IPOL IS TOMORROW My Internship Presentation of Learning is tomorrow. Here are the slides and some captions to get a glimpse about what I'm going to talk about.
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POL Section 2—Your ideas about life outside of high school. You will be putting together yesterday's and today's entry as your TPOL on FRIDAY. While working at Brandetize, I've developed and appreciation for two things I never really use to do: making a project plan and making goals. In my (almost) 6 years of High Tech schooling, I've done so many project plans. However, the only reason why I did that was for the grade and so I'd have something to talk about during my POL at the end of every year. After making the project plan I would never use it, either I didn't want to take the time to update the plan or I just didn't like the direction the plan was heading and had a different idea in mind. Being at Brandetize has made me realize the importance of planing out a project process instead of diving head first into it. Project planning allows you to fully see the project and the problems that might be caused during it, before it even happens. Allows me, as the person making the project, to fully understand the route I'm going to get to the end I need, instead of seeing the end I want and taking the hard route towards it.
As for the goal making, I've always known how important it was. But I would never make goals worth while because I didn't know what a good goal was, so the only goal I made was the unoriginal "get good grades" goal. Now don't get me wrong that's a great goal that every student should be achieving, however it's just not personal at all. I've always wanted a goal specific to me, but I never really gave them much thought because I've always done one of two things: either doubt that I'd be able to achieve the goal, or I just couldn't come up with a good goal period. Being at Brandetize where everyone takes goal setting so seriously is very inspiring, and creates hope for me to say "yes I can" and "I will". Recently, we listened to a Brian Tracy podcast about goal setting and he said something that really settled with me. There are many reasons why I love the people that work here, but I think the main reason would have to be because of how the want to learn is so great in everyone. I appreciate how every single person here is so open to new ideas, they're open to learning things out of their comfort zone and so willing to help anyone and everyone. It's amazing. The community that has been built here is extraordinary. I think the world would be a better place if we had more people who set goals, thought about things before doing them and if we all just loved to learn. Being at Brandetize has refreshed my drive to go after my preferred future career of being a movie producer. Before internship, I was really scared and very confused on how to take my first steps. I knew what I wanted to do, I just didn't know how to get there at all. I didn't know if school was teaching me the right things I needed to know. I was all over the place and losing confidence in my abilities by the second. After being here and learning the ropes, of post production and realizing the effort it takes to edit film I have a newfound understanding of this industry. Being able to create this video and have people like it, gave me the okay to be like "okay, this isn't so bad... I can actually do this", that's the best push I could've ever gotten. My confidence in my abilities is gaining and I think I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be. Although Brandetize is an amazing place to be and work, digital marketing isn't the route I want to take for my future. I know the entertainment business is super cutthroat, so if I go put my all into it and am still not able to make my mark I'll definitely reconsider digital marketing. Honestly, working at Brandetize and collaborating with people feels the same as collaborating with people at school for a project. However, the difference is that every problem has a simple solution, at school it's a struggle to get on the same page as people sometimes. For example, in the original video I captured footage of the "Our Clients" wall, Kyle didn't like it but Aaron did. Kyle didn't like it because in the final video there would be words over it and you wouldn't be able to read the wall, plus the video is suppose to showcase the Brandetize company and their culture the video shouldn't have the clients in it. Aaron said Brandetize is a company that works with people to help them with their social media, plus potential clients will also be watching this video so it should showcase how much Brandetize cares about their customers. Both valid reasons for why the footage should and shouldn't be shown. I solved the problem by adding in actual footage of the clients themselves and showing the company working with them and took out the footage of the wall. The clients are still in the video and the writing is out. Simple. At school you'd be lucky to find a simple solution. Sometimes everyone is on completely different pages when it comes to projects so instead of fixing a problem that comes up, we scratch it and come up with a new plan that doesn't solve the problem and ends up creating three more problems. Don't get me wrong there are times where projects run smoothly, but more times than not it's hard to conform to everybody's ideas. POL Section 1—Your work as an intern In preparation for your Internship POL this Friday, the next few blog posts will support me in putting together my POL. Reflect about your internship experience and project(s). Be descriptive and display evidence(s) for your answers. Before internship started I told my mentor the one goal I wanted to accomplish: I wanted to learn how to do everything that production does behind the scenes, (camera footage, storyboarding, editing, scriptwriting, brainstorm workshops, etc.). My mentor and I worked on a plan that would allow me to accomplish most of the aspects of my goal. We sat down and started brainstorming what I knew how to do and what I didn't and we blocked out time for practice. The re-designing of the Brandetize website was a current task set up in the company's asana and one component of the redesigned website was a promo background video. My mentor and I came to an agreement that, my project would be to make that promo video for the website. In asana, we started listing exactly what the project process would look like, and what exactly I'd be doing. That evidence is shown in the picture below. I'm so sad internship is coming to an end. I really enjoy it here, I'm definitely going to think about coming back to work here later in life. While being here I feel like I've done a lot, or at least everything I've been asked to do. My project was to create a 90 second promo video about the Brandetize company and the culture that is set here. While waiting for footage to be shot, I helped my mentor with some of his work for their client's, Brian Tracy, youtube channel. Brian Tracy is one of Brandetize's big time clients, so I was honored to be apart of that project. I was able to help take a load off of my mentor's shoulders and I was able to produce a nice product able to be showcased to Mr.Tracy's subscribers.
I'm so glad I was able to get the internship here. I've learned to really appreciate goal setting and project planning. I've been told numerous amounts of times in my life how important goal setting is and how one achieved goal can open doors to many different ways of life, but until I was immersed in an environment where I actually see goal setting being done, how serious everyone takes it, and just being forced into that lifestyle was awe inspiring. It made me feel like anything could happen, and that my biggest dreams can come true as long as I work towards them. Before this Internship, I never truly took the time to seriously project plan anything, research anything, or brainstorm anything. I always thought that what comes to mind and what looks good now, (as long as the majority agrees), should be what's done. Being at Brandetize has made me realize how much easier it is to have a plan. Yes, it might take a lot of work to begin with, and may seem like your project is being postponed but honestly it's so worth it. It makes life a whole lot easier seeing your vision and contemplating your plan, before you start working towards it and realize the plan actually sucks. Brandetize has definitely given me insight on the behind the scenes part of showbiz. It's amazing all the work that gets put in, to make things look great. Also working here made me realize that saying "We'll fix it in post" is a horrible, absolutely terrible thing to assume. Yes, you can work magic in post production, but you can't create miracles. I learned this when I accidentally over exposed some valuable footage. We tried our hardest to salvage it, but we couldn't the shots were terrible and there was no coming back. This taught me to never rely on movie magic, always try to get the best shot possible so that way there's not too much that needs to be done with it. Your project can move smoother and can run more efficiently. Being at Brandetize really made me truly understand, the work that goes into production. Now the job that I'm doing now is not exactly the job I want as a career, but the insight I've gotten is just the thing I needed to get me to where I want to go, that is being a multi-millionare producer. Being here has strengthened my hunger to shoot for the stars, it's allowed me to understand the effort and how much can really be done to a piece of footage. This is a milestone in my life's journey to being the person I ultimately want to be. If there's only one thing I could leave at Brandetize, it would be a thank you, because without this experience I'd still be lost with how to start. Being here has been so amazing, saying goodbye is going to be really hard. I hope it doesn't have to be goodbye forever. There's Only One More Week Left What other elements from your internship experience can teachers LOGICALLY replicate in our classrooms? And give applicable ideas that teachers can do. What new skills and/or perspective are you going to bring into your student practice to improve your academic performance? I'm so sad internship is almost over, I absolutely love it here. The adjustment over to this work force wasn't so hard because the work day reminds me of project work time at school, however, I feel the transition back into school life is going to be really hard. While I've been here at Brandetize, the purchase of a gong was made. Every time someone finishes a goal, they cross it off the list, hit the gong and the office has a small celebration. Having something (OTHER THAN GRADES) that rewards the student on their work, so that way it's not just doing something to get a grade, it's doing something to feel good about it at the end. A skill I've learned here that I'm going to continue with in my student life, and personal life, is making goals. Here goal setting is a big thing, where everyone writes them and every one is encouraged to reach/achieve them. It's really helped me stay organized while I'm here, so it's most likely going to be something I stick with. Also another thing I want to take with me (that the school wont be able to do), are the special days the office has, Fun Fridays, Monthly Massages, and Monday Meetings. I'm going to name them something different for my own personal stuff, but I think two days out of the month to just relax and not care, and one day of the week to get myself organized will be a good program to better my experience as a student, and keep my spiritual and emotional self stable.
Leaving Commetary Read and comment on 3 other interns' blogs. Leave a comment on the other blogs, then write down the names of the Internship blogs and any takeaways that you may have from reading other internship experiences. Today I read the blogs written by my three best friends, Alexis, Taylor and Lizzy. Alexis is working at the California Innocence Project in the Western School of Law, Taylor is working in a fourth grade class at High Tech Elementary, and Lizzy is working in a Biomedical lab in UCSD. One thing I noticed is that they're all working at schools. I find that funny. Another thing that stood out to me way the fact that everyone really loves where they're at. Desk work, kids, science, it's not news to me because I already had an understanding of their interests, but it's very eye-opening to see just how much they love it and just how much effort they're willing to put into these fields because of the amount of joy they get from doing the work. It was great reading their blogs and see and being able to feel the happiness through their words. I'm excited to see where they go from here. I'm going to a have a doctor, a lawyer, and a teacher as friends. If you ask me that's pretty awesome. I'm proud of them and all the hard work they're doing.
What's Different? How different is it compared to school? Compare and contrast the work week with the school week. How are your responsibilities, work, interactions, and time different? How might internship influence the direction of your life? What can you bring from internship to who you are in school? There are a lot of things at Brandetize that are the same as school, I think that's why I'm able to adjust so quickly. The main difference here, is that I'm surrounded by adults 24/7, at school it's a lot of kids my age or around my age. Here they're all in their 20's some about to turn 30 maybe. Another thing that's different is the amount of time I'm able to spend doing a project. At school, it's usually 1-2 hours out of the day to work on a project, until the due date gets nearer and nearer where more project work time is given. At Brandetize, the whole day is given to do thing towards that one end project. First things due are what's gotten to, everything else wait's it's turn in line of priority. Other than that it's basically the same, instead of lectures I get tutorials, instead of appreciations on Friday we do shoutouts on Friday, instead of advisory we do Stand Up, instead of x-block we have Nerf Wars, massages, and fun Friday. The feeling of working here is very chill, even though there's a lot that needs to be done, it seems manageable and not stressful because of the relaxed environment. If you asked me why I think the environment is so relaxed I wouldn't know. It could be a the people, the culture, a mix of the two, I honestly don't know why I feel so not stressed... Actually I do, compared to school we have a strict deadline, we have projects that sometimes take too much time and effort that drain students instead of feeling the fun, and everything we do counts on our grade. There's so much pressure to do good because of the grade you could possibly get, that it puts people on edge. I know it puts me on edge, that's why I have to do good, I have to be perfect, I have to produce great work, because I want my grade to reflect that. Here there is no grades, here there's do good work because that's just what you do. Here there is no pressure, because people are here to help you along the way. Here there is no stress because there's no need to feel it, there's absolutely nothing that encourages that feeling of stress I feel when I'm at school.
Here I have very few responsibilities. The main responsibility is to finish this promo video for the website coming out. With that I have to do a lot of shooting, a lot of editing, and a lot of reshooting. Which is a lot of learning, but the people here encourage learning, and don't mind teaching a little so I don't feel stupid asking for help. The interactions between these my co-workers and my classmates are different because we talk about different things. Here they talk about adult stuff like taxes, health insurance, drinking, home owning. With my friends we talk about each other, when's the next time we're hanging out, what we're eat for lunch, other people. It's different but they're two different groups of people, it's explainable. The time is different because I get a little more time to sleep in. Instead of waking up at 5:30-6:00am to commute almost an hour to school that starts at 8:25am, I wake up at 6:30-7:00am to commute at most 15 minutes to work that starts at 9am, (I usually get here around 8:40). Since the main difference between work and school is stress, I don't know if I can bring anything, that'll change who I am at school. I work the same it's just the pressure is different, and that pressure at school is not going to go away, anytime soon. So I guess I just have to deal with it. The main reason why I like this internship so much is because I'm learning about a side of media I'm going to need knowledge about for what I want to be. I want to be a producer, any type of medium, entertainment related is fine. But in order to be at that spot, I need to work my way from the bottom, and this is information I'm going to need to quicken my scale up the wall of the entertainment work structure. Being here, definitely strengthened that drive for me to become the producer I want to be. What's Your Project All About? Describe what your project(s) is/are, the development of your project so far, include any links, documents, or photos about your project. Please also describe your next steps. Brandetize, the company that I work for, is a digital marketing company that doesn't just take control of making a website for a client, they take over the whole social media aspect of that client, from a website, to Youtube, even to Instagram and Twitter. For me my project was to do that on a extremely smaller scale. I'm making a promotional video for the new version of the website coming out soon. The original video is okay, but everybody at the company really want to change it. If you're a digital marketing firm, you need to have an amazing website in order to sell yourself. Today, I got the first rough draft of the video done, I'm pretty excited for that, especially since I knocked out the bulk of the work so quickly. My mentor said I have 90% of the video done, and for that 10% I need to reshoot, and play with the creativity a little more. He was very pleased when I had a close up of one of the guys' face, because those are the shots he was hoping to see. The reason I haven't gotten a lot of those shots is because, I don't know if I said this in the last blog but, I'm new and I don't want to bother people by pointing a camera in their face. Honestly though, being around them a little more, they probably don't care that I'm pointing a camera at them. Some times it's hard to get the shot that I want because I feel they think they have to be professional in front of the camera, but honestly I was looking for those candid, goofing around type shots. The process has been pretty simple. First: The very first thing I had to do was get organized, and do some research. In order to be organized, the company uses this website called "Asana" and it's an online to-do list that helps everyone involved stay up to date in what needs to be done and what needs to happen next. For research there's this other company called Digital Telepathy and they have a video that is really good. Everyone at the company likes it a lot and so I was told to study it and make a video about Brandetize that looked somewhat like that. Click the button that says "Digital Telepathy Website Video" to watch. When the website loads the video will start playing automatically. Second: I had to make a storyboard. My mentor told me "keep the story board simple and make sure it makes sense to you. Draw all the shots you want to include in the video, get it approved then move on." That was very difficult for me, because storyboarding and brainstorming like that is something that I'm not very good at. I like to be able to just jump into the project head first, and plan through working. However, in the business world that's unprofessional. I need to have a plan and be able to present it to the client to make sure it's what they want, or what they were going for. Below is a slide show of my story boards. Third: After the storyboards got approved, I was given a camera and let off the leash to explore. Before shoving a camera in everyone's face, I wanted to practice the shots that I need and the techniques I would need to obtain those shots, so in my workspace I was doing a lot of testing. A lot of playing with the camera, to test things I had recently learned about. When I ventured out of my little work zone, I started shooting the walls of the office, and the different rooms before actually capturing some shots of people. Fourth: Before I finished testing, the opportunity for some prime shots of a meeting came up, so I dropped what I was doing and got my first footage of people. The shots that I got were okay, but they had a lot of problems, so that's when my first questions to my mentor started. The footage that I was getting was really shaky and blurry, so I asked my mentor "How do you stop yourself from shaking and getting a video that's still and focused?" My mentor gave me some tips and tricks and from then on I was doing better. Some of my shots were still very shaky and out of focus, however, they were still usable for putting into a rough draft for the video. Fifth: After getting a good amount of shots, it was time to start importing them on to the computer and edit them into a video format. This is when I got a crash course in editing on a new software that I haven't used called Abode Premiere Pro. Premiere is an editing software that's better to use then Final Cut Pro, because it's more user friendly and all Adobe products are compatible so if I work on Adobe After Effects (which I have) I can just drag that project into my Premiere Pro project... Simple. Sixth: After doing all those other things I finally had a first rough draft, which I was talking about above. I showed it to Mike, my mentor, and Kyle, creator of the website, and they both liked it, but they did see how it could be better. After having that meeting and with the new confidence of just being the camera, I will be able to get more creative shots that will take the place of other filler shots, that way I'll have a more cohesive video.
I assume the very last part of this project is to edit the video to make all the footage look the same, export it, then put it on the website. Easier said than done, but so far this experience has been super fun. I'm enjoying every second of being here and I can't wait to see the very final product. Even though I'm excited for the end, I'm also extremely sad, because that would mean it's over. No more interning, that wouldn't be fun. Hopefully I can keep in contact with most of these people, I've grown fond of a lot of them. I will definitely remember this experience for the rest of my life, because this will officially be the start of what I want to be doing for the rest of my life.
So Where Do You Work? Describe the physical space you work in. Please also clearly indicate the days and hours you will be working at your site. *In addition: Take 5 pictures of your internship site and post them along with your description. I work at Brandetize, a digital marketing company located in Hillcrest. I've worked here for everyday from 9am to 5pm since January 5th, and will be ending my internship on January 29th. In order to get into work I have to take an elevator up to the fourth floor. Once stepping off the elevator you are in the lobby of the company. If you look slightly to the left you'll see the open office space that everyone works at. The first door right in front of the elevator when you get out is where I work. As soon as you walk through the door, you'll see that the room is all black except for the carpet, that's gray and the far wall that's painted green, (the green screen). You'll also see the lights set up facing the green screen. There are seven lights in total, two standing up, two screwed into the left and right walls, and three hanging from the ceiling, pointing from above. Behind my work station is another desk that has a black felt over it, a PC and a mac laptop. That PC is hooked up to the big camera/telecom that captures most of the footage shot in here, (those two things are shown in the photo if you look to the right of it). That set up is the main portion of the room that I work in. If you look to the right as soon as you walk through the door, you'll see a desk with a mac computer and cameras... That's my work space. Nothing fancy just a desk a mac and some cameras. When coming out of the elevator, take a slight left and walk straight to the back of the office area. You'll see a bar type standing table with the tall chairs around it, you'll see a microwave a sink and a whole bunch of cabinet space. This is the Kitchen. This is where the snacks are stored, this is where the dishes are washed, this is where the food can be refrigerated and heated up, and this is also where the crew has lunch. Whether you brought your food from home or, buy it at the market, this is where it's eaten. If you walk through the kitchen area you'll see a glass door. Through the glass door is a patio area that has a nice view of San Diego. This area is called the beach and is used for all purposes, if you want to work outside you can, if you want to eat you can, if you want to just relax you can do that to. This place is really for the benefit of whoever wants to be out there. It's Friday - Happy Friday!!! Journal freely about your First Friday at your internship. Today was such a great day. I'm so absolutely glad that I was able to get this internship! Today started like any normal day...
Morning I came out of the elevator, greeted my mentor then went to my workspace. But today was a little different, we had stand outs like usual, but instead of just saying what we were doing today, we also added a Shark Shoutout ("Shark" is a name thing they do at the company). I gave one to the guy who contacted me about getting an internship here, his name is Aaron. I would've shouted out my mentor too, but since at school appreciations are only done to one person, I thought that was the same thing. Turns out that's not a rule in shoutouts so when Stand Up was over and when shark of the week was chosen, I went over to my mentor and told him that I appreciated him too. From there I asked him about making a time-lapse. He told me the multiple ways to do it, but he also told me to go on youtube and search for a how to so I can set up the settings myself. So that was fun and simple. After the time-lapse was set up, I was able to go to my work space and work on editing some of the shots I had already shot the previous day. Lunch Lunch time rolled around and during the week a bunch of people went out to the market to go get lunch, today I wanted to record it. However, when I asked if they were going, they said they were going to a barbecue restaurant. Me still feeling like I'm just a sixteen year old intern I thought I wouldn't be allowed to go, so I said "okay" and started to walk away. Before I walked too far off, one of the guys asked me if I wanted to go and of course I wasn't going to turn him down, so I said yes let me grab my coat, (plus I didn't bring a lunch and I was hungry so I wasn't going to turn down an offer). I felt a little awkward because my mentor wasn't going, but Aaron was going so I thought it shouldn't be that bad. Honestly that lunch was so fun! The only person I actually knew was Aaron, but I wasn't sitting next to him. Good choice Dukes! I was able to sit next two of the guys I've previously worked with, (Kyle and Rico) and three colleagues I haven't really talked to yet, (Julie, Nick and Eirick) and I had a great time. Yes they were all adults, talking about adult things such as taxes and what not, but I didn't feel out of place. Where I could, I would pitch in the conversation and I felt like I was apart of this family. AND on top of all the awesomeness of the lunch itself Rob, another one of the co-workers, paid for me. It was absolutely great I couldn't have asked for a better time, especially for only being there for four days so far. Afternoon After getting settled down from the lunch, it was work time again. The time lapse that I had set up before leaving for lunch was done, so I took that down and brought it back to my station. I asked about how to input a time lapse into Adobe Premiere (the editing software I'm using) and Mike, my mentor, came in and taught me how to do that. But for some reason the camera had randomly done an automatic zoom every so often. With him being unsure about that too, we asked Aaron for help and he told us to input the time-lapse by making it into a video first using Adobe AfterEffects (another editing software I'm using). I asked him how to do that and he said Youtube it. Boom, just like that I was able to fix the problem. During this process I had a few more questions, but soon enough I was able to finish the editing for that part and start shooting for more footage. Before the lunch I was afraid to film the crew, because I didn't know how they'd react to a camera being shoved in their face, by an intern. But after the lunch I gained the confidence and was able to get some really nice shots in. Shooting is still a little frustrating, only because when reviewing some of the footage I see the videos are either too shaky and unusable, or too blurry and unusable. So for now they're just a stand in. Before leaving today I was able to finish a first draft of the promo. Not a fully edited first draft, but a start up of all the footage edited as a single piece of footage, not as a cohesive piece. Next Week Goals are a pretty big thing at Brandetize, they are the fuel to the motivation, the concentration, the everything. Without goals and the encouragement of the others there would be nothing to work towards. So in honor of that spirit I came up with some goals of my own for next week. 1. Get some more usable footage - record meetings -get more shots of people working without making them blurry -try to get a few more time-lapses 2. Learn more -learn more tips on how to be more efficient -learn more how to be more comfortable with the cameras and the tripods -possibly learn more about other positions done at the company 3. Get the video done -of course... More of a long term goal 4. Have Fun -no doubt about that :) Looking forward to Along with all the work, Brandetize is a company that is more then a work relationship, it's a friendship and so they tend to do a lot of things together that would be considered fun and out of the ordinary. 1. Fun Friday -the last Friday of every month, the crew goes out and does something fun together as a whole to congratulate all the handwork done during the month 2. Monthly Massage -a massage that happens during the month to relieve stress 3. More Work Lunches -I'm telling you, today was fun 4. Possibly Getting a Gong -so when a major month goal, (a sprint), is complete they can hit the gong and it's a small celebration 5. Possibly Getting a Shark Name -words of the CEO, at the beginning it was said that the women who work there where very attractive, however these women were not to be messed with because they're tough as hell "Sharks". Since then the name stuck and every one got a shark name that's unique to them 6. Finishing The Video -I'm excited to see where it goes, honestly First Impressions What are your first impressions of your Internship site thus far? I love it here! The people are so cool, the work is challenging, but since the environment is so chill, there's no such thing as stress. For these past three days I've done quite a bit actually. First job I had when I got there was to research promo videos and compare them to the current video on the website and see what worked and what did't. Then after a couple meetings and a sent email, I started creating a shot list for what'd I'd like to see in the video based off of what everyone was saying about the company. After that I had another meeting and then got into story boarding. I just finished the story board today so I took the camera and went around the office to start testing some of the shots that would go into the promo later, so I could get the feel of the camera and the overall technique.
Some of the things that I need to work on for later is to stop thinking out of my mind and how I'm seeing the images there and start thinking through the eye of the camera lens. Right now I'm not use to it so the shots are coming out shaky and amateurish. I know I just learned and my stuff is definitely not going to be professional, but it's can look better than how it does now so that's my goal. I'm so glad I was able to get this internship, it's so chill and relaxing yet still pretty fast paced because stuff needs to get done. It feels like school project work time, except for more relaxed because I'm dealing with a more artsy, creative type task, (which is more my cup of tea). I can't wait to see what lies ahead, and I'm definitely excited to see how the project will turn out. |
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