I’ve moved the blog

Please now revert to: http://rosiewalunas.com/blog/.

My close up

A few weeks ago I had my first close up on WGBY’s Connecting Point. I was interviewed about the Phoebe Prince news doc I made and about the UMass journalism class partnership with MassLive.com. I was interviewed with professor Steve Fox and MassLive.com’s editor-in-chief Ed Kubosiak.

From Motion to After Effects

I have been making the transfer from Final Cut Pro’s Motion application to Adobe After Effects.

Here’s a piece I made a few years ago in Motion.

Motion is very intuitive to use, while still giving editors many options. Motion allows for key-framing or applied behaviors. Users can add cameras and edit in 3D space, which is becoming more and more popular in motion graphics for not only car commercials but documentaries. There are also stock replicators and graphics that are easy to manipulate. As most applications by Apple are aesthetically pleasing, Motion is probably Final Cut Studio’s most aesthetically pleasing application.

What I like most about Motion is “round tripping.” This means an editor can easily move between a sequence in Final Cut and a motion graphic or applied effects in Motion. A sequence can be sent directly to Motion, effects are applied, and those effects appear directly in Final Cut without any export. Of course some rendering still have to take place, but who doesn’t render?

Adobe’s After Effects is different on the other hand. The only “round tripping” or seamless editing can occur within Adobe. An editor could move between a project in Premier and After Effects. But a project in After Effects can be seamlessly edited in Final Cut or AVID.

This orange room is the first project I made in After Effects that I had some success with.

When using After Effects and Final Cut, which I have so gracefully taken to with the advice and wisdom of Andrew Killoy (pretty much a master, at least from what I’ve seen), a motion graphic must be exported as a large reference file, then that reference file must be encoded in Adobe Encoder with the desired specs. That file can be brought into Final Cut as a QuickTime, for example, and rendered.

However, if one wants to make changes, they have to go back into After Effects, re-edit, and export all over again. While when working in Motion and Final Cut, changes can be made in Motion and are directly and immediately changed in the Final Cut sequence.

This is a series of photos I stitched together in AE. They were taken near a botanical garden in Valencia, Spain.

This is a single photo I manipulated in Photoshop to create “The Kid Stays in the Picture” effect.

Not too perfect, some of it is rough around the edges, but I am still learning. So why am I bothering to learn After Effects? the application is a powerful tool and most industry professionals know and use it. Although, I must say that it’s popularity has to be because it runs on PCs and Macs.

I do hope to become proficient enough in After Effects so that I can use the program to create motion graphics for my documentary pieces as I have done in my most recent mini-doc, which I used Final Cut and Motion for.

Darby O’Brien and Luke Gelinas on speaking out about the Phoebe Prince Case

After a semester of covering the South Hadley School Committee and the Phoebe Prince bullying case, our UMass Amherst journalism projects have been published on MassLive.com.

The semester consisted of our investigative journalism class working on the South Hadley and bullying beat. My specific beat was on the School Committee. The class kept a blog at MassLive.com/bullying.

The whole semester we worked towards are final projects which were profiles of people involved with the Phoebe Prince case and South Hadley.

Going into the class, I knew I wanted to make a video, but I also knew how hard it would be to get people to speak on camera.

I went to the School Committee meetings every other week to cover my beat, and interviewed people involved with speaking out against school officials in the background of the semester.

My final project is a documentary style piece featuring Darby O’Brien and Luke Gelinas; it covers why they speak out about Phoebe Prince’s death and why they are so critical when it comes to the administration.

For logistical reasons I ended up shooting the interviews on my Canon T1i (I wish I had access to something more versatile). I used a Zoom H2 as a backup audio device, which ended up saving an important portion of the video piece. I used an umbrella and Lowel lamp to light the room. I didn’t have access to lavaliere microphones, so I was pretty much risking it all. And hit record. I edited the video in Final Cut Pro. Some of the archival footage was shot on a consumer Canon. The School Committee footage came from the South Hadley community television station. The photos came from MassLive.com and The Republican.

You can watch the upload on MassLive.com:

http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1

Or, on my Vimeo.com:

Or, on my website:

http://rosiewalunas.com/productionsphoebeprince.html

My website is launched

If you haven’t seen it yet, RosieWalunas.com is launched.

This is RosieWalunas.com!

I took a web design for journalists class this past semester, and, the final product was a portfolio website.

My website displays my production work, resume, and some photography and articles. I also link to my Vimeo, Flickr, Twitter, and blog.

Since I’m still new to web design, I there’s much more for me to learn and explore, but I am proud of myself for making it this far.

More to come, of course.

Enjoy.

Gators in the bayou

Yesterday we saw some alligators in a bayou south of New Orleans.

Video and more photos on the way. This is all I have time to pick out for the moment.

Down, around, and in the bayou.

A baby gator the guide keeps around so people can see them up close and personal.

Knoxville to NOLA

Sean and I are now in New Orleans.

We left Knoxville after eating breakfast at a Wafflehouse and checking out the Sunsphere.

Making our way through Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi.

Today we went to the Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium after breakfast at Café Fleur De Lis, which was the best breakfast I’ve had in a while.

Then we took a stroll down Magazine Street to see some of the Garden District.

We had dinner at an oyster bar and seafood restaurant called Desire. The oysters were spot on, as was the crayfish etouffé.

We further strolled down Bourbon where the football fans were getting their party groove on as were some great street performers.