NJCasey’s blog

Here is the interview our class did with author Eric Goodman.

Here is our class' anti-drug psa.  

Here's our class' first PSA.

            I think I learned more in this class than in any other class that I have taken so far at Loyola.  The big reason for this is that the whole class had to work together in order to be successful.  Initially, Doc Chris split us into two groups and told us that each group needed to have certain projects done by the end of the semester.  Our first group projects were the interviews that we did with Eric Goodman and Fred Glueckstein.  For these interviews, the whole class decided to work together in order to be quick and efficient with the pre-production, production, and post-production processes.  By doing this, we learned what each others’ strengths and weaknesses were, and we decided to work as one group for the rest of the semester in order to use these strengths to our advantage.  Doc Chris was a great professor.  He did not go into great detail teaching us about the cameras, Final Cut, or little technical things.  Instead, he taught us the importance of teamwork in the video production field, and that is something that I believe most of my classmates will carry with them for a long time.

            I was a big fan of the internship program as part of this class.  I have always believed that a person can’t learn inside of a classroom.  The internship program got us out of the classroom and into the studio.  It is during my 30 intern hours that I learned about the cameras and about Final Cut with the help of Jay, Steve, and Eric.  I was able to take what I learned from my intern hours and apply it to our in-class projects.  Because of the work that I did as an intern, I was made the Director of Videography on the Auxiliary board for WLOY TV.   I also volunteered to be a mentor for next semester’s interns so I can teach them what I learned from my experience in this class.

            The only suggestion that I would have to improve this class is for there to be more projects.  We got started with ours a little late in the semester, so it limited our ability to get as much practice in the production field as possible.  I think if more time as spent working on projects and less time was spent reviewing the basics, students would be more satisfied with the class. 

Here are some pictures from our two in-class interview shoots.

I have been named the Director of Videography on the WLOY auxiliary board!

The internship program has been a very educational experience for me.  I have gained experience using the different cameras during this time, and I feel that these internship hours have been productive ones.  I’ve spent most of my time working on the video tour of the dorm rooms for the school.  The school requested that WLOY put together a video tour of the different freshman dorms to put on the internet for prospective students.  I have laid out what needs to be filmed and highlights in this tour, and I have gone out on campus and gotten shots of the exteriors of the dorms as well as other buildings around campus.  I also spent some of my internship hours filming a Loyola Women’s Soccer game.  This was also an educational experience for me.  I got to shoot with a different kind of camera and I learned how the television studio goes about filming sporting events.

            The video production class has also been an educational experience for me.  Dr. Heidelberg clearly has much experience in the field, and he tries to teach us through his experience while keeping the class upbeat and entertaining.  A lot of what we do in class is being done through facebook and youtube as a way for Dr. Heidelberg to teach us about new ways that media is reaching the mass public.  We have also already done some projects for the class.  We shot a long-take and began shooting our PSAs for the class.  We have also spent a lot of time preparing for our pilots.  If I had one suggestion for the class it would be to spend more time actually learning how to use the cameras and programs such as Final Cut.  We have spent a lot of time on pre-production, but not enough of production and post-production yet.