Week 2 Reflection

Last week was a good week. By that, I mean that I was able to complete my research and I have learned so much from it, more than I had expected. Before this project, I hadn't thought too much about how diverse the ideas on apathy and society were. I went into this project with a pre-existing idea of why I thought apathy existed, how affected people, what to do etc. I honestly thought that most of the research that I was going to do would just confirm or reinforce the ideas that I had already thought of myself. I was shocked when I heard or read some of the completely different ideas were out there. Not to say that I completely agree with all of them, but I think that this research has helped me to remember to have an open mind of the different ideas and theories of other people. Hearing some of these ideas that were contrasting to mine also helped me to rethink why I believed in what I believed in and to consider different points of view.

My main task for this week has been to work on the video. Upon my first look at after effects, I was a little bit intimidated by all of the different buttons and gadgets that were available to me. I tried a number of different methods when it came to learning how to use it, but I found that the best way for me was to simply practice and try things out. My main "teacher" for this editor (After Effects) was assorted Youtube clips with step by step instructions on how to do things as well as different variations and approaches to different techniques. I found that as I learned new things, I had a lot more fun doing my video.

     I think that the hardest part of making the video is just figuring out what to put in the video itself. I used cue cards to map out all of the possible scenes and then organized, added, and deleted cards as I saw the need to. I tried to incorporate all of my research on apathy and leadership into the video, but it was pretty difficult! I had some challenges deciding what was best to keep and what I shouldn't. I think that my indecisiveness came mostly from my desire to make the video the best that it can possible be. While it isn't a bad thing to take your time to make decisions, I think that there is a certain point when you need to draw the line and decide. In the end, I came up with a video outline that I think delivers my message well, even if it is a little bit cheesy ;)

Now, I am working on the animating of the video. While it has not been too difficult, it is very time consuming. I think that I need to be careful to manage my time wisely so that I will have time to complete it well.