Day 59 - May Analysis and June Plans

What I learned this month:
This month, I got a lot of stuff done. I only focused on one thing this month and that is my English Project for "The Cellist of Sarajevo." I got to do anything I wanted for this project but I chose to mix and match with my courses and decided to get double credit. I chose to combine it with my Info-tech class because I wanted to learn new things in Sony Vegas because that's what my Independent Studies course is on.

I learned a lot this month, especially about keyframes! I animated so much this month that it's become second nature to me to go to the "Event Pan/Crop" section and start animating away. This is something that will definitely come in handy when I make Youtube videos. I never used this feature because I was too lazy to learn it while making videos so I decided to do it for the Cellist assignment and oh boy did I learn a lot.

I learned how to keyframing works and what you need to do to make it move. I learned that if you want something to move later on in its lifetime, you need to make it stand still first and then move on to it later. I also learned how to resize, how to inverse and all that fun stuff. Learning about maintaining aspect ratio really helped as well. It taught things about pictures and how they need to be checked off in the settings to fit the video.

The most important thing I learned this month, in my opinion, was a life lesson about managing time. I was very condensed for time in that I had AP calculus earlier this month and I had to manage my time for all my classes. I believe that I did a decent job in managing time for this class even though I really couldn't get to it in the first half of the month due to wanting a break from all the school. However, I counted out the days and I knew that I needed to hurry it up so I definitely managed my time well in that aspect. You can look at my blog and I got the exact number of days I needed which is 19.

I do believe that I learned a lot this month not just for IT but also learning life lessons. This course is also tough when trying to go for a perfect mark and it's even harder when you're not doing it in a class but doing it outside of one. I have to do it alone and I believe this has taught me how to manage my time and not to procrastinate.I've worked very hard on these posts and I hope it shows.
What I plan to learn next month:
Next month I plan to be on top of things. I have graduation ceremonies, prom, etc. in the next few days so I plan to not do anything for the next days but I will definitely make up for it on the weekend. This next month, I plan to finish up "The Cellist of Sarajevo" assignment in probably 4-5 posts. Then, I want to make a montage and have that be my final project for this class. I haven't waited all this time for nothing and I believe having two final projects is a good thing on this blog. I plan to learn how to make a montage in general. I am not going for a specific tutorial because I do not have a whole lot of time but I plan to make it good and interesting. This is going to be  my first montage that I am creating so hopefully in the future, I will have a lot more experience with it. I want this to be good and I will most likely upload it to my youtube channel because that's what this blog started out as and that's how it's going to end. This may be my last monthly post but I'm not 100% sure it is. I will definitely end this blog summarizing everything I've done on this blog. It's going to be a fun ride. See ya soon. :D
- Jimmy

Day 58 - Sony Vegas - English Project (26) - Dragan's Motivation

What I did:
Today, I finished Dragan's next chapter which also involved a car. This time it pauses and picks up Emina and goes on forward. I made Dragan move back and forward to show that he's thinking. This is a major chapter for Dragan in that he learns a lot about himself and what he wants to do next. This chapter leads him to make the decision that he needs to pull the man in the hat off the streets in the few chapters. It shows how much this war is affecting him and that's the reason I wanted to do this.

What I learned:
Today, I didn't learn much but it's coming toward the end of the month and I've already done this a thousand times so I hope this won't make me lose marks and I know it probably won't. What I did learn was that the maintaining aspect ratio also affects the tops and bottoms of the image. It happened with the car but when I put it in the composition and tried to move it down, it started to disappear because I didn't check "maintain aspect ratio." That's what I learned today.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to make the May analysis post. I plan to talk about what I've learned and what I plan to learn in the future. That is my goal for tomorrow's class. I will go into detail about what my plans are.

Time: 50 minutes

Day 57 - Sony Vegas - English Project (25) - Kenan's 3 types of people of the round table

What I did:
Today, I made the last biggest chapter in the book or at least what I would say is the biggest chapter. I created Kenan at a broken building trying to get water and I also had a few people there that died from the explosion. I also added something new to this and that was a car. I had the car drive into the screen, have a guy get out, then get in and leave again. I also had made the screen shake when the explosions were happening to show the effect of them.

What I learned:
Today, I learned about the tinting and adding it to a flash. After you go to flash transition second, click yellow flash and you have the ability to change the flash to a different colour through the tint option. You can make it black for a fade effect or blue for an airplane going into the sky effect but I stuck with yellow because that's the colour of the explosion. I also learned that you have to keep in the margins of the "Event Pan/Crop" section if you are making something go up and down because if your thing isn't in the margins, then it will show black instead.

What I plan to learn in the future:
Tomorrow, I plan to do the next chapter in the book. We are finally done chapter two of the book and we can move onto the rest of it. I plan to do most of Chapter 3 over the weekend and not really document all of it since it's not as important as the first 2 chapters. I will highlight the rest of it though. Tomorrow, I plan to do the next chapter and hopefully learn one last thing which I do not know about before the monthly post I make. 

Time: 1 1/2 hours

Day 56 - Sony Vegas - English Project (24) - Arrow's Job is done

What I did:
So, I actually didn't realize that Arrow's big chapter is right before  Kenan's so right that's what I created today instead of doing Kenan's. He will be next day. Today, I created the epic scene of the Arrow taking down the enemy sniper. This involved me switching backdrops 3 different times. It starts with the Cellist. Then goes to Nermin. Then finally back to the Cellist. This was just time-consuming but it's one of the 3 biggest chapters in the book so it's expected. I also created another death so that was fun. 

What I learned:
Today, I learned something that I've been really curious about for a long time. I've always wondered how many YouTubers add the zoom in effect for one second and immediately zoom out for the rest of the video. It's used for comedic effect and I've always wondered how to do it. Today, I learned that they use keyframes. Basically what you do is split the clip where you want it zoomed in and then split it again where you want it to go back to normal. Then, you take the split part and you go to the keyframe section and zoom it into where you want it zoomed. Then you have your zoom in effect!

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow is the day I plan to do Kenan's thing. I know I said this yesterday but tomorrow is actually the day where I do Kenan's story. It will involve a new explosion that I plan to learn so that's my goal for tomorrow. I will also learn how to add sound effects and etc. I want this to be done perfectly. This is the last biggest chapter of the story and after this, everything should be shorter. I should be cruising in the next few days. 

Time: 1 1/4 hours

Day 55 - Sony Vegas - English Project (23) - Rip In Peace, Cat in the HAT

What I did:
So, today, I made Dragan's most important chapter and this chapter involves death and people getting shot. I made a bunch of people run across the screen and some of them got shot so they would get turned to one side. I did not add the hat falling off the guy yet because I haven't created the sprite with the guy without the hat. yet but I will do that on my own time because it truly isn't anything urgent right now. I also viewed my rendering of the 8-minute video yesterday. I did this because I wanted to test out if it rendered properly and behold, it does. :D There have been times where it hasn't rendered and hopefully everything goes well. I would like to finish this project a few days before the due date because I want to see how the whole product looks.

What I learned:
Today, I learned that if you're in the "Event Pan/Crop" section, the timing at the markers does mean anything and that the program can be giving you a wrong time. What I'm saying is that, when you enter the keyframe section, it has time milestones in the timeline but those milestones don't represent that time at all. I learned that if you want the exact time, look in the bottom right corner of that tab and precisely put your thing in that place.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to create Kenan's most major chapter. Today, I finished Dragan's most major chapter and tomorrow is Kenan's. It involves explosions and cars so that should something new that I work on. I will definitely learn something about explosions tomorrow. Whether that involves making an explosion tomorrow or just making a different kind of flash but that is my goal for tomorrow's class.

Time: 1 1/2 hours

Day 54 - Sony Vegas - English Project (22) - Kenan is still on his stroll + Render Test

What I did:
Today, I made Kenan's next chapter which wasn't very action packed. The main thing that happened was him crossing the bridge. There wasn't much that I had to do that I haven't done before other than adding in some characters and moving them. From here on out, we are more than 50% done the story. I also learned some keyframe things today which can help a lot in the future. I am also becoming very comfortable with keyframes and animating. Practice makes perfect.

What I learned:
Today, I learned something new about keyframing. This could've been learned many classes ago but I wasn't that familiar with keyframing so I didn't really know much. Basically, if you put a keyframe somewhere, and you go to the composition to see what the effect is, if you're not on the exact spot the keyframe is, it will not show you the final position of the object. This has messed me up multiple times because I always go to the middle rather than the end so when I apply the keyframe, the character might be off the screen and that's how I want it. That's what I learned today.

What I plan to learn tomorrow:
Tomorrow, I plan to learn about the timing thing in the keyframe section. It's basically how the timing works in that section. I can explain more tomorrow. I plan to create the biggest chapter of Dragan tomorrow. It's the part where Emina gets shot and it basically shapes the rest of Dragan's story arc. That is my goal for tomorrow. I will also explain the results of the render test. 

Time: 1 Hour

Day 53 - Sony Vegas - English Project (21) - Arrow's Resolve

What I did:

Today, I finished another one of the longest chapters in the book which is Arrow's chapter in which she must protect the Cellist. I did a lot of stuff for this chapter. I added an extra gun, inverted it and made it shoot at arrow while the cellist is performing. I also gave the cello of the Cellist a moving up and down effect to make it show that he's playing. After Arrow gets shot, I made her turn to her side because she noticed that she was going to get shot at and immediately ducked. Then, I ended the chapter. It may not seem like a lot but a lot of effort went into this one especially. 

What I learned:

Today, I learned about inverting an image.What I'm talking about is making the object face the other way. For example, The gun that arrow uses is facing the to right but I can now make it face to the left by inverting it. This is pretty easy to do in photoshop and it's also pretty easy to do in Sony Vegas. To do this in Sony Vegas, you have to go to the "Event Pan/Crop" section and put completely go to the arrow's and click on one side, and bring it in towards the middle and out again to make it face the other way. It's really quite simple!

What I plan to learn tomorrow:

Tomorrow, I plan to continue to with this cellist stuff and hopefully finish Kenan's next chapter. It is a pretty short chapter and doesn't have much in it. There isn't anything new to learn tomorrow but like I said, I always find something so hopefully, we will. Right now, I am about under 50% done with the book so we should be wrapping things up here in the next few chapters. Then, I plan to refine the whole project. 

Time: 1 3/4 hours