I have always been literally and figuratively, surrounded by film and video. My father owns Video Universe in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. He always brought home a variety of films from the store for my family to watch. The special features and deleted scenes, which came with the disc intrigued me because I wondered how the production crew put together the final movie. Additionally, my father constantly buys movies to add to his collection. Thousands of movies line the shelves of my basement and family room. My garage has tons of them packed in boxes.
I was either twelve or thirteen years old when I attended a workshop where I used Sony Vegas to produce a murder mystery short film. During 2012-2015 I used Windows Live Movie Maker to edit YouTube videos, which informed people how to properly take care of their hamster. As a freshman in high school, I took a media production class where I used Final Cut Pro to produce a video montage, music video, news broadcast, and a game show. Throughout my sophomore and junior years of high school, I created various informational video projects for my classes using iMovie and CyberLink PowerDirector 12. As a high school senior, I took a news/television broadcast class where I created two public service announcements, which aired on the daily news show. Additionally, this class also provided me with studio control room and remote production directing experience.
Media and video were always a large part of my life, and I loved recording and editing videos. However, I dreamt of becoming a marine biologist, so I did not recognize media production as a profession for myself until my junior year of high school. After a reality check, I realized I am fairly decent at making videos and I enjoy creating them as well. I think it is important to capture moments and reflect upon them. Everything may happen in a nonlinear fashion, but I like to find how it all connects and turn that into something cohesive.
COMM104 and COMM170 taught me about media and society’s everchanging relationship with one another as well as the basic principles behind how other people told their stories through film and video. I enrolled in COMM261 to share experiences and tell a story of my own. I hope to further my knowledge of the three phases of production and apply some of my prior experience to use the professional software, which is new to me. I hope to learn new ways of going about certain processes and do them differently from what I was originally taught. I also hope to produce a work of fiction as most of my previous projects are informational and factual. I look forward to unlocking my creative potential in this class.