Feldmusings

Came across a 50,000 word novel that does not once use the letter e.

I can’t fathom how such a thing would work. Writing a book without such an important symbol strains possibility. That particular symbol is astonishingly popular, if not primary amongst all symbols. I doubt I could last long without aid from that most important symbol.

JUST DID. FOUR SENTENCES. BOOM.

So al-Qaeda now has a complaints department, according to the Telegraph. It will supposedly field complaints about “any element of the Islamic state” they think may be committing violations, what if this was a department where you could complain about al-Qaeda to al-Qaeda? Here’s a rough estimation of what an automated message from al-Qaeda’s complaints department would sound like.

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So after a few different attempts at trying to do stuff on Tumblr, I’m going to give it another go. I’ve mostly used this site to share random nonsense on my mind, things that I’ve blogged on other sites, and most recently, assignments for class. That last one’s no longer applicable, since I graduated college a few weeks ago.

I’ve decided that I need a place where I can be as creatively insane as possible, so I’m going to use this space for free writing, short stories, etc. so I can hone my writing skills. And hopefully get some feedback from people.

Well, this’ll be fun…

https://vimeo.com/55620702

I didn’t like how some of my stand-ups came out in a few of my reports, so I chose to focus more on my production work instead. I still included video from a few of my field reports, but also incorporated in-studio work that I was involved in producing for Broadcast Journalism II and American University television.

I made sure to include a piece of my fiscal cliff package and excerpts from a special election night report I produced and edited on ATV to show that I have been covering important current events this semester.

https://vimeo.com/55620703

I chose to focus on the fiscal cliff because this is major D.C. news happening this month. I would have liked to get footage of a protest, but I was busy with finals work the two days there were reported protests on the hill. I made sure to get both academic analysis, hence the interview with Professor Kornacki, and an activist perspective, which is why I reached out to OurDC for the interview.

I fixed around some of my b-roll so that it looks a little cleaner, and I adjusted some settings on my stand-up so it looks a little nicer, since this one was preferable to the other two takes. I considered putting b-roll over the stand-up, but I really wanted to keep in the pan shot.

I have tried and failed a number of times to embrace Tumblr, but here I am, trying again.

Also, it’s good to know I have friends who have no qualms about trying to shame me on every social network known to man.

https://vimeo.com/53766072

Between sports and arts, I have more of a personal interest in the arts, which is why I decided to do my video on the American University Orchestra. They had a big concert this weekend, and I thought it would be interesting to record them in their final week of rehearsal. I was able to interview the conductor, as well as two members of the orchestra, for the video. I captured video during their break and while they were performing. I captured quite a bit of video from off-stage, but in order to capture video on-stage, I had to take the camera off the tripod and quietly make my way around the stage so I would not interfere with their performance.

One of the most difficult parts of the video was blending in the music with everything else and cutting between parts of the b-roll where they are performing. I didn’t want it to sound off or awkwardly cut, and I had to play around with the editing until I was able to make the music flow, even with the voiceovers and cuts I threw in.

I asked enough questions of the conductor in order to sprinkle him throughout the narrative, but I didn’t have time when I was interviewing the two other orchestra members since everyone was packing up to leave. If there was one thing I would fix about this video, I would have given myself some breathing room to ask them one or two more questions, because half of what they said was inaudible with people packing things up behind them.

I chose to do my personality profile on Gail Hanson, the VP of Campus Life at American University, because I wanted to focus on someone actively involved with students at AU. I learned quite a bit about what campus life does for students through Hanson and others that I spoke to.

I got some good b-roll shots inside Hanson’s office to supplement what she was saying, and I would have liked to get some footage of students around campus, but I was unable to capture any more footage after handing in the first draft of the video, so I just edited the piece, cut down one of the long b-roll shots, and shortened one of Hanson’s soundbites so she was not talking for too long.

I experimented with a few tracking shots in this piece, and I got a few that worked out well and ended up using in the piece, but a few others were too messy or did not come out exactly how I wanted them to.

https://vimeo.com/52273152

I chose to cover the first presidential debate because American University has a lot of young people interested in politics. I was too busy over the weekend to reshoot anything, but I did edit out some of the graphic b-roll I made in the beginning because I felt like it distracted from the main point of my report.

I interviewed the head of the American University College Republicans and an ardent Obama supporter prior to the debate to get their perspectives on how engaged students are about the election, then went to the Tavern on debate night to try and talk to students who cared enough about the debate to watch it live.

I was not able to talk to that many students about the debate, but I did get three people who felt rather passionately about how it went. The Tavern was a good place for me to film since I was able to gauge the level of enthusiasm people had about the candidates. One thing I regret not filming is the reaction of one audience member who kept clapping every time Mitt Romney said something he agreed with. That would have made good b-roll.

https://vimeo.com/50958680

Questions: https://vimeo.com/49808629

B-Roll: https://vimeo.com/49808630

5 Shots: https://vimeo.com/49808676

We wanted to ask a question that would elicit interesting responses for AU students, and since American University has a reputation for being one of the most politically active campuses in the country, we decided to ask about a hot-button political issue: Super PACs. Super PACs have the ability to raise millions and millions of dollars in support of a candidate, and we wanted to find out if students

I was surprised to see just how many people said they would be willing to take the money from SuperPACs, though the answers did range from embracing the idea of SuperPACs to reluctant acceptance of a corrupt system.

We chose to film outdoors, on the south side of campus, because not only was it a good location to ask people to be interviewed, but there was plenty of natural sound. The wind was a bit of a problem when we started to film, but we made it work regardless. As for the b-roll exercise, we caught footage of students entering and leaving one of the halls because of the heavy foot traffic in that area and the natural sound of students talking and the doors opening and closing.

Dick Clark: an oldie but a goodie.