Final Blog Post

My favorite project during this semester was the audio project. This was my favorite project because I got to interview my dad about a trip abroad he has taken and get to hear him talk about what he loves about traveling. I also feel that the audio project did the best job of showing why it is so amazing to travel to other countries. You can hear easily the admiration my dad has for the Italian culture he experienced and admiration for other culture is one of the best reasons to travel as well as one of the best things you can gain from travel. It gives you perspective and I feel like that shines through in the audio story which is why it was my favorite project this semester.

I learned a lot about how to work the different Adobe products. I think the one I will use the most in the future is the skills I learned in Photoshop. I think that the proficiency I gained in photoshop this semester will be what I use the most in the future. I can use those skills to create flyers, posters, or informational brochure covers for any future job I have.

In my future the career path I see for myself eventually ends with working in PR for the DNC. I am planning on combining the skills from both the PR degree I am pursuing and those from the Political Science degree I am receiving as well. I want to find a path that allows me to work in politics while also using PR knowledge and skills to advance whatever political group I am working with. I will probably begin at an entry level PR job and gain that experience before I have a chance to work in my Political Science background.

There is nothing I feel that I missed out on learning with this class. I feel that I was able to learn everything I needed to become proficient and successful in Adobe and in the forms of Adobe that are most used in careers in marketing and PR. I didn’t really use outside websites to help with things the material maybe didn’t cover. It was easiest for me to figure out small specifics that were unique to my projects and not covered in the course material through trial and error and just spending time on the programs.

Thank you so much for coming along with me and following the journey of my blog throughout this semester, now go see the world!

Final Video Project

For this project I chose to highlight the things that people love the most about traveling in Italy. For the project I used a combination of interview recordings with one of my friends who recently spent two months in Italy, as well as video I shot during my time there this summer, and audio recordings of my father that I did earlier this year. I wanted to create a sense of flow between the ideas and form a connection between the things that people love most and value most about these nations. I chose to open with the narration provided through the recording of my dad, talking about the pace of life and how different it is in Europe compared to the US and I chose to have that narration going over a video clip of the Italian countryside and the water taxi ride into Venice- some of the most peaceful and relaxed things I have ever experienced.

One thing I ended up changing between the draft and this final version of my project were a few of the clips I used in the video. For example, I chose to swap the second clip in the video and add one onto the end of the video. The clip that got swapped out was originally one showing the boat ride into Venice from the main land but I chose to swap it with a clip showing the grand canal from a canal side restaurant. I made this change because the visuals in the new clip I have in there are much better and contain brighter colors and a better view of Venice and of the beauty of the Grand Canal. I also made the decision to add a clip to the end of the video after my dad’s voice fades out. This is one of my favorite clips from Italy, it’s a clip of a gondolier singing and dancing during a gondola trip through the canals. I chose to include it because I felt that it sums up everything that is special about this place and the people who live there. It is all authentic and over the top and unique, the things you see traveling are things you would never see anywhere else and I felt that this short ending clip worked to show that.

In the editing process I ended up having to redownload all my raw footage and clips to fix the quality of the video and it did end up working. Unfortunately, once exported out of premier something happened with the program that messed up the quality of the videos anyway. I went through all the steps of trying different file types when I exported it and going through the steps given to me by Adobe support to try and fix it, but nothing worked. I was however able to fully rectify the issues I was having with audio in my initial video draft. With the redownloading of all of my footage the audio quality came back on the interview clips and I was able to have strong audio from Alex’ interview that better matched the volume from the voiceover from my dad’s interview.

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Draft Video Project

For this project I chose to highlight the things that people love the most about traveling in Italy. For the project I used a combination of interview recordings with one of my friends who recently spent two months in Italy, as well as video I shot during my time there this summer, and audio recordings of my father that I did earlier this year. I wanted to create a sense of flow between the ideas and form a connection between the things that people love most and value most about these nations. I chose to open with the narration provided through the recording of my dad, talking about the pace of life and how different it is in Europe compared to the US and I chose to have that narration going over a video clip of the Italian countryside and the water taxi ride into Venice- some of the most peaceful and relaxed things I have ever experienced.

From that narration of my father discussing the way of life in Italy, I chose to cut to the first interview clip of my friend Alex. She starts the clip talking about how different the way of life is in Italy creating an outstanding connection between her points and my father’s. She then goes on to talk about two of the things she loves the most about Italy being the amazing art and architecture. When she started talking about the art and architecture I made the choice to cut away from purely an interview and use her voice as a narration over two photos and a video clip taken by me that showcase the art and architecture that was at the center of the Italian Renaissance. The first photo shown is one of the ceiling pieces in the halls of the Uffizi gallery in Florence. The video clip pans across showing the front of the famed Florence Cathedral, commonly known as the Duomo. The last photo of the voiceover is a shot overlooking the rooftops of Florence including one of the famous domes that adorn several of the dozens of cathedrals in Florence.

I also made the decision to end the project with a final narration from my father about his final views on what he admires the most about Italy and the Italian way of life. With the voiceover I included a final clip and one last look at the grand canal in Venice shot from the steps of one of the Venetian cathedrals I found this summer.

I encountered difficulty in my editing in that originally the interview video clip would not play the sound that accompanied it and so it took me a while to figure out how to get that audio working again. I am hoping that in the editing process I will be able to solve the issue of the interview audio being far quieter than my dad’s voiceover in the beginning and the end of the project. I also hope to be able to find a way to fix the issue of the blurry video and images.

Final Audio Story

For my audio story the main thing I wanted to communicate within it is the beauty in the culture abroad. I wanted to show this in two different ways-both in the obvious beauty found in one of the most amazing collections of art in the world, and in the simplicity of observing the way people in Europe live (in this case Italy specifically).  I decided to keep this really simple for fear of trying to fit too much into only 2 minutes of content space.

I decided on this concept for the project because when I was in Europe this summer seeing the culture over there, and about halfway through my time alone in Florence it hit me how much I admire everything in their culture and how much they have contributed to modern society and modern culture throughout the world. I think that is one of the, if not the, best parts about traveling is gaining that admiration and awe for another culture and so I wanted to showcase that. My dad is also someone who loves seeing and gaining an appreciation for things that are foreign to him and so when I came up with this idea it seemed only right to have my dad be the other voice in this story.

After reading over the feedback I received from members of my group I decided to mess around with the audio a bit. I did try and find some music to put in the background of it but no matter how I changed the volume or the fade in the background it always distracted me and the people I had listen to it, from the actual content of the audio story. After reading the comment regarding the tone throughout to be monotonous I went back and listened to it again. Upon listening through it again I disagreed with the idea that the tone is monotonous. Sure, it is not as high energy and erratic as a comedy sketch or talk show interview, but that’s not what this project is supposed to be for my topic. The tone is contemplative and filled with calm appreciation for the topic being discussed. I think that the overall tone of the piece fits exceedingly well with the idea of realizing one’s appreciation for a different culture and so I chose not to re-record any of the audio used.

So, after messing around a bit and changing the audio and adding other tracks as background and then taking them away, I have laded back where I was with my draft. I have done some more editing in terms of fixing gaps and increasing and changing the fade in and out between my part and my fathers. I like the simplicity of it and I think there is a certain sense of respect that comes from the simplicity of the tone and the simplicity of the overall composition that fits really well with what this audio story is about. I also chose to add a background image to the track, something I had not done for the draft.

Audio Story RD

For my audio story the main thing I wanted to communicate within it is the beauty in the culture abroad. I wanted to show this in two different ways-both in the obvious beauty found in one of the most amazing collections of art in the world, and in the simplicity of observing the way people in Europe live (in this case Italy specifically).  I decided to keep this really simple for fear of trying to fit too much into only 2 minutes of content space.

I decided on this concept for the project because when I was in Europe this summer seeing the culture over there, and about halfway through my time alone in Florence it hit me how much I admire everything in their culture and how much they have contributed to modern society and modern culture throughout the world. I think that is one of the, if not the, best parts about traveling is gaining that admiration and awe for another culture and so I wanted to showcase that. My dad is also someone who loves seeing and gaining an appreciation for things that are foreign to him and so when I came up with this idea it seemed only right to have my dad be the other voice in this story.

I got the content for this project by just recording myself and my response to open the story, and then recording my dad and his experience with when he realized his appreciation for the culture he was in.

In the actual process of editing the story together I had to go through the recording I made of my dad’s response to work on cutting it down and fitting it back together. The original response I got from him was about 2:30 long and so a lot of editing had to happen. I started by first going through and cutting out anywhere that he had long pauses in his response when he was thinking, or where he used filler words like “um”. I then went through and had to figure out which parts of his response fit best with the idea I had for this story and ended up being able to keep all but one part of his response to the question I had posed.

I also like that my dad and I are talking about when we realized our appreciation for the same place, but in different moments and experiences and completely different time periods. He was there about 20 years ago, and I was there about 5 months ago. With this story I just really want to be able to show that you can realize your admiration for another culture while traveling, it’s about more than just photo ops.

Final Logo

For my project I wanted to make something simple that fits well into my blog topic. From that main point I decided to go with the idea of a minimalistic luggage set that has the name of my blog across the two suitcases in the front. This is very clearly related to the topic of my blog because I have chosen to write about traveling throughout Europe and so the luggage set is fitting. I also included the added touch of “stickers” on the suitcases with various names of notable destinations throughout Europe, as an added dimension of interest.

I didn’t really do research in figuring out my design. I suppose a lot of the inspiration for it came from many modern logos sticking to a more minimalist idea and trying to keep the design clean and simple. It is the idea of keeping a logo simple and thus easy for the audience to process and recall to memory when seen again. In corporate logo design it is key that the audience does not have to think too hard to associate the logo with the company and their mission and goals.

To create this project, I used simple illustrator techniques. Because of what I chose to do for my logo it was essentially using a collection of separate rounded rectangles and arranging them some in front and some in back to create a feeling of depth in the layout of the image. Within each shape I added a gradient to the background as well. I struggled at the beginning in figuring out how to make the logo not seem as flat and so I chose to attempt a gradient within the base shape of the suitcases, and I am quite happy with how it came out. Another major issue I encountered in the editing process was that I had rasterized my draft before I saved it and so when I went back to make edits I couldn’t edit individual parts of the design. This meant that when I went back to make changes based on the suggestions, I had to start over and recreate the entire design.

The feedback I received was mainly in adding detail to the background and messing around more with the shapes and sizes of the stickers placed on the suitcases. I took this feedback into mind and decided to create the illusion of a wooden floor that the suitcases are sitting on and added wall color behind them to make it seem as if the luggage set was sitting in a room all packed and ready to go. I also chose to get rid of the different colored stickers and make them all maroon. I felt that the different colors of stickers paired with the new background color and details was too distracting and getting away from the simple design I wanted from the start. I also chose to change the name on my logo from “Cassandra Barnes Travel” to “A Barnes Abroad”. I made this decision because I feel that it is more memorable and catchier, which makes for a better logo design.