“Explorers have to be ready to die lost.” ~Russel Hoban

Last we talked about setting your own standards. Don’t accept the low standards that others place on you, strive to set your standards higher than what others expect of you. Always try to exceed expectations.

New Media

Finish your two movie posters. Everybody creates a zombie movie poster and we will be voting on the best ones. The top vote getters will receive extra credit and their poster will make the Wall of Fame. Make sure to save your posters for the Web and put them on your Web site to receive credit.

Once you complete your movie posters, you will be exploring Photoshop through independent study. There are probably more Photoshop tutorials on the Internet than any other software program. Photoshop can be so complex that you can spend years using it and only know a small portion of the program.

Many of the Photoshop tutorials have a preview image so that you know what you will be creating. The tutorials may be challenging, but the rewards could be great. Have fun and find something interesting that challenges you. There are links to tutorial sites on the Resources page (scroll down), or as always, Google is your friend.

New Media

Now that we have explored the fundamentals of digital imaging in Photoshop, especially compositing, masking, and blending modes, you are stepping out on your own to create at least two movie posters. Remember when we are initially  (22″ x 17″, 360 resolution)

Multimedia

Stretch your imagination when working on your final projects. These projects should be your showcase. Think of it as a portfolio piece to wow a scholarship committee or to impress a hiring manager for your job. They should be detailed, professional, showcase an understanding of the principles of design and elements of art, etc.

For example, if you are going to do pen tool, it better have intricate detail, rich colors, shadows, and gradients. Plus, you better bring it into Photoshop for enhancements.

For an idea of what level I am looking for, check the Valhalla High School “Best of” Posters.

ROP Video Production

We have three more episodes for the year. Group 1 should have their segments turned in on June 1st (you have an extended period of time due to STAR testing). Group 2 has two more segments due on May 11th and June 8th.

Also, due this Friday (May 14th) is your music video project.

We have entered the final stretch in the school year. It is time for you to start showing me what you know. It is time for you to sell me on what grade you want. It is time for you to be creative and express yourself through your projects. There is not going to be the same step by step hand holding at this point. If you don’t know how to do something, ask another student or use Google. Your job is to be able to create a WOW project without me telling you step by step.

New Media

You should have worked your way through the Intro to Photoshop stuff. Now it is time to apply what your learned, especially in regards to compositing (layer masking). You will be blending together at least two animals to make a new species. A significant portion of the grade will be on how realistic your new animal looks. You may need to use the burn, smudge, or other tools to fine tune your image and make it as realistic as possible. Also, you may want to copy the final merged layer and experiment with filters to make a cool effect.

Multimedia Design

Your task the rest of the semester is to show me what you have learned. You are to design your own projects. You will need to look for inspiration on what you want to do. Most likely you will have to find tutorials on the Internet to learn additional techniques. The purpose of the independent projects is to WOW me. If you fail to WOW me, your grade will be severely impacted. This IS NOT FREE TIME. Your grade will drop rapidly if you fail to heed this advice.

You may create an animation using Flash. You may work on 3D Design projects in Blender. You may create advanced illustrations. You may create masterpieces in Photoshop. Whatever you choose to work on, remember that I will be grading these tougher than anything else all year.

You may want browse the Valhalla Student Galleries for some ideas.

We are down to the final stretch in the school year. For Seniors you have SEVEN weeks and the rest of you EIGHT weeks to complete your final projects and portfolios. This is the time of year when many start to slack. Remember, in the Mac Lab participation is key to your grade. If you were smart, you would have made sure your participation was solid for the first half knowing that you might slack off.

New Media

We explored Illustrator during the 1st half of the semester and we are going to finish off with exploring Photoshop. They are the two most used programs in the Adobe Suite. Photoshop has a myriad of uses and can be overwhelming at first. Often times there are 5 ways to do the same thing. Even after using Photoshop for years you’d be lucky to know half of what it can do. We are going to explore some of the most important tools in Photoshop as it relates to design: layer masks, blending modes, adjustment layers, and more.

Be sure to follow the exercises on the Intro to Photoshop page under New Media Projects. Also, don’t forget that we design everything for high resolution print first (360dpi). High resolution stock photos are available under s-maclab-resources. Open Finder –> Click On ALL on the left of the Finder Window –> Scroll Down to s-maclab-resources —> Click on stock_photos. The best way to look at all of the pictures is to use Bridge. Once you go to the stock_photos folder, open Bridge –> Go to Computer (upper left) –> Click on st0ck_photos. You can then drag onto the Photoshop icon to open.

Multimedia Design

The current job market is the worst I have ever seen. Unemployment is at the highest since the Great Depression and your age group (18-24) has the highest rate at over 20%. That means that over 20% of the people 18-24 who actually want to work and are searching for a job, can’t get one. The most important thing to finding a job is have skills. In order for employers to know that you have skills that they need, you have to tell them. This is done using a Resume. A Resume highlights your skills and strengths and is used to sell you as a valuable asset to a company.

Last week you were to create a rough draft of your resume. Today (Monday) you are going to submit your rough draft to the shared rough draft folder and have a partner critique it. I suggest putting a fake e-mail, phone numer, and address for this so that others in the class don’t have access to your personal information.

Save your resume as rough_last name+first initial (ie rough_hayesr.doc) Using Open Office, open your partners Resume. Under the INSERT menu is INSERT COMMENT (or OPTION + COMMAND + N). Wherever your cursor is, Open Office will insert a comment. This is where you give suggestions on what can be improved. Once you go through and add comments, save the document and add review (ie rough_hayesr_review.doc). Don’t save as anything else. No CAPS. It isn’t that complicated.

Many of you fail to succeed when your are not spoon fed the answers. Once the step by step, hold my hand like you are a child tutorials are taken away you struggle to find solutions for yourself.

Some of you are just leaving middle school where you get little star stickers for a doing a good job. Some of you are getting ready to enter the the toughest economic times and toughest job competition in generations. Either way there is a new road to follow and it is going to be tougher than the one you were just on. Teaching you to solve problems and think for yourself when the training wheels are off is the best thing that I can do for you. Giving you an easy ride is a disservice to you and those of you that don’t understand that now, one day will.

New Media

Your Websites are due NOW. I started grading over the weekend and page after page was not up. Your Websites with your work is 50% of your grade. As it stands now, most of you are failing because your sites are not up. Make sure you followed the directions. I want to see your quilt and self portrait. They should be centered on their own page with a proper title. Also, your self-portrait should be saved as a thumbnail and linked to the larger version (but still at 72dpi and saved for the Web as jpeg. NO PSD OR AI FILES on your Website!!!!).

Multimedia Design

Two weeks until Spring Break. Two weeks until your Flash sites are due! If your site is not up, you will lose a letter grade for week until it is up. I did a walkthrough with you last week on how to setup your Flash portfolio. I showed you how I could do one in 30 minutes, you should be able to do it in the three weeks you have had to work on it or the nine weeks, overall, that we have been working on Flash.

Video Production

Still no episode from the first production team. It was due last week. The episode for the second production team is due this week. Will the second group have their’s done in time? So far the whole class has disappointed me. There has been a record number of tardies and constant off-task on Youtube, Facebook, games, etc. EVERYBODY missed the deadline last week!!! You cannot miss deadlines in a production environment. Going forward, the penalties are going to be harsh for missing deadlines.

Many of you haven’t realized the value of what you are giving up freely in this class by not participating. As important as the software we are learning is, it is not the most important lesson in the Mac Lab. I am trying to teach you to solve problems, to think for yourself, and to find your own answers. I will answer questions with a question. This isn’t meant to confuse you. It is meant to get you to think for yourself.

Sure there are other elective choices at Edison that are easier. Easier isn’t always better. To be successful in this new economy, you have to be willing and know how to do more than the next guy. Don’t waste your opportunity to learn something that will give you an advantage over the competition. Ignorance only hurts you.

New Media

We are moving on. You should be done with your self portrait. By the end of class on Monday your Website should be done and uploaded to the Internet. On Tuesday we will begin discussing brand identity and logo design. Information for completing the Website can be found on the New Media Projects page.

Multimedia Design

We have been learning Flash for six weeks. Many of you have squandered your time. Your attitude has prevented you from succeeding. Flash is like nothing you have ever done. It requires you to think and to pay attention to details. Two things that many of you shy away from doing, but are very important for you to be successful at as adults. You want stuff to be spoon fed to you. Somebody else to do the work for you. Somebody else to make the template. Flash isn’t a punishment, it is an opportunity to be creative. It may challenge you and that is a good thing. The creative possibilities in Flash are endless.

Some of you have been done great things already. There are a couple of new students at the semester who are doing really well in Flash. Some of you are even challenging me by trying to take Flash to the next level and I have to think about how best to solve your problems.

When starting your portfolio site here are a few things that I suggest:

• Look at the examples that I provided on the project page.
• Write down what buttons you will need and what content will be on your site. This will help you make the labels in your timeline.
• Your navigation buttons will have TWO animations. One is what happens when you roll over the button, the other what happens when the button appears on the screen. Do the rollover animation FIRST.
• Reuse/copy as much as possible. If you put code on the first button and it works, copy that code to every other button and simply change what is needed.

Video Production

The first broadcast group, your stuff is do this week. The first episode should be done Thursday. For the second group, I want your packages done next Monday and the entire episode done by Wednesday.

Let’s make the show good. This has never been done before at Edison. Other schools have been doing it for 20 years. You get the opportunity to say you started a new tradition at a school rich in tradition, but with nothing new for sometime. Set the bar high for future classes.

Is this you? This semester I am seeing new levels of apathy and laziness. We are over 1/4 of the way through the semester and some of you have dug yourself such a deep hole that I don’t know if you will be able to get out. Remember, if you have -600 or more in participation that not only means that you have an F, but your if so low that you lose an additional lette grade. What does that mean? It means. . . if you have more than -600 in participation, you will need an A on your projects to pass the class.

New Media

Your goal is to finish your self portrait this week and upload the first version of your website. Remember you must bring your illustration from Illustrator into Photoshop and complete the tutorials “Camera Raw and Other Enhancements.” For your website, it should take you about a half a period to complete and upload. Make sure that it works on the Internet and not just on your computer.

Multimedia Design

The biggest slackers mentioned above are in this group. Your Flash websites are due in three weeks. They don’t have to be fancy, but they do have to work. Remember to apply the principles of design that we learned in the first semester. Also, make sure to check the project page for the requirements.

Video Production

Now that we have gotten everybody up to speed on the basics (cameras, composition, editing, etc.), it is time to begin producing the Bolt Broadcast. You will be picking a producing partner to work with on Bolt projects. Also, we will be splitting into two larger groups. Each group will have two weeks to produce a ~10 minute show. That means we will have a show every week. First group, your packages are due on Wednesday, March 10th. Late packages will earn half credit.

Homework Assignment (Due Monday, March 15th): On the class page I have linked to other high school video/broadcast programs. Look through the sites and watch some of their episodes. Using Google Docs, write a reflection on FIVE things that you thought were good and how we could do something similar with the Bolt. Be sure to list the school, what you liked and why, and the direct URL for accessing the particular part that you liked.

Maybe it was a show or things on their show (intros, graphics, stories, etc.). Or maybe it was something on their website. The idea is to improve what we are doing in class and make the Bolt Broadcast high quality, professional looking, and interesting to the Edison community.

New Media

You have moved on from learning the basics of how the pen tool works by completing the pen tool exercises and are now mastering it by creating a vectorized self portrait. Is the pen tool easy? No, not at first. Can anybody do it? Yes. I warned you when we started the exercises, “DO NOT rush through these. It is more important to understand how the pen tool works than it is to just finish the exercises.” Those of you that heeded the advice are having great success and creating excellent self portraits. Some are even looking Wall of Fame worthy. Others didn’t listen and now are finding the project a burden. I give you advice for a reason, perhaps in the future you’ll better appreciate that.

Multimedia

Flash. Some of you are WAY behind. You should be finishing up with Assignment 3 by the end of the weel or even further. Those of you still behind, you need to come in extra or you will not like your quarter grade. Remember, you must have a working Flash Portfolio Website by the end of the 3rd quarter.

Video Production

Finish up your company profiles. Make sure your interviews are :30 seconds, they have lower third titles, and there is background music created in Garageband. Remember each person is responsible for editing the video for the person that they interviewed and scoring their own music. Also, you must have a company website created in iWeb with a page for each team member.

All classes are struggling to learn new and challenging things at the moment. Freshman in New Media are learning the Pen Tool, the hardest thing we do in New Media. Multimedia students are entering the third week of Flash, again, the hardest thing we do in class. And finally the new Video Production class is getting hammered with all kinds of information at once to make their first video project.

Don’t let the frustration of learning something new keep you from succeeding. Success doesn’t come easy.

New Media

As you finish the pen tool exercises and get check off on the maze, you will be beginning the first major project in class. The illustrated self portrait. You will take a picture of yourself and using Illustrator turn it into a vectorized illustration.

Before you begin you must set up the color space and other preferences for the Adobe suite. We will be setting up the color space a bit differently to what you would see in a professional print shop in order for our designs to look best on the equipment we have in class. Please setup your color space and change your preferences and settings.

Multimedia Design

Has Flash given you its best shot? Are you still standing? Good. These first few weeks of Flash are challenging. It takes a lot of work to learn small things. You will start to piece it together into larger assignments in the coming weeks. You should be finishing assignment two and starting the tutorials for assignment three. Remember, I expect a completed Flash Website at the end of the third quarter.

Video TV Production

Many of you either weren’t paying attention when I discussed the lab rules or you didn’t read the class syllabus. PLAYING GAMES IN THE MAC LAB IS NO, NO. This isn’t a free time class. You will fail. Also, this isn’t a class where you can be tardy and absent. This is a production class. If you aren’t here, you can’t produce. And your grade will suffer accordingly. I can’t stress this enough, IF YOU ARE LATE AND MISS CLASS YOUR GRADE WILL BE SEVERELY AFFECTED.

We will be starting to shoot footage outside of class. This is not a time to wander around campus. You are representing the whole class when you are out in the field. You may disrespect yourself, but you will not disrespect me and the other students in the class. If I get a report of you doing anything other than participating in the filming process, you will be grounded from leaving the classroom. Instead you will do exciting book work, quizzes, and tests for the rest of the semester. Filming and using the equipment is a privilege, not a right.

We will be completing the Video Only (12 Basic Shots) assignment this week and viewing/critiquing in class on Friday. Pay close attention to the requirements on the project page.

New semester, fresh start. Those of you that dug yourself a deep hole last semester that was hard to get off, don’t fall into that trap again. You know the expectations in the class. Don’t let your participation score get out of hand. Don’t fall behind on your projects. Anybody can do well in the Mac Lab, especially with a strong start.

New Media

You should have your folders set up properly (Make sure you are saving things in the right spot). You should have your quilt finished. So . . . what is next? The mightiest sword in graphic design, the infamous Pen Tool. The pen tool is the most challenging tool we learn in this class. It will take time to master (weeks), but once you have it you can create great things.

Start with the Pen Tool Exercises on the Illustrator tutorials page. You only need to do exercises 1 and 4. However, I expect exercise 4 to be perfect, You will have to do it multiple times until you master it. Things to look for: 1) Is it all one line?, 2) Did you use as few points as possible (bezier curves)? Once you have mastered the maze, you will start the first big project of the class . . . an illustrated self-portrait. Will yours make the wall of fame?

Multimedia Design

The journey into Flash continues. Have the constant crashes tested your patience? Have you figured out a workaround (HINT: couldn’t you copy and save some additional code into “over_state” to use over and over again?) You should have five working buttons completed for the first assignment and well on your way to contemplating assignment 2.

Video Production

Do we get to film yet? Soon my young padawan. First , have passed the equipment test? Next, do you know the 12 Basic Shots? Cinematography (shot composition) is key to telling an interesting visual story. In our first hands on project you will work in your production teams to create a 60 second, visual only (no audio, no effects, etc.), story using the 12 Basic Shots. Your story should show fear and create suspense. Before you begin, have I checked off on your storyboard? No filming until your storyboard is cleared by me!

Resources: Cinematography Presentation | Storyboarding

Assignments: Video Only (12 Shots)

Homework: Create a professional e-mail account using Gmail. Gmail only. Try as close to possible to make it: first.last@gmail.com (or first.mi.last@gmail.com). You likely already have an e-mail account, but as you become adults you need a professional e-mail for resumes, college applications, scholarships, etc. iLoveBigButts94@hotmail.com will not work.

I also suggest having more than one e-mail. Your professional e-mail for the stuff mentioned above and possibly family members and close friends. Plus, an e-mail for junk/spam. You want a separate junk account for every time you sign up for something (message board, store, free whatever, etc.).

After you have created your professional e-mail account using Gmail, send me an e-mail:

1. Subject: Video Production – Your Name E-mail (i.e. Video Production – Ryan Hayes’s E-mail)
2. Body: What do you want to get out of this class?