Much Needed Updates
The fall semester of 2011 has flown by as quick as it came in August. I have been pretty busy as always and it’s very hard to believe that I am in my senior year of college.
A very interesting project that I worked on this semester was a documentary-style video on the Chester County Youth Center which is a jouvenile detention center in Chester County. I started on the project in August and finished in November just in time for the video to be shown to the Chester County Intermediate Unit during a conference. I traveled to the center and filmed and interviewed a variety people from faculty and staff to the administration. It was definitely a learning experience spending so much time in a prison setting observing the different programs from the education program to the shelter and after school programs.
This project has taught me a variety of things about how to produce a documentary-style video. The main thing that I learned was that one can not watch their work enough times because there is always something else to be fixed. I learned the importance of having extra equipment especially for interviews that were difficult to schedule. I also had to be very aware of my camera angles and shots since the adolescents held there are under age. It was the first time I ever had a piece that I had to go through with a fine tooth comb making sure all visibal faces were blurred. Even now I am still working on it every so often trying to perfect it the best I can. My piece can be viewed on my YouTube page or in my Video Pieces page on this site.
The Flourtown Bakery Facebook Page I have been working on since the summer is coming along nicely. The page is now up to 120 “Likes” and customers have been interacting by “liking” status posts and the hundreds of pictures I have uploaded. I even started posting specials and coupons to use during given periods of time.
This past semester was my final semester as executive producer of LOQation. I can not say how much I have learned while running the show for a year and a half. I had an amazing crew and the show is at its best currently. My hope is that the new crew will take the show even further. A side from producing the show, I also had the opportunity to produce my own segment. Every week I would give a “Tip of the Week” covering anything from health to study habbits.
Two themed stories I worked on this semester for LOQation were for the Halloween episode. I reported on two famous Halloween attractions in Pennsylvania, the Bates Motel and the Pennhurst Asylum. I traveled to both locations and filmed the walk-throughs and hay rides as well as got behind the scenes tours and interviews from the owners and actors.
A different course I am participating in for the whole year is my capstone course called “convergence.” In this particular class a group of students learn project management and multimedia skills by creating a website on a given topic. Our topic this year is on youth empowerment mainly focusing on the revolutions in the Middle East and how the youth were a major part in promoting change. This past semester our class was partnered up with a class at The American University in Cairo. The class in Egypt was conducting research on different topics and the students were Skyping with us back and forth for interviews. It’s a very neat experience contacting students my age in a foreign country. One of my most recent interviews I conducted this month was with an the editor in chief of Caravan, the AUC publication, and a staff writer. I learned a lot about the Middle East that I never knew before  this course. The class will continue into next semester and we will start to piece together the interviews and research to create multimedia pieces. We are hoping to have the website up and running by April.
I am still the production director of Cabrini’s radio station, WYBF. Starting in the spring the station will have a new name and be called “Cavalier Radio.”
Have a wonderful New Year 2012!!
