Digital Journalism: Reflection

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

It is hard to believe that I am reflecting on my last ever mission for this module, its quite sad really. I don't think that I got to show my full ability in this module this semester. overall I enjoyed researching and filming this last video for the mission Methodology.
Our talent came together in the video and that was shown as soon as we previewed it.

One big mistake we made in this mission is that we did not read the mission must haves well enough before doing the video and editing. We left out a big part in the video which was showing how we edited the video and showing our research in the actual video.
We only noticed that we were missing It when we were sitting in the lecture hall watching everyone else videos had all these things but we didn't. So basically I freaked out and automatically think we failed already. luckily when our video came on it was very funny and everyone was laughing with us so it showed a sense of humour in the group which was nice.

We may have not met all the requirements but it was for sure worth the watch. I think if we had more time as a group our video could have potentially got at least 80% to 90% as it had a good background to it. it was just missing the simple things as Shaun said such as the TU Dublin Logo and the Creative Digital Media Logo. These were disappointing marks to lose but I will definitely carry this constructive criticism with me to next semester.

I am proud of what we produced as the mission was to film a video, edit it and submit it on time, which my whole group done. Unfortunately some people didn't get the video uploaded on time but I am grateful that I was in a group with such fast working talented people who made me feel apart of the group and who made me feel that my opinion mattered just as much as theirs. These people are also going to be my friends through the rest of my college days. So I thank Introduction to digital media for helping me make so many new friends that I thought would never be my friends.

This is more than likely my last post ever on this blog but for the most, I enjoyed sharing my amazing experience with you and if I am to carry anything with me through life from this experience is to just be yourself, let your mind run free as every idea is an idea and most of all have fun! oh and don't leave anything to last minute because its never as good as you want it to be.

Fail to Prepare, Prepare to Fail.

Thank you for reading always.
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.

Digital Journalism: Product

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

So this is the blog where you find out if I am a total failure or not...
At this point I actually potentially could have been a failure. I was so stuck that I even typed out an email to my lecturer and was so close to sending it but I didn't because I still had some hope..

Finally.. a notification popped up on my phone the morning after I tried to hard to find a group. I was so blessed. It was a message on the college WhatsApp from a group of 2 who needed one more person to complete there group. I replied straight away in private message to make sure I got into the group. it was official. I had a group at last!!

We all communicated through WhatsApp that evening and discussed what we were going to do, we had come to the conclusion that we were going to do a video on "Fake News" to show when you tell someone something but ask it in question form they tend to believe fake stories. we researched videos on youtube and wrote down questions that we were going to ask random people around the campus. A few days later my group (Robyn, Leslie and I) met up as I didn't know the girls. We planned that day to meet up the next morning at 9:30 to film the actual video.

We met up that morning to film, surprisingly I was more confident talking to the girls. We all shared more ideas in regards to questions to ask. We then finally went around the college asking random people from first year to older years to see how they would react to our fake news. most if not all the people we filmed fell for the fake news. this basically proved our point. of course before filming we asked the people who were being filmed for their permission to film and show the video.

The next day we edited the video in college in the Mac labs on a software called premier pro. For this mission we had to use premier pro as the editing software. We added effects such as the breaking news/ fake news banner at the start to make it look like a real news show, we also cropped and cut some of the video out to shorten the video. A section of a clip of my friend John was also zoomed into which was quite funny.

I am just glad that I got into a good group with people who work well together and share similar interests to me. We all put in a good amount of work each and yet again the work wasn't left for any 1 person to do.

Luckily this mission didn't expect us to present. the video was basically our presentation which was good because I wasn't freaking out previous to the lecture...



Thank you for reading!
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.

Digital Journalism: Process

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

This is my last and final mission ever for my first semester of creative digital media year 1. This is very exciting as I haven't completed a full mission since mission 1. I feel like this mission is going to be good and very creative.

I have an idea on what I want to do as I have the biggest interest in it, I would like to do the mission "methodology" on digital journalism. I don't yet have an idea on what to do within the actual mission but I am sure my future group and I can be creative enough to figure out something good and funny but effective.

I am still a bit behind then everyone else due to certain circumstances explained in my previous blog. I am determined to work well in this mission and hope I will find a group that will work well alongside me. Basically the way the missions work is that you cant be in the same group as anyone you have worked with before, in the previous missions I worked with my best friends that were in group 4 so I couldst work with them again, luckily we were allowed to work with people outside our groups for this mission only. I thought this was a great idea. the only thing was we had to have 3 people in the group this time as it was surrounded by teamwork.

I asked my 2 best friends from different groups to be in a group with me and one of them unfortunately already had a group and the other one said yes, I was delighted with myself as I finally found someone the I was comfy with to work with. The only thing was there was only 2 of us... and I didn't know anyone else that didn't have a group. we left it for a while, I hadn't heard from her in while but presumed that we were still working together, at this point I just wanted to start doing the work as this mission was only from weeks 10-12 and it was due on week 12. On week 11 I was let down as she already had joined another group which left me with absolutely no one but I wasn't giving up just yet.

I texted into our personal group 4 group chat on snapchat and some people replied but had no space for me and some people even offered for me to join even though they already had the numbers, some people just didn't reply to I texted into the group chat with 31 people from our course into it and nothing. I even joined the #digitaljournalism on slack. it was very disappointing to not have a group one week before the mission was due.

I am still confident that I will have a good group and a good video produced in time.

Thank you for reading!
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.

Mission 2: Disaster.

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

Mission 2 for me was quite a disaster, I will not get into details about this but ye its worth the read still.

Basically I joined a group for this mission, I didn't really have to think about what I was going to choose for the actual mission because I knew straight away that it was going to be youtube. I am overly obsessed with YouTube I also have my own Channel but I haven't posted in about 1 year so that's disappointing. I researched the goals of the mission of "culture" in a lab with my teammate John. I was very excited about this mission as it was more like a passion rather than work.

We researched on youtube ads and what ads come up on my YouTube channel. The most ads seen were mainly website builders and things involving creative media. We also searched smaller youtubers and the different types of channels on youtube for example "Booktube", We decided to look into book tubing as my sister (PierinaReads) and her best friend (IrishReader) both have you tube channels. They both have a small following but they are totally worth the watch! We also researched how youtube is actually a major communication platform. My sister and her friend travel to other parts of the world to go to book tubing conventions and since starting YouTube they also traveled to Australia and America together to meet their other book tubing friends.

Unfortunately that's everything I could have possible got done for this mission. Sadly there was a family loss within my family which made me unavailable for college work and even the presentation.

I was really looking forward to the rest of this mission but things happen.
I have to remember that set backs are only temporary so I can prove myself for the next and last mission.

 

Thank you for reading!
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.

Art of The Animated GIF: Reflection

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

This blog is basically me reflecting on the creativity mission I just finished!

We have been working on this mission for weeks now and I am glad to say its done as I've learned and will continue the work throughout my next missions.
We finally completed the presentation!!
Yes I was a nervous wreck the night before, that morning and soon before the presentation but amazingly it went well. Once we started talking we didn't stop! I felt that our slides weren't boring at all, they were funny as most if not all the slides had gifs on them.

My group wasn't intimidating whatsoever and I really liked how they were so interested in everyones work and weren't disrespectful.
The presentation was just much better than expected and I was happy about that fro sure.

This lab was quite funny as there was. a big debate weather GIF is pronounced with a hard g (G-IF) or a soft g (JIF).
Our group and another group said it was 100% GIF with a hard G whereas others said it was GIF with a soft g, it was disappointing because I've been going through life calling it GIF with a hard g...
We still haven't quite sorted the debate even though the creator Steve Wilhite said its pronounced with a soft g.. I will never live this one down.

Ive learned a lot doing this mission, I never knew anything about GIFS or how to make them until this mission, I even knew the name of the creator of GIFS while doing this blog post without looking up the information.
Surprisingly GIFS were quite simple and easy to make... I never knew that either...
I made a GIF of a dolphin jumping in the air, I took it from a video clip I took in Palmitos Park, Gran Canaria this summer.
I added the piece of the clip I liked to the website GIPHY and it made the GIF for me. You can also make a Gif a much harder way, this can be seen in my previous blog!

Some constructive criticism for ourselves:
> Make the background white next time with black writing to make it really stand out.
> Add more colour overall.
> Show more about how we made the gifs.
> Make the font more appealing.
> Possibly add some symbols.
> Reduce writing on some slides.
> BE MORE CONFIDENT.

I will definitely take this onboard with me throughout my next missions.

Information not related to the presentation but very interesting;
Doing this mission with Megan and Lauren has literally made me make friends for life. I realised that they are the right people for me as they push me to move in the right direction. I've decided that I'm going to start surrounding myself with kind people who motivate you to complete things and route for you while you are doing so. (If you are reading guys, Thank you)

Thank you for reading!!
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.

Art of The Animated GIF: Product

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

Good news everyone! We are gladly nearly done our first ever mission! All we have to do now is present, which I am so nervous for but I know it will be okay (I hope). I get nervous before everything but this is our first big presentation, I am just is glad that it is in front of our group instead of the whole lecture class...

Anyways, In this blog I will explain what we done to make and build our presentation.

Firstly we picked the topic as explained in my previous blog.
We then actually collected all the historic information, legal status information and popularity of GIFS.
Getting the information wasn't as difficult as we thought It would be but at that it was still quite difficult to make bullet points out of for our presentation. Some information was actually quite interesting such as the different ways of making GIFS.
We made out own GIFS which was quite fun also. We created them using GIPHY. We also found out that there is a more difficult was of making a GIF. Basically you have to get 12 images of an action but very similar images that aren't too far apart and add the images to a file to make GIF.

Megan, Lauren and I communicated through slack, twitter and text as mentioned in previous blog. Meeting up wasn't so difficult after all. We worked on the slides during our lab time on the Macs and on our own Macbooks. Having MacBooks outside college times made it so much more easier to get work done.

Everyone in our group has done different things and I think that our presentation will be worth a watch and a listen.
Our presentation was put together nicely, as expected. We used the website GIPHY a lot, which we found very helpful. We also used certain websites for different information on google and made sure we referenced them in our slides.

We made our presentation on google slides so all members of the group could alter, add and edit pieces of work into the presentation when we weren't together.
We all decided to do the slides black with white writing to stand out from everyone else.
I like the way our presentation is interesting and funny.

Im happy with the group I am in as we did work very well together. We all put 100% work into this presentation and it was all done as a team. My team mates were also very helpful in regards to finding the information needed to make the slides. GIFS were found by us all and inserted into the slides, this gave our presentation a unique feature. Each person pulled their weight and it was not just left to one person to fix so I am lucky in that sense to be with such talented students.

Wish me luck for the presentation, I probably won't need it but just to be sure... pray for me please and thanks..

Thank you for reading!
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.

Art of The Animated GIF: Process

Hi Guys, welcome back to my wonder filled blog!

We have started our first ever mission for my module "intro to digital media"!
This mission was a creativity mission so I wanted to chose something that I was interested in so I could put my creativity skills to the test. To be honest my choice was a good one which I am so excited to start.

We have to make a presentation on the history of GIFS and the production of them and much more!
We had a range of choices on what to do for our first mission including; Art of The Animated GIF, Digital Audio, Gaming and so much more. I chose the mission Art of The Animated GIF as I had the most interest in this and I wasn't at all knowledgeable with the other mission choices... I obviously knew what a GIF was and was interested to see how they were made and how they are used and what platforms they are used on. I wasn't so interested in the legal status of GIFS as I am more of an informal person and cant process law or theoretical things in my big creative brain full of practical ideas..

The first mission entailed that we must be in a group with maximum 3 people or we could do it alone or with 1 other person.
of course I picked a group of 3 because I love that saying "The more the merrier"
In my group there is Megan, Lauren and me of course. We aren't nessesarily best friends at this stage in this course but I hope by the end of the mission I will learn more about the kind of people they are and how creative all our minds can be when put together.    I feel that we will work well as a team, which will lead our presentation and information to come along nicely.

My goals for this mission is to communicate well with my group to collect all information on the history, legal status, popularity and use of GIFS. We also have to create our own GIFS!
I hope to produce a well put together presentation including the GIFS we make.

For the start of our mission we just sorted out the media we were going to use as a communication course and how and when we were going to meet up to practice. We decided to use the media platform slack to communicate as everyone in the chat that was doing Art of The Animated GIF shared their ideas with us all which was helpful. We are also going to Twitter and text message to communicate privately about when we could meet up with each other. Meeting up will be quite difficult outside college as all of our group life quite distant to the college, I hope it works out okay.

In my next blog I hope to write about all the work we will have done to date.

Thank you for reading!!
Student going offline,
Danniella Campbell.