Week Thirteen

On Monday, I spent two hours going over the essay requirements and drafting a few ideas for each,

On Tuesday, I spent another two hours writing the essays. I'm a wee bit nervous about it as they're supposed to be geared towards fellow students but have to be graded by a "real adult."

On Wednesday, I spent two more hours working on my resume and I think it's in OK shape. I started over again; I don't know why this is taking me so long, I think it's mostly being wiped from finals but also the whole you-will-never-get-a-job-ever-if-your-resume-isn't-great hype. But it's fine. I also spent a half hour phoning back and forth with Plant Ops and emailing them, also. I also spent 6 hours working on editing the first chunk all of my interview footage. I really enjoy editing so I don't usually find it tedious. I learned a few more FinalCut tricks and tools in my Video Production, so I got lost in time playing around with those. Before bed, I also looked through some of the old photos I had taken around campus that I'd never gotten the chance to Photoshop. I only worked on a few of those and picked out the rest of which I thought might be useful to the PR office in the future. I spent an hour and a half touching up and sorting through the pictures.

On Thursday, I spent another hour between meeting and communicating with Bill and emailing and phoning Dr. Sullivan and the Plant Ops team. I also spent an hour and a half going through my blog so polish the entries and make the language slightly more formal. I also re-checked my maths to make sure that I was correct about the number of hours I had done. During the late morning and early afternoon I spent another 5 hours working on the interviews. The rendering process is still taking an inordinately long amount of time, but I am still enjoying the process. I think I am getting better with sound-editing, using my knowledge of L-cuts from Video Production to try and produce slightly more acoustically-polished videos. I also spent a total of 8 hours in the evening into the early morning working on the rest of the videos. For the most part, rendering aside, it went really well as I enjoy editing, even if it's a marathon-session to get to the proper hour-mark. However, FinalCut kept spazzing out on me and reporting a "General Error" and shutting down whenever I tried to work on Shanice's video in the Mailroom. I had to switch computers a few times and restart one of them in an effort to make it work. I ended up giving up on her interview and moving on but the same thing happened with Kwame's interview and I can't really figure out why. I've tried different computers, re-capturing the footage, and using an older version of the FinalCut programme but to no avail. I'm disappointed as both Shanice and Kwame had eloquent and funny interviews that captured the jokiness of the Mailroom staff that were so welcoming to me when I came in for the interviews.

In the wee hours of Friday morning, I spent two hours writing the rest of my essays and revising those that I had written earlier. I am finding it somewhat difficult to sum up all that I have learned within a semester and to verbalise those aspects that have impacted my learning the most. I am finding it slightly bittersweet to write the essays as I have definitely enjoyed my time as an intern, but I wish that I had had more time during the semester to devote to the experience.

Throughout the rest of the day on Friday, I spent an hour between getting DVDs to organise my portfolio and wrapping up my email communication for the semester as well as my blog-entries. I also spent an hour and a half revising my essays and the blog post. I am still debating the proper style in which I should be writing as it is a graded piece, but nonetheless one meant to be received by future students. I spent two hours organising my portfolio and drafting my introduction essay to it.

Total hours this week: 36.5

Total hours thus far: 151

Week Twelve

On Monday, I spent two hours working on my resume. I am setting up an appointment with a friend in the Career Centre to go over my rough template for the resume. I also spent a half hour emailing back and forth with Emmeline and some employees in the Mailroom as they are the first people to get back to me about interviewing them. I am set to meet with them on Thursday.

On Tuesday, I spent another hour and a half trying to put together a new list of people more likely to be free and responsive to my interviewing them. After the weekend, it's been hard approaching people about it.

On Wednesday, I spent an hour between communicating with and meeting Bill in his office. I also spent another hour emailing those people on my list individually and reaching out to friends.

On Thursday, I spent two hours interviewing the Mail Room team and then sending thank you emails to those involved. I got a lot of footage and Emmeline was really helpful.

On Friday, I spent an hour in communication with Plant Ops via email, with Bill and with some other friends. I also spent that time looking over the requirements for the internship. I also spent an hour going over my resume and the samples Bill sent me. I've started from scratch from the humble beginnings I had as I think I was on the wrong track.

Over the weekend, I spent two hours starting to edit and organise my footage.

Total hours this week: 11

Total hours thus far: 114.5

Week Eleven

On Sunday, I spent a half hour continually replying to people via email and text message to schedule interviews. So far, I have 12 people who have agreed to help out, 5 of whom have set up times with me. I'm still negotiating scheduling the other 7, and I anticipate that I will hear back from several more people as they get back to campus. I am planning on meeting with some of the Seegers Union custodians that I know tomorrow to ask them if they're comfortable being filmed. I will also be asking a couple of the ladies who work in the GQ and a couple members of the Plant Ops crew, also. I also spent an hour and a half trying to upload videos to this blog. First off, I started by uploading them to my Youtube account, as you suggested, so that I could go on to embed them. The device kept on "removing" itself during the uploading process which grew a little frustrating as I was nowhere near the cords. Eventually, one of the videos uploaded but only the sound could be heard as the video itself appeared as a blur. I will try again and see if re-formatting the videos as different file types will help the upload. I checked that the file sizes and lengths were not too large, and they weren't, so I'm not too sure what the matter could be, so I will try all angles and see if I can sort it.

Also, that evening, I spent another half hour between emailing interviewees and adding some pictures on the Facebook page which I had forgotten that I had access to play around with it. I also spent an hour and a half between interviews of Rianna Sommers on Prosser, Danielle Luszczyk on Prosser also, and Jacob Abrams on East Hall. It was slightly more difficult getting website-appropriate nice things to say about some of the dorms than I anticipated but I think more of the footage is useful. I'm also still working on ways to make people more comfortable in front of a camera as they (understandably) get camera shy.

On Monday, I spent about 20 minutes interviewing John Pasquerello on Dining on Campus. He was a very easy speaker but wanted to know more about the project and what I wanted of him before we actually started filming which was nice as he seemed eager to help out. I also spent about a half hour in the morning scheduling more interviews with people and fine-tuning my list of people to ask.

I also spent 15 minutes interviewing Seth Markin, 20 minutes interviewing Caitlin Harper, 20 minutes interviewing Kadeem Alston-Roman, 15 minutes interviewing Andrew Porter, 20 minutes interviewing Ariel Messeca, 15 minutes interviewing Christine Lake, 30 minutes interviewing Tori Ahrens and 20 minutes interviewing Rachel Jakubowitz.

On Tuesday, I spent about a half hour between tallying up hours from yesterday, updating my blog and continuing to schedule interview times with those that have gotten back to me. I would estimate that I have heard back from just under half of the people I have contacted but I will check more thoroughly later today.

I spent a half hour filming Liz Fonseca who got super giggly but was also really interested in the project. I also spent a half hour waiting for an interviewee who had forgotten and didn't show.

On Wednesday, I spent an hour and a half emailing people that I had already emailed to schedule times and I emailed a few more people who had said they were interested in helping out.

On Thursday, I spent about fifteen minutes emailing people to schedule and another half hour writing down an alternate list for the same groups as some people haven't responded to me. I spent a half hour emailing Caleb Jardel and one of his brothers and another half hour emailing Greg Wurzel. In interviewing both male and female Greeks on campus I think I am going to have them say the name of their organisation just because the boys keep doing so, so I want to have some degree of uniformity to at least the into portion of each video. I spent fifteen minutes interviewing Tom Garlick about his housing and a half hour interviewing Frank Cabrera on both of his majors. I am about to work on sending the other half of my long list from last week to get started on those interviews over the weekend and early next week.

I also plan on working on my resume throughout the weekend and the essay I need to do for the internship also. I have some more pictures to work on and all of my editing which will make up a solid chunk of editing. I had the idea to take a picture or two of each the locations that I am interviewing people about to accompany the videos in whatever format they are used, let me know if you think this is a good idea!

On Friday, I spent an hour and a half reaching out to other groups and organisations on campus who may (hopefully) be interested in allowing me to interview them. Some of these groups are the Residential Services Pro-staff, more people in Dining, Plant Ops, the Mailroom, other Greeks and I'm starting to work through people from different disciplines.

I also spent two hours trying to upload a video to the blog. The main room with the version of FinalCut that I've been using was in use so I tried to export it from an older version of the programme but it wouldn't even open it. I tried this a couple of times with two older versions of the programme and then I tried re-uploading the original .mov file to Youtube so that I could go on to embed it. The video at first would not process well, but the second time through it did show the preview images, however it wouldn't show anything and the visuals were the same as last time. I also spent another hour between meeting with Bill and updating my blog, and another half hour trying to schedule more interviews.

Total hours this week: 17

Total hours so far: 103.5

Week Ten

On Monday, I spent 45 minutes on my interview with Robin Riley-Casey, Head of the Multicultural Centre. It was interesting hearing her perspective as compared to students' and to other faculty who experience a different perspective on campus. She was a very eloquent speaker, and a good friend, so it will be difficult deciding how much of what she said to keep because of my own length restrictions. I also spent and hour and a half filming Dr. Kussumaul's FYS with Bill. I spent about a half hour emailing other people to interview and checking in with Bill after filming.

On Tuesday, I spent an hour between interviewing Gabe and Jason for their blogs. I also spent 45 minutes trying to upload the footage to Europa (unsuccessfully) and fixing the sound on Edward's interview. Inexplicably, every other time I tried playing back the interview, the sound would appear two or three frames after the video and then the video would fade in and out. It wasn't a problem with the camera or with the editing, so I ended up re-exporting it and saving an extra copy on the flash drive so that hopefully this time it will work.

(I am set to interview two people later on Seegers Union and then three other people over break about Multicultural Life)

Over break, a lot of my prospective interviews fell through because of camera shyness and I'm not so sure the people I contacted about the Multicultural Centre interviews are going to come through for me so I'm trying a different approach: I am going to appeal to people I know directly as friends and have them speak to some facet of campus life. I feel like if I know these people they are less likely to simply not reply to my emails. I am hesitant because I know that my pool will have more similar opinions on things than if it were a more random selection, but I feel confident in my friend circle to know that there are enough different types of people that the interviews will still be varied enough. Making this decision made me harken back to the sample-selection styles I am learning about in Media Theory and Methods and which have a higher versus lower chance of error. I know that I am opting for a slightly less valid choice, but I am trusting in the reliability of the individuals on my list. I have spent an hour and a half working through a list of approximately 70 people that I will now contact. Ideally, good portion of these contacts will get back to me, but I think it would be overly optimistic to hope that everyone will... although I'm trying for it! The areas I am focusing on are Greek Life, Dining Services, Seegers Union and a couple of people that I know who have lived in each of the main residence halls. I crafted each email with specific questions all of which have similar individualised themes.

I spent a little over an hour and a half emailing people with tailored emails and I also spent a little under a half hour updating the blog and emailing Bill.

On Saturday, I spent 45 minutes filming two interviews with Jake Ramsay, firstly on his time working for Plant Ops and then on his views on the Life Sports Centre. He was very different to work with, in part because he is a good friend, but also in the style in which he wanted to film. He wanted to spend about twenty minutes prepping each so that he could the interview in one-take. This helped him not feel camera-shy and also make his thoughts clearer. His pieces were a dream to edit. I might suggest this approach to future interviewees instead of letting them feel it out as we go along, but I will, of course, bear in mind that everyone works differently. I spent about 3 hours editing the 6 videos I had yet to work on. There were no major difficulties other than one of the computers kept shutting down Final Cut for one clip of Zaraya's interview. I have no idea why, so I will add to the ever-growing list of "Things to ask Tony." I also spent 15 minutes updating my blog and responding to the 5 people who have already gotten back to me about interviews. So far, I have three tentatively set for this Monday.

Total Hours this week: 11.5

Total Hours: 86.5

Week Nine

On Monday, I spent about an hour between emailing prospective interviewees (I wanted to reach out to them individually), Robin Riley-Casey and Genny and Edward to thank them for their interviews. I also spent another hour on Genny's video.

On Tuesday, I spent about 15 minutes emailing prospective interviewees and Bill.

On Thursday, I spent 45 minutes interviewing Zaraya about the Multicultural Centre.

I also spent an hour and a half working on the pictures I attached to this post on Photoshop. I am getting more familiar with the programme but I feel like I just don't have a good eye for colours. I can never decide what looks the best aka the most natural with a lot of my touching up, which is silly because sometimes I'll be torn between adding or getting rid of Cyan, for example. You'd think that opposite actions would have opposite effects, but sometimes both ways look good! I just need more practice, methinks.

I spent a little over two hours between attempting to upload Genny's video to Europa (failed, again! And it was of the right length and size!) and here. I also finished up Edward's video, which also refused to be uploaded in any way, shape or form. Editing went alright, but rendering took unusually long. I think the computers are running a little slow, which would affect rendering, but I'm honestly at a loss as to what to do about Europa.

On Friday, I spent two hours taking pictures and playing with flattering to angles to make the campus look a wee bit jazzier. I met up with a friend in a photography class and he offered me some tips as to lighting and photographing buildings. I also spent an hour working through a list of people to interview about the Multicultural Centre and Seegers Union as I want to cram in a few interviews before break so that I have some editing to do over Thanksgiving.

Total Hours this week: 9.5

Total so far: 75

Week Eight

On Monday, I spent an hour with blogger Genny Daly doing her interview. It was actually loads of fun as Genny is a sweetheart, she got really giggly which is why it took a little longer than expected, but we have lots of useful footage and all in all, I'm really happy with how it went.

Over the course of Monday and Tuesday, I spent an hour in communication with the bloggers, Bill and Robin Riley-Casey. Jason and I are set to meet up on the 23rd to do his interview and I'm still waiting to hear back from Edward and Gabriel.

On Tuesday, I spent two hours editing the footage from Genny's interview. I have the gist of it down (it took a little while because I'm struggling with how to make it flow. The snippets I have still seem disjointed so I have been playing with inter-titles but that's been a little tacky, so I'm keen to get Bill's opinion on it once I've played about with it a wee bit more.

On Friday, I spent about an hour with Edward doing his interview and answering his questions about the project I am working on. He also asked me about tips on interviews which was funny as I am quite new to the whole thing--I take it as a compliment that he didn't catch on to that :)

Over the weekend, I spent an hour and a half trying to take some pictures outdoors whilst the weather was still nice, but I'm still having a spot of bother with the focus so I'm not sure how useful the pictures I've taken are, but the experience couldn't hurt. I also spent about a half hour between emails to Robin and Bill, and blogging.

Hours this week: 8

Total number of hours: 65.5

Week Seven

Hi blog!

On Tuesday I did a total of three hours between communicating with Bill and Melissa Falk of the Admissions department and starting to play around with some of the photos of campus that I took earlier in the semester. I just jumped into playing with Photoshop to see how much I would remember but I think I am going to need to re-watch a couple tutorials just to get better at it because my memory is a bit rubbish.

On Wednesday I did another four hours. I spent about a half an hour with Bill catching up and getting a digicam to take some more pictures around campus that I can play with. I also spent about and hour working through my proposal and trying to figure out logistics. If we can make the map video collage thingie happen I want it to be all inclusive/exhaustive but I don't want to make it so crazy big that I can't actually get it done. I spend the rest of the time working out how to phrase the project to the bloggers and finally emailing them my plans and asking them if they would help out.

On Friday, I spent about an hour taking pictures around campus. I was mostly indoors as it was a bit dreary out but I think the time was well spent. I spent about a half hour emailing back the bloggers and figuring out my schedule to work out times to meet with them. I spent about three hours playing with some of the pictures I took (Tony was a massive help) and uploading a handful of them here for you to check out!

Over the course of the weekend, I spent about a half hour communicating with the bloggers about when to meet.No word back from Gabriel and Jason says he can't meet until after the 23rd but I'm setting up times to meet with Genny and Edward later this week.

Hours this week: 11.5

Total hours this semester: 57.5