Reflection Blog Post

My favorite project throughout the course of this semester was either the graphic design project, or the video story project. I enjoyed the graphic design project a good amount, but that was mainly because I have had some past experience with using Photoshop, except I never had a place to post anything. My favorite project was easily the video story project, because I have had a lot of past experience editing videos, except I had never used Adobe Premiere. This allowed me to learn a new program for video editing, and I plan on using this one from now on.

Some of the skills I learned in this course is extremely beneficial to me because of my major being DTC. I want to go into some sort of media field, so using a lot of the Adobe suite introduced me to a more professional range of programs.

Building off of that, DTC stands for Design Technology and Culture, so this class contained a lot of material and work that was right up my alley. More specifically, I want to do something either heavily graphic design related or video editing related, so it makes sense why I liked the graphic design and video story project the most.

I was satisfied with the skills I learned this semester. I want to take a class more specifically aimed towards graphic design or video editing, but I liked all the materials this course covered.

Besides a handful of websites I used to find some free-to-use music for my video and audio project, I mainly stuck to my own designs for my projects.

Overall, I really enjoyed this course as a whole. It covered a lot of material that I not only enjoyed, but also contributes towards my major. The unit topics were interesting, and the programs I was introduced to, gave me a great learning experience. I would recommend this course to anyone looking into the DTC major.

Final Video Story

 

Idea and Inspiration

When it came time to create my video story for my unit topic, I was very excited. When I initially picked the topic of off-road cars for my overall unit topic, the assignment I instantly thought of was the video project, because I knew this one would work the best for my topic. I knew I wanted to make a video about how his car works both on and off the road, that way I could give my audience a good idea about what it’s like to have an off-road car as your daily driver.

Design Process

Designing my project was interesting. First off, I had to plan around my friends schedule since it was about his car, and on top of that his car had to go in to the mechanics twice in the past month to get upgrades done to it that he wanted. This made it somewhat challenging to shoot shots for my assignment, so it wasn’t until just this week that I was able to shoot all the footage that I actually wanted in my final story. I knew I needed a few shots of him driving on the road and off the road, but I also threw in a few others to establish character in my story. After I got all my shots, I needed something to go in the background of my video, so I wrote up a script following the course of the story to narrate what was happening in every clip. In order to fill the dead space between the pauses in my narration, I also searched out some Free-To-Use music to add to my project.

Technical Detail

After I had gathered all my materials for my video, I brought them into Adobe Premiere and went to work. I started by laying out all my footage, and making sure I ended up somewhere between the 1-2 minute criteria. After that was set, I went to work writing a script to match what was happening in the video, and I recorded that and added it to my project. To finish my materials, I added my song to the background, and went about adjusting all the levels on my audio to make sure nothing overpowered anything. I added a title sequence at the beginning of my project to establish what my project is about, and then added a bunch of transitions between the clips to make it flow smoothly. Overall, there was a lot of little details that went into my project to make it turn out the way it did, and I’m very satisfied with it.

Feedback

Since I was unable to get the clips I wanted last week, I was unable to post a draft. As a result of this, I didn’t have any changes to make from a draft, but I’m really happy with my final product.

Sources and Materials

• http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/Onesuch_Village/Sunday_Lights

Video Project Draft

Raw Footage & Storyboard

 

Sample Storyboard: Power of the Tahoe (Informational or Narrative, not decided yet)

Visual Elements	Audio Elements
0:00-0:20  Initial startup of engine, walk-around as it idles	Engine startup sound effects, possibly start interview here (Information on engine)
0:20-1:00  Examples of what the Tahoe has done/can do on road: burnouts, drifts, etc.	More interview audio here (How the Tahoe started and how my friend has made it better) , audio from video provides sound effects of engine/ambient noise
1:00-2:00  Examples of what the Tahoe has done/can do off road: driving through mud, climbing steep hills, etc. (Main Segment)	Also more interview here (What specifically my friend has done to make the Tahoe better for driving off-road) , mainly ambient noise/engine noise, music as well

 

Premiere Tutorials

I went to complete the second half of the tutorials, but the video files provided in the .zip download did not want to import into Adobe Premiere properly. I was only able to get one of the .mp4 files to actually appear as a video file in Premiere, the rest were simply .mp3 files. Therefore, I was unable to even start editing the second part of the tutorials.

Audio Story Project Final

For my Audio Story I decided to stick close to the Off-Roading theme of my topic, so I interviewed my close friend who owns a car, which I’ve featured in my projects in the past. Besides the interview, I also included clips of both his car starting and revving, and him driving away, which I used as a way to add depth to my story.

To start, I knew I wanted to conduct some sort of interview about cars for my audio story, because it fit well with my unit topic. In my interview with my friend, I asked him a few simple questions about his car such as how many miles he had put on it since owning it, and his favorite trip he had taken in it. To add more depth to my story, I decided to go out to record some audio clips of his car to be featured in the interview. Besides the sounds of his car, I knew I wanted music to fill the empty space in the interview, so I went online and found a free-to-use song to put in the background. After collecting all my source materials, I brought them into Adobe Audition to combine everything.

The sound of the car starting and revving is the first thing heard in my story, then followed by the quiet background music, and then into the start of my interview. All of these have fades in and out of the beginning of each, in order to create a smooth flowing experience. The background music has been lowered significantly from its original level, that way the sound of the music doesn’t overpower the sound of the interview. At the end of my story, the interview ends, and the sound of my friends car is heard as the music and the car noise fades away.

My original draft of my audio story was similar to the final, but the final flows significantly smoother than my draft. Prior to editing it for the final, my interview was filled with a few spots where I stuttered, so I spliced them out and adjusted the audio accordingly. I also lowered the levels of my background music a bit more, and raised parts of the audio in the interview where my voice was quieter.

Overall I’m very satisfied with my audio project. I was initially unsure about what I was planning on doing for an audio project on cars, but thankfully my friend knows plenty for an interview on that subject.

Link to song used in background: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=usuan1100570

Draft Audio Story

For my Audio Project I decided to stick with the off-roading theme of my unit topic, so I interviewed my close friend who owns a car which had been featured in my projects previously. Besides the interview, I also included an audio clip of his car, and music in the background to add space to the interview.

To begin my project I knew I wanted to interview my friends and ask him some basic questions about his car. Nothing too crazy, but a few simple ones such as how many miles he had put on his car since owning it, and his favorite trip he had taken in it. Besides the interview with my friend, the only other thing I could think of to add to this project was the sound of his exhaust when his engine is running. In order to get this audio, he loaned me his keys, I went out and set my phone on a curb next to his tailpipe, and collected my audio as needed. The sound of his car at the beginning of the interview adds to the overall experience by giving the listener a better idea of what he is talking about in his interview. To finish my draft I added a free-to-use song I downloaded off the interview, and put that in the background.

In order to put this all together in Audition, I started with the intro of his car turning on and revving. Nothing had to be adjusted here besides shortening the clip down a little. From there I added the actual interview itself, and nothing had to be changed on that. When adding my music, I initially had the audio levels too high in my first version, to the point where the interview was hard to hear at times. My final product involved placing the revving of the car at the beginning, and then cross-fading the idling of the engine into the start of the interview. During this transition on a separate track, the background audio begins and gradually fades into a quiet background track that is not distracting, but adds to the experience.

Overall my experience with Adobe Audition was pleasant, and I did not run into any major snags when it came to understanding the tools of the program. I felt like my interview with my friend provided a good amount of information on his car, and combining it with the sound of his car was a good way to create a deeper experience with this interview.

Link to song used in background: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=usuan1100570

 

 

Audition Raw Audio

Using these two audio clips I recorded of both an interview with my friend about his car, and an audio clip of his car starting, I will create my project.

Audition Tutorials

Counting Tutorial Original:

Direct URL: “https://soundcloud.com/bobsteriffic/counting-tutorial-original”

Counting Tutorial Combined:

Direct URL: “https://soundcloud.com/bobsteriffic/counting-tutorial-combined”

Interview Tutorial:

Direct URL: “https://soundcloud.com/bobsteriffic/interview-tutorial”

Logo Project: Final

This, is my completed logo that I designed for Unit 2.

Considering my course subject I chose was off-roading, I wanted to design a logo that would really emphasize on that. To begin, I knew I wanted my car to be part of my logo, so I used that as my background for my text. For the text I knew I wanted something rugged so it would keep with the style, and I came up with the idea for making a tire and using that for the ‘O’ in off-road. But most of all, I wanted to keep my logo very minimalistic, and I feel like I have done that well.

Bringing my logo to life in Illustrator was difficult. The first issue I had was using my car as the background, since everything in Illustrator is based on vectors rather than images. This required me to pull the image I had saved from Photoshop during the Photoshop assignment, and bring it into Illustrator. Once my cutout of my car was in Illustrator, using the trace image tool I was able to transform that cutout into a vector, and then from there I put a black color overlay over the entire image. To create my text, I began with the task of creating a tire. After a few Google searches I came across a nice tutorial on how to create a tire vector in Illustrator, and I used that to create my tire. I did not however follow this tutorial step-by-step, because if I would have then my tire would have had a 3-D effect to it that I didn’t want because I wanted to keep my logo very minimalistic. Therefore, I followed the tutorial on how to make the tread of the tire, but the rest of it was mostly me experimenting in Illustrator. The rest of the text was easier, but a lot of thought went into it as well. I wanted the text that said “Off Road” to have a very rugged feel to it, but I wanted the text that said “Nation” to be a bit cleaner. I ended up using the font “Quick Toy” for the off-road text, and the font “Fly n Walk” for the rest of it.

Reading the feedback I received from my peers, I  was able to determine it needed color, and something else needed to be added besides the car. I came up with the idea of adding a circle around everything to bring it all together. I did this using the ellipse tool, and I just added a black stroke to the circle. I chose the red/maroon color because it is the color of my car, and it contrasts well with the black.

Link to the tutorial I used for the tire: https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-make-a-detailed-3d-vector-tire-in-illustrator–vector-2144

Link to the fonts I used:

Quick Toy: http://www.dafont.com/quick-toy.font

Fly n Walk: http://www.dafont.com/fly-n-walk.font