was watching an old show that came off so pixeled. I think it was still filmed on film verse current shows that are now filmed on digital.  If you want to go back even further to the 1950s when some of the greatest movie musicals were created. These movies have this fuzziness to them that is charming, but very dated. At that time the fact that they could do such amazing graphics was HUGE! Now that would be considered a bad shot and would probably be reshot.   One of my favorite graphics is GIF. GIFs are 3-second animated graphics. They can be clips from movies or tv shows, animated words, emojis that are wiggling or crying.  T...

Font! You cannot have digital media without it. What font we use can say a lot about us or what we are trying to say. Some fonts come off as serious and professional (shout out to you Times New Roman). Other fonts might make more sense on a princess tea party invitation (classic Curlz MT) and then there are the ones that look more like hieroglyphics than actual letters.   There is a lot that goes into creating a font. You have the amount of contrast; a low contrast font is typically thicker than high contrast.  There is a serif and sans serif. A serif is the little “feet” that pop up on the ends of letters. A font with serifs is Times New Romans. Sans serifs mean that there are no little “feet”. This blog is using a sans serif font.   Fonts are no longer just black and white. They can be enlarged, filled, and just generally changed with a double click of the mouse. Last semester I took a graphic design class and that focused on the adobe suite. One of my favorite things I...