For my final broadcast assignment I choose to make a Senior farewell video. One thing that I think Seniors along with every other grade level remember about high school and school in general is the last day. It is always filled with emotion and lots of goodbyes. I decided to make a video that tries to accurately reflect this memorable experience. Last year I recorded the final days of school on my super 8 camera but I didn't have it developed until about mid-summer so to use it for a project I had to wait until the end of next school year for it to be relevant. I think that the super 8 recordings really do a great job at capturing a memory as important as the last day of school. Memories tend to be fuzzy but also quite vivid which is what I think film is able to capture with the bright vivid colors but slightly blurry look. If I were to do this project again I would use a different film stock for the shots indoors. What I didn't realize when filming was that by using an outdoor film stock it made the indoor shots slightly out of focus. With that said I don't think it distracted from the overall theme of the video and might have even enhanced it because memories tend to be feel slightly blurry. As a whole i'm really happy that I was able to edit and use this footage as my final broadcast assignment. Another animation would have taken too much time but i'm happy that I was able to make this video instead. It reminds me of all the amazing friends, teachers, and events that I've experienced throughout the course of my high school journey and leaves me with a video that I can always look back on when I want to access those memories again. If you want to watch the video click here and if you want to know how to make your own super 8 film click here!

For my most recent video I decided to write a reflection about my time at the St. Louis Cardinals Fantasy Camp in Jupiter, Florida. The experience was extremely unique and gave me the best experience that I have ever had in high school. What made this trip so unique when compared to the Fantasy Camp in Cooperstown is that it forced me to work at a much faster pace. This is because I needed to make videos that could be played the next day on the scoreboard. Most of the time when I'm making a video I do so with a very scrutinizing eye. What this trip made me realize is that I need to take into account the audience that I'm making this for and use that information to be more efficient with my time. It was also amazing having access to the press box and other places that traditionally are only open to players and staff. It gave me the true experience of what it's like to be a videographer for a major league baseball team, one that I have loved my whole life and can't thank enough for allowing me to be a part of this amazing community. There were so many other lessons learned and you can hear about more of them in my reflection video here!
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This semester has started off with a bang! One thing that I think I will thoroughly enjoy about this upcoming semester is the new and returning students that have entered the program. There are a lot of unique and creative individuals that I think will lead to very interesting and different projects for the future! For my creative identity graphic I wanted to interview one of the new students whom I've also happened to know for a while. This was my first time working with him on a broadcast related assignment and I wanted to somewhat test the waters to see if something interesting could come from this interview, whether it be getting an idea for how well we can work with each other or possibly using the interview for a future project. The interview turned out great and worked really well as practice for when I hopefully interview players at the St. Louis Cardinals Fantasy Camp this upcoming week! I also learned from this project that my interviewee, Gramm, could be very helpful as a classmate who can give advice and insight on any upcoming videos I work on. Overall this was a very fun and insightful project that makes me look forward to this final semester! 

This project was probably one of the most challenging ones that I've worked on so far. All we were given was the prompt, why? For such a broad and huge topic my initial process went to making a video that was equally large in scale. It was until about second or third day that I realized I needed to lower my ambitions given the time frame. My mind then went thinking about college. I had received all my acceptance letters except for one at that point and it got me reflecting over the entire college process over the past year. Coincidentally the one word that popped up a lot during the journey was why. Why do you want to pursue animation and film as a career? It was this question that led me to make this project that reflects over the last year and how I came to answering the question, why. To watch the video click here!

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The past month has been such a fun and busy time in Broadcast Technology! The first thing I did was create a video done in a similar style to the "Future of Music" video, produced last year. This year I have been taking AP Microeconomics and for a class that teaches a lot of complicated concepts I thought that it would be cool to simplify one of them into a 60 second video that could be of some educational value. While the video wasn't made for any assignment from AP Micro I still showed my teacher the video and she approved of the concepts taught in it so the information told in the video is correct! This month I also continued working on more videos from the St. Louis Cardinals Fantasy Camp, and in particular a montage/highlights reel showcasing the excitement and energy that was brought to every game. The video was very enjoyable to work on and also included some transitions involving masking that were really fun to make! Throughout this month I have also been working on finishing Revenge of The Gnomes which is turning out really good! I was able to get some really great feedback from my teacher and classmates that I have been able to incorporate into the story to make it even better! This animation will probably run about 2 and a half minutes long which is really cool given that a lot of the colleges that I am looking at don't assign a 2 minute long animation until their students Junior to Senior year of college. It really shows how this class has allowed me to get ahead of the curve when it comes to my animation journey that I intend to pursue! I have also had the pleasure of acting in a friends short film that is gearing up to look amazing! I can't wait to see the final product and it was really cool getting to see first hand all of the aspected needed to make a film. Overall this month was packed but also very rewarding and enjoyable. I am very proud of what I got done and can't wait to finish off this semester strong! To watch both my Cardinals and Economics video click here!

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This past September and October the Ladue Broadcast Technology class put together a truly one of a kind show. For the first time since I've been at Ladue, our class put together a Ladue View that had a special theme and overlay throughout the entire production. For the month of October we decided to make our Ladue View halloween themed and it turned out spectacular. My favorite part about this past production was the attention and care put into the set to really make it pop. To get the set right was really hard because it has to fit well enough with the halloween theme but subdued enough to not be distracting. I think that the class did an amazing job at accomplishing this and made stand out from any other previous show. It is also really engaging and uplifting when you have a group of people who are all so passionate and eager in dedication to all things video and media. To create a show of this scale required a specific group of students who could unite in the same goal as well as a teacher lead environment that would be nurturing of this creativity and help bring it to fruition. It was and still is the prefect combination to make amazing things that will no doubt leave a lasting legacy to the class and Ladue High School as a whole.

My particular involvement in the show was as co-host/anchor, writer, and animator for the teaser to "Revenge of the Gnomes." The idea for "Revenge of the Gnomes" was a challenging one. Most times with animation the music is created after the animating is done but in this case the situation was reversed. I was given a score that I would need to match with animation. Most every scene had to have a different hand drawn background paired with animation in which every frame had to be hand drawn and colored. The teaser for this animation was a little bit easier but just as fun to work on. Lots of small references were hidden in the video and a lot of aspects were inspired by different cartoons and drawings that I found online. Below are some photos showcasing different shots from the final teaser compared to these references and sources of inspiration! To watch the Ladue View episode click here and to watch my teaser trailer click here!

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Baseball. A word linked to America and the history it has to offer. As someone with a tremendous interest in American history it may surprise you that I never took that much of an interest in baseball. I played baseball when I was a kid and my entire family has always been huge St. Louis Cardinals fans, but I just couldn't find the beauty and passion for the sport that everyone around me seemed to have. That was until I went on a trip to Cooperstown with my Broadcast Journalism teacher and a fellow Broadcast Journalism classmate. 

Me and my friend Austin were the only two students from Ladue selected for the trip which was done in conjunction with the St. Louis Cardinals. The experience was overwhelming to say the least. By the end of the trip you felt like family with some of the biggest names in baseball. While maybe not the most exciting of moments, I have picked two events from the week in Cooperstown. These two moments were, for me, the most pivotal in my growth and perspective as a human and played a big part in making this trip life changing and truly full filling. 

The first event happened on the second day. Me, Austin, and our teacher Mr. Goble had to record some footage at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The Fantasy Camp was holding a little event there and all the former Cardinals players who took part in the Fantasy Camp where at this event. So were all the faculty and participants. At the very beginning everyone gathered into an auditorium with a giant screen in the very front. Once everyone was seated they played a video introducing the Baseball Hall of Fame. The video was almost like an epiphany for me. All these names that I had heard of, movies that I grew up loving, music that I grew up listening too, all connected by the sport of baseball. People like Lou Gehrig who I had heard about through ALS, and yet I had never dug into his time as player for the Yankees. After hearing a part of his speech for the first time I nearly began to tear up. So many powerful moments for baseball all packed into one video. On top of all of that you had some of the legends in the video in the actual audience with you! It was truly surreal and an amazing moment. 

The second event was when the head of Cardinals Alumni, Joe Pfeiffer, invited all of us to a dinner with several other members of the Fantasy Camp. The dinner was a wonderful way to learn more about the different roles needed in the Fantasy Camp and the people behind those roles. You learn about how powerful the community is that the camp builds and the powerful experiences that everyone has had at some point during their Fantasy Camp journey.  Everyone had such amazing stories and the dinner was a wonderful way to get to know everyone a lot better. I don't know if I had ever witnessed a closer and more tight knit group of people. All these people had a deep history together and yet they still made you feel equally at home.

I think that is what was so special about the whole experience. You never once truly felt left out. At any point throughout the camp there was always more than one person who had your back. All you had to do was bring your passion and enthusiasm to the game. This was more than just a trip. It was an experience and I got so much out of it that it really makes it difficult to fit into one blog post. The trip really changed me for the better and hope to someday see these amazing people again.

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For this project I worked on the script, the logo and title, props and set, and some of the editing. This video has to be one of the most interesting and exciting projects that I had ever worked on. I really didn't know if this project would succeed and I guess the argument could be made that it didn't. However in my mind this project was a tremendous success in being able to showcase the unique and special talents that every student had in this class during 2nd semester.

I really tried to put a lot of effort into this project. At home during the weekend before filming I finished the script during any free time I had. I came after school during the final 3 days, working on mostly uploading footage and doing some editing for an hour each day. There were definitely hiccups like having the computer not detect SD cards or having the mouse constantly stop working which became increasingly frustrating, though I tried to power through. This is all just to say that when I watched the final result I was worried that I might've been a little disappointed, considering the amount of work everyone put in. Surprisingly disappointment was my furthest thought.

The final result isn't perfect, but the journey of getting there was. Everyone did their part and surpassed their previously mastered abilities. Acting is something that almost no one in the studio was taught. Maxwell was the only one with prior acting experience and yet every person stole the show when a scene featuring them appeared. Seeing everyone so happy, professional, and hard working was more rewarding than any video, grade, or score. I believe that this project has heightened the level of everyone's ability to problem solve and work together which at the end of the day is a huge success and win for everyone involved. I seriously recommend watching the final video which you can view here! The final video is honestly really fun and I guarantee that you will enjoy watching it!

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This project was super fun to make! My goal was to try and create a commercial for the Agent Cauliflower cartoon I did previously. My main inspiration was 50s era commercials. I also took some inspiration from UPA animations in the 50s-60s when creating the little boy character that you see in the beginning. This project was really fun because it forced me to make more complex animation movements like the arm picking up the remote and pressing the button. The act itself never seemed that complex to animate but I realized how difficult it was once I started having to draw each frame and have it look somewhat natural while also looking somewhat cartoony. The rest was pretty simple, adding in some footage from Agent Cauliflower with an added text effect displaying the voice actors names. Another aspect that was also more difficult than I expected was finding a font the fit well for the video. I ended up going with an art deco style font that fit will with my attempt at a Mid-Atlantic/20's style accent. I also added a little easter egg of my initials in the first half of the video that was a fun way of hiding my name in the commercial. Overall this was a super fun project to work on and helped me further my animation journey by pushing myself in some aspect of the production. Below are some of my drawings used in the animation but without the black & white effect, meaning you can see them in full color as they were initially seen before editing! If you want to watch the commercial click here!