Quarantine work time! For my second project on the semester, I filmed the screening of Never Again: Forging a Convention For Crimes Against Humanity. This film was created by Dr. Leila Sadat, a Washington University professor and academic who has been working to forge a UN-backed treaty on the subject of crimes against humanity. I edited the Q&A so that you could see the questions before she answered them. 

I filmed this project way back on March 3rd, before coronavirus had become the issue it is today. Now that we are all confined to our homes, I have had much more time to edit and plan out the video. I think it turned out well. I tried to structure it somewhat like a news package. One mistake I made that wasn't so great was not white-balancing the footage. It didn't come out in the best colors. I think this was a better learning experience on how to film with an iPhone, which I only do infrequently. 

However, I like the final product. Dr. Sadat did not have a ton of time for an interview, so I thought this would be the best method of storytelling. This was obviously meant to be much more informative about the treaty and Dr. Sadat's mission than "entertaining." In fact, the subject at hand is very serious and the more people that talk about it, the more we can come together to construct an international consensus on these laws. To view Dr. Sadat's film, go to this link: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr6pPDvJpUY

I've just finished editing my first project this semester in Broadcast Tech II, a 90-second piece focused on Unicef and Club Neuro, two localized organizations at our school. I would say the process went pretty well. It was hard for me to scrape by with the interviews that I needed, and it was even harder to film. I got all of my footage the day of the dance. We set up in the afternoon and I had to split my time equally in just under two hours setting it up myself and also filming. As a result, a lot of my footage was too short which led me to have to make some hard decisions while editing. I got the interviews last by the time it was dark outside, and got a good amount of soundbites that worked. I needed to tailor my questions a bit more to the charitable aspect of the dance– it was the focus of my story, after all. I learned how to use a nice DSLR, the Canon 80D, which was cool. I re-familiarized myself with the tripod, microphone, and camera equipment. It was great to make a return. I think the final product was decent but it kind of reflected my shabby, out-of-work characteristics as a journalist as well. I forgot to counterpose the two interviews and as a result it looks like they were in the same place, which isn't too good. But I think the final product to a fair extent reflects the goal of the dance and the attitudes of the two leading figures, Giuseppe and Shelei. 

The image pictured is another cabinet member of Unicef, Sam Liu, dropping our leftover snowflakes on Giuseppe. Giuseppe was so committed to the dance and this little scene felt like a relief when we were cleaning up. I wanted to include it but the way I filmed it, length etc., made it harder to figure into the video. 

I have returned to this website!

I am enrolled my final semester of high school in Broadcast Technology II, coming back from a three year break. In the 'projects' section of my site, I have posted the videos I have worked on since parting from this class. They are embedded through YouTube– if you go to the links themselves, feel free to subscribe to my channel! 

I'm very excited to get back to working on new projects. 

Broadcast Technology has been quite the journey. My partner Hans and I have worked together on many projects over the year. We've both found our individual talents in the class and in video-journalism in general. It's been a blast working with some of cameras and wireless microphones. This is experience I never would've gotten from another class (besides BT2). 

The creative freedom felt a bit limited at first with the certain projects at hand, but over time the class eased into some of the harder technically-but way more free projects regarding the subjects and eventually the news package. I'm very pleased with Hans and I's news package with the Ladue Percussion teacher.

Overall, this class has been a lot of fun and given me some valuable experience pertaining to the journalist world, and I'm excited to go into the future with the acquired knowledge and skill from Broadcast Technology.

In our final project in Broadcast Technology I, my partner Hans and I worked on a fantastic news package. We shot around an hour of b-roll but got around 4-5 hours more from our great teacher Mrs. Davidson. This project was a great lesson in editing, interviewing, and time management.

Hans and I had to allocate several of our days towards getting time to interview several students. It was a lesson in interviewing as we had to use time wisely and also convince the teachers to let us borrow their students. All in all, we interviewed four people for about 4-15 minutes each. 

The news package was very fun to edit, I have always been a fan of editing projects. This time, we seriously had some great footage and things to do with what we made. Our project is centered around the percussion ensemble and we are very excited to present our work to the Broadcast Technology class. 

The first video I chose was the Veteran EHAS. The story was very honorable as it showed a man who paid his service to the country because it was his duty. In the video, there is a lot of Hey, You, See, So. When Hartman is discussing the veteran's rowdy son, he puts emphasis on when he says the words while showing clips of the son doing funny things. There is emotion added to the story when Hartman picks certain shots of the veteran walking alone and the flag waving in the air. The story is influenced by the emotion and it's part of what makes it so interesting. 

The second video I chose was the Adoption EHAS. Although it begun drowsily with the interviewee not expecting to be very entertaining, the work of Hartman and his crew made the story extremely touching. Soon we learned about the foster boys that were adopted by the family in Pennsylvania. There was a lot of use of sound in this story that effected the overall emotion. For example, when one of the boys wishes he were adopted, there is a complete halt to the other sound. There is also an abundance of sound in certain shots. In the end, Hartman finds a great connection between adoption and the mother's faith with ends the story in a heartfelt tone.

Finally my partner Hans and I were able to finalize the interview. He helped me while I interviewed my friend Evan about his music producing. Evan was excited to do the interview as it allowed him a lot of publicity. Overall, we did some things right and some wrong with the interview. First off, we framed the shot too low and you can see a part of the microphone. This also allowed for too much room in the shot. Another issue was the spinny chair. The subject got a little restless. Overall, however, the interview worked quite well and we got the sound bites we needed. 

Lately in Broadcast Technology we have been practicing the intricate process of interviewing. This project has essentially been bringing out the big guns of journalism. We have gotten loads of practice with the wireless microphones now, and this project has also been built around many core ideas about filming. Thus far, we've gained a lot of practice and I'm excited to roll out a final product soon. 

The six-word-story was extremely hard to do because from a creative standpoint it required a large effort. Not only did you need to come up with a justified six word story but you had to present it convincingly. Some of my friends made some really cool six word stories and played around with a lot of interesting stories. The SWS was a challenging but rewarding project and overall expanded my Broadcast Technology skills. 

Ernest Hemingway was a famed short story writer. I learned from my research that while with some friends in a bar he wagered that whoever could write the best short story would get $10 from each friend. So, Ernest wrote the famed "For sale, baby shoes never worn" and collected on the money from his friends. This is a very famous short story because it inspired a writing style called flash fiction. I also found out that Ernest served in both World Wars, and died in 1961 to suicide. 

" ." Open Culture. Open Culture, 24 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Feb. 2017.
​http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/the-urban-legend-of-ernest-hemingways-six-word-story.html