Self-Portrait Blog

 

 

Life is what we make it, if we have a dream we got to take it, there aren’t any handouts in this world, so stop sitting around waiting. This protect was a very great experience. It was a great way to get students to open up and share their passions with one another. Teamwork was very important in creating the group video project as well. I must say I enjoyed working with my group and I learned a lot about them as individuals.  The theme that we had to illustrate throughout our videos was abstract, so it didn’t make the experience too hard but not easy either. I shot my piece via my flip video in which captures footage in HD format for the video and mp4 for audio.  The software that we had to use to edit our projects was IMovie, which is far more compatible with my flip video than Final Cut Pro. The flip video allows you to shoot and capture the footage you shot very easily. It is USB compatible so go figure. Once I get all my shots all I have to do is plug my camera in and begin to edit my footage. If you were trying to do this the old way you would have to use other devices to get you footage onto you workstation.   

 

            When it comes to communication, it has been said that over 55% of it is non-verbal. Video offers a huge advantage when you want to communicate a message to others. When we communicate with writing, we lose the ability to read a person’s facial expression or body gestures. Non-verbal communication sometimes can convey a message to a person more effectively than verbal. This is why advertising companies are willing to pay millions of dollars toward advertising each year. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that you can not communicate a message efficiently without using video, however video allows emotion to be seen and that’s a huge advantage. If a picture is worth a thousand words than a video is worth ten thousand. Photographs allow us to capture a moment, freeze it and hang it up on a wall. Video’s are just pictures in motion. With photographs, yes emotion can be displayed, but just one emotion at a time.  Where as in a video, we see whatever emotion the person is showing the viewer at that time in the clip.

 

            I must say, at first I thought this project was going to be a disaster, but it turned out to be a good overall experience. It taught me to open up and just be myself. The self-portrait was very easy for me to complete, looking at the fact that I have a passion for music, made it easy to convey my passions to the class and my group members. I always carry my flip video around with me so capturing footage wasn’t a problem I was faced with. It was deciding what clips would look the most abstract without the use of any transitions or video effects that required the most thought. Our group video turned out great as well. I thought that it would be a little more difficult, to get our single portraits to flow together nicely as one group portrait, however my group members were very open and helpful in this process. My teammates offered great ideas on how to make our individual projects flow together as one.  Kaylee came up with the idea that we each should adopt the others main theme in the self-portrait, in order to come up with an introduction and conclusion segment for our group project. I felt as if our group communicated our ideas to each other very well. We did a good job with the combining of our self-portraits together while maintaining one theme. Life is a journey, life pulls us in many directions, and no matter where you go in life we always end up back home.

 

            Music is another attribute that helps convey messages in video. This will be impossible with writing or photographs. Music help set the mood of a scene in a video, where as when communicating with writing or photographs, music can’t help in that process. Music also helps emotions to be stirred while watching a video or movie of some sort. The music acts as a narrator for the emotions being acted out on screen.

 

 

YouTube v. Vimeo

After reading the articles dealing with the pros and cons with using YouTube rather than Vimeo, I have a clearer understanding to what exactly are the different features between the two. I learned that when it comes to clarity and building your own brand name, Vimeo takes the cake. However if you are interested in having a broader market to pitch your ideas around in YouTube is for you. YouTube offers free service as does Vimeo, however with YouTube you get unlimited HD uploading 1GB to be exact. Vimeo only allows 1 HD upload per week with the free account and they charge $59.95 for the upgrade fee. You will have to purchase HD tickets as well once yours run out. With YouTube you will not have to worry about issues such as these. Vimeo has been said to be better at keeping visitors on your page for a longer amount of time when compared to YouTube, and has a more of a clean look to it. As for YouTube, they force you to keep their logo at the bottom of you video.

 

I have yet to upload any content via Vimeo so I can’t say why I believe it to be the best. I know in life you get what you pay for, so being cheap sometimes can harm you in the long run. YouTube offers a wider community to market your ideas to and is the website that I would prefer to market in. Others would argue that quality outweighs quantity in the marketing world. YouTube does in fact have a much larger community to network in than Vimeo; however we will have to sort through all the garbage in order to find the diamond in the ruff.