Group Video Project Reflection

I believe that the biggest contributor to our group’s success is our good working relationship. We have worked together before, and we make a good team. We each bring different skills to the team, are patient, and have a commitment to superior work.

One of the first things we did was create a new Google site to house our project plans and upload new content. It was divided up by week. We pasted all the content from each assignment onto its corresponding page, and updated it as we met. We typically meet on Google Wave. It allows everyone the opportunity to contribute and lets us keep a clear record of our plans.

We live in different parts of the state (far west, central, piney woods), so Google sites and Wave are indispensable tools for us. Since Alicia is the film expert, she took the lead on planning shots and handled the final edits. I have a background in writing, so I created the script outline and edited everyone’s contributions. Julie is the artist, so she created our storyboards and talked us through the plans.

We made all of our own content and did not hire actors, so we did not have to worry about copyright infringement. We did a thorough job, so nothing sticks out as a way we might have improved the public service announcement. It occurred to me after it was complete that it might have been interesting for us all to make a PSA from the same raw footage/script, to see how it turns out. But I do not believe that anything I would have made could top what Alicia did.

Don't Text, Don't Drive

Don't Text, Don't Drive by Alicia Brooks, Laura Hearnsberger, Julie Perez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Value of a Web Conference

Web conferences can be a great way to meet with others face to face when time or distance constraints make meeting in person difficult.

To be beneficial, it is important that certain rules be followed, just like at a traditional meeting.

The most important one, to me, is posting an agenda before the conference begins, and sticking to it. I have learned things at our Web conferences, but I feel like most of the time is spent troubleshooting. Since everyone is logged in as a presenter, anyone can mess up the view settings for everyone.

I do anticipate that our Web conferences will improve over time, and it is nice to be able to just go back and skim the notes. It saves time and is an invaluable resource.

How to Make a Simple iMovie

How to Make a Simple iMovie by Laura Hearnsberger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Windows Live Movie Maker vs. Apple iMovie

I have a limited background in movie editing. I purchased a *MacBook Pro in June that came equipped with iMovie. I have tinkered with it, making a few how-to videos from screen recordings, but I still feel like a novice. I frequently revisit Apple’s help site and YouTube tutorials.

For this assignment, I downloaded Windows Live Movie Maker to our family PC for comparison.

Because of my dubious credentials, I decided to focus on each program's value from the perspective of a teacher. I first made a list of things I felt a teacher would be most concerned with: cost, flexibility for imports and exports, functionality, and ease of use.

CostWhile both are considered “free,” it is only true for Windows Live Movie Maker. iMovie came with my Mac as part of iLife, but this software suite costs $79 ($71 for NBISD employees at Apple’s Web site). The least expensive Mac computer costs $949 with the educator discount (MacBook - Intel Core 2 Duo/13” Display/2GB Memory/250GB Hard Drive/Mac OS X Snow Leopard + iLife). A comparable PC from BestBuy (no educator discount) costs $719.99 (Toshiba - Satellite Laptop/Intel i5 Processor/14” Display/4GB Memory/500GB Hard Drive/Windows 7). That $200 difference adds up when making purchases for a whole school. Based on price, Windows Live Movie Maker beats iMovie.

FlexibilityBoth iMovie and Live Movie Maker can import video from cameras and movie files already on the computer. A movie filmed with my iPhone 3G easily worked in both. This is important, because many teachers who want students to use video editing software will not have time to troubleshoot file extensions. iMovie would not import the WMV sample video I took from the PC library, but Live Movie Maker was able to import QuickTime files from the Mac.

Exporting to multiple formats, including YouTube, DVD, and HD movie files (WMV on PC, QuickTime for Mac) was equally easy on both programs.

FunctionalityiMovie has a steeper learning curve, but neither program is too difficult to start using almost immediately. It is possible that I am judging iMovie more harshly because I had no video editing experience prior to using it. The Live Movie Maker interface is simple and easy to understand, but it does not allow for as much advanced editing as iMovie.

One feature that I particularly like about iMovie is the ability to preview individual frames in sequence while editing. At first, it appears that Live Movie Maker has the same capability, but it does not. You see the same frame repeated, not a preview.

Both programs have the ability to automatically turn imported audio and video into a movie, including adding transitions, a beginning and an ending. It is called “AutoMovie” in Live Movie Maker and “Themes” in iMovie. iMovie’s themes offer more variety.

Ease of UseAs a recent Mac convert, I have noticed a trend throughout the Mac platform: Mac stuff works great together. Pictures can be taken in PhotoBooth, edited in iPhoto, and uploaded into iMovie with ease. Problems sometimes arise when using files formatted on a PC (like a WMV). If you intend for all work to be done on the same computer (which is logical for movie-making), Mac cannot be beat.

*The MacBook Pro I purchased in June was my first non-PC, so I am still “PC-oriented” for the most part.

References

Apple education store. (2010, September). Retrieved from http://store.apple.com/us-k12

BestBuy. (2010, September). Retrieved from http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=-1848909986048795109&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=1006408&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960