7 Billion

The World of 7 Billion Project showed me that our planet can only hold a certain amount of people until the resources are depleted. We should make greater efforts to conserve water and have a plan to stop mass deforestation. It's very easy to just say, "we need to stop", without an actual plan. 

The video I created focused on water conservation. I showed different stuff in the house that uses water and then laid down some stats that shows how much we waste annually. If I had more than a couple days to make this video I could have included music and stock footage. Without those two thing, I couldn't really do much. And it is hard to make everything when I only used an iPad. I would prefer to work in a group because you can use each others ideas and I could have used some help because I had no idea how to do most of this stuff.

Passion Project Update

This last week I have made some progress on my baseball equipment drive. Blake and I went and met up with Vince Chelena to pick up the large bins and banners for the drive. While we were picking up the materials from the warehouse, Blake got a little footage of the process that can be used for our service via video project. I also finalized the dates for the equipment drive and contacted administration in the high school and middle school. I have recieved confirmation for announcements to be made at the high school, but no response yet from the middle school. It has only been one day so I think I can wait a little for the response. 

I am going to set up the collection bins outside the main office at the highschool and middle school. I am doing this just incase somebody tries to steal any stuff out of there (I doubt anyone will, but just to be safe). I also had one of my classmates make a really good flyer to promote the drive. I'll need to scatter those around the school and ask teachers if they can advertise them a little in class. I'll also need to ask some of my old teachers from middle school to advertise the drive to their students. I don't think flyers make an impact unless someone actually advertises them in class. 

Video Project

In class we'll be working on a video project to promote different foundations. Fortunately I get to do a video for the foundation I'm working with for my end of year project. I am working alongside Blake Washburn and surprisingly Jacob Costa. Both of these dudes know way more about video production/editing than me, so that will help me out a little bit. 

Vince Chalena came to speak to our class Wednesday about the history of Turn Two for Youth and gave us an idea for what he wanted in the video. He would like to see us make a video on how to become an "ambassador" for the foundation and how to donate baseball equipment. His presentation went well and I'm glad to be working with him. He is apart of the "baseball family" and I know exactly how that life works. 

-Below I included a grizzly bear because of how strong and majestic they look. It relates to Turn Two for Youth because of how strong they're message is and the majectic feeling you get when you can give the gift of baseball to someone.

PSA

This week in class we released our PSA projects. The projects included awareness towards copyright issues and online safety. We thought of ways to get the majority of the school to see our projects and eventually decided to show them during everyone's English class. Students were allowed to go into Schoology and make a post telling people to check out their video. Although most English teachers forget to show it in class or just don't want to show it, it's the best way to get the largest viewing audience. 

The projects have a good message, but most people didn't take them seriously at all. It's hard for High Schoolers to create a PSA that can actually be taken seriously. 

Below is about the only copyright PSA I can find on Google images. So there!

PSA

The last couple weeks we have been working on creating PSA's. Unfortunately, our group was assigned to do a copyright PSA. At first our group was stuck because it was hard to think of ideas about copyright issues. Although it is a tough subject to do a PSA on, the idea behind it is important. If you post something on the internet, you should not use someone's work without their knowledge. It is nearly impossible to not use copyright free work, but its worth a shot if you consider another's work. Overall the PSA is solid. We added a black and white filter to help the lighting.

PSA

This week in DigCit we finished up our planning and started our filming for the PSA project. We are making a video about copyright. The PSA is supposed to be a relatively short video that gets the message across quick. In our video we have several people standing in front of a wall holding different signs that try to persuade people to not use copyright material. It is nearly impossible to not use copyright material, but we are trying to show people that using copyright material can be considered stealing from the original creator. The only issue I think we will have with our video is that we tried to keep the setting exactly the same, but the lighting will be different for some shots because one day we recorded on a sunny day and the next was a cloudy day. We also need to pick a song to play in the background of our video. It's hard to find a decent song that is copyright free, but we have some songs lined up. Although that may be a little issue, I feel that the editing will go over well.

Below is a copyright free PSA brought to you by Smokey.

Video Call

Yesterday in class we had a video call with Kevin Beaty. Kevin is a freelance photographer who went to Lake Norman Charter middle school and went to Hopewell. We spoke to him about his education and what he has done to get to the point he is at now. He gave us an insight on how he views the education system, but I feel like he still owes a lot to the stuff he learned in college. Although Kevin is into photography and documentaries, he told us that he actually doesn't have s strong social media presence. Kevin posts a picture of the day, but he made it sound like he would much rather make a handmade product that would stand out more to his clients. This discussion told me that doing stuff on social media will not get me very far considering the very low amount of followers I have. Since I am doing an equipment drive at school, I feel like contacting people face to face and making the message clear throughout the school will work better than just posting something on Twitter. To encourage involvement I feel like the best way to go about it would be the old fashion way (actually talking to people). Advertising my equipment drive verbally to teachers and asking them to tell their students would be a simple way to do it. Along with the flyers and banners I think it will work out.