Picture Story

Long Time Coming: The 30-Day Job Profile

Posted by Ivy

Our last two assignments in Picture Story are the video job profile and the 30-Day Story. I give to you now the 30-Day Job Profile (I also did the 30-Day Character Profile earlier this semester), which has been in the works since the second week of October. I wish I could just submit this for the actual end-of-term project, since it’s been a real marathon trying to find a subject who’ll stay with the project…but oh well.

Here is a story about a team of ocularists (people who make artificial eyes) in St. Louis. I hope it manages to showcase without being boring, and if it IS boring, please tell me so I can make it better. As always, making the final project better is the ultimate goal.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B7aLuA6sSQ]

More on this whole profile saga is under the cut, as I’m guessing people don’t want to read my ramblings-on.

Continue reading →

Character Profile: Re-Edit

Posted by Ivy

We got to re-edit our character profiles in FinalCut, which gave me a chance to go back and clean up all of my terrible audio from the first go-around. It’s still far from perfect, but wayyy better than before. I had two more shoots to incorporate into the profile, one of which was an all-day affair (see previous post), which made for an interesting re-edit since I was trying to keep the basic narrative the same. Here’s hoping it worked okay.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDLi2j0gVGM]

I'm with the Band: Greater STL Marching Festival, part two

Posted by Ivy

I should be working on my thesis prospectus right now, but there’s nothing like a paper to make you decide to catch up on blogging.

As the previous post said, I spent yesterday at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis following my Character Profile subjects (all 120+ of them) through the paces of performing at a band festival. Theoretically the photos I took would be incorporated into my Picture Story multimedia piece, but that’s going to need some serious re-editing in order to fit in the additional element of festival competitions. We’ll see if I have time to pull that off (again, that thesis prospectus…). In the meantime, here’s a visual summary of (almost) everything that happened yesterday.

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20091024_0364_webSilhouettes. I couldn’t help it.

20091024_0258_edit_webFor better or worse, I don’t usually take photos like this. Let me know if you think it worked.

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20091024_0145_webHolding their certificate of recognition- but no trophy.

20091024_0157_webOne of the winning bands got to the parking lot at the same I did. I have to figure out which one! Argh.

Dispatch from the Greater St. Louis Marching Band Festival

Posted by Ivy

I haven’t had a chance to do more than a rough edit of my pictures from yesterday, when I went with the Hickman band to a marching festival in STL (in which the band placed a quarter-point out of trophy-level contention). Here’s one that, um, stood out a little from the others. I think there are at least three light sources competing for attention in this photo. 20091024_0396_edit_web

Picture Story: Character Profile first draft

Posted by Ivy

I can’t embed Soundslides files in WordPress (gah), but here is the link to my draft of the Character Profile. The audio is pretty wretched (I was trying to make the recording levels of five different recording situations actually work together…they didn’t), but please please watch and tell me what you think! I get to rework it into a FinalCut show in the next month, so any and all feedback would be much appreciated.

The Soundslides file is here (it’ll open in a new window).

Also, a couple of images that didn’t really fit into the final audio narrative:

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Strawberry shortcake, gooseberry pie: The Hickman Marching Band

Posted by Ivy

These are some stills from the Character Profile I’m working on for Picture Story. My “character” is the Hickman High School marching band (I wanted to follow a drum major around, but Rita suggested just going with the whole group. Much better!), which is made up of some 120 people, including the color guard, and which currently has a better record in competition than the actual football team does.

My high school didn’t have a marching band, so most of what I already knew about band kids came from my best friend, who was a trumpet/tuba player all through high school–in Florida, where football and band are at a tier just below Friday Night Lights level. I’ve been up at Hickman five times in the past week, and can safely say that these musicians are hardcore. They’ve been simultaneously prepping for their Homecoming game (last night) and a marching festival, where they’ll be competing with other Missouri bands. Their field practices are at 6:30 in the morning, they have additional practices during actual band class and for two hours in the evening during a game week, they have to know their routines and their music cold, and on top of that, there’s the whole schoolwork thing. As one of the drum majors told me, it’s a lifestyle. I’m impressed.

20091007_0050_edit_webWarming up during morning field practice.

20091007_0082_editIt’s cold.

20091011_0383_webWoodwinds during indoor practice

20091009_0331_webFourth quarter of the Homecoming game (Hickman won).

20091009_0349_webI have yet to hunt down everybody’s name…but the toddler is one of the band director’s daughters. Awww.

20091009_0246_webGoing out for the halftime show during Homecoming.

20091011_0426_webWaiting for the buses to the band festival to load. Scant rest for the weary.