Decision Day

This blog is going to be very different from my usual blogs. Normally, I take on this essay style to fit the criteria of the blog topic, but this blog is about my decision when it comes to which project I will contribute my time and effort to during my AICE Media Studies class. The decision is between doing a two minute video of the beginning of a film or doing the four pages of a magazine issue.  According to Wayne Cherry, the author of the article "Our Place in the Universe: The Importance of Story and Storytelling in the Classroom", he states that, "The Four Cs of critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity go hand in hand with storytelling projects in the classroom". If I wan to create a good storytelling project for this class, I need to keep these essential concepts in mind while making my decision. I will be discussing the pros and cons to each of the projects, as well as some background information, and decide which project I will take part in.

As stated before, the two options are creating a short two minute opening of a film or four pages of a magazine. The film will need to consist of creating an excellent opening. Details and film techniques will be greatly required to create a masterful beginning to a nonexistent film that will make the audience want to continue watching. The magazine project consists of four pages. These pages are the cover, the table of contents page, and the first two pages of a featured article. Photo editing skills are key here. Let's go more into depth with these projects and the software I would need to use for each.

Let's start with the two minute opening film project. This is often the first choice people will gravitate to first because it seems more fun. It's fun to direct, film, act, and edit effects to make a cool little video. The software program that will be used, if I choose this project, will be Premier Pro. Premier Pro is a pretty great video editing program. While I was learning how to use the the software, I made a short, two minute video on 'The Adventures of Mr. Super Hand Sanitizer'. It was just a few clips that were put together of me recording my hand sanitizer with a sticky note cape 'fighting' a virus, which was a hand drawn paper cut out. I found this software to be really fun to mess around with and fairly easy to use.

However, making a polished two minute video seems very implausible with the current state of the world. The pandemic made the future very unstable and unpredictable. If I were to do a video project, I would need to find a location to record and set a schedule for the actors, which will be other students contributing to the project, to meet. If there were to be another mandatory lockdown in my area, all of those plans will need to be cancelled. This puts a big risk on the project because it may not be possible to complete it. If I don't complete the project, that automatically means I fail the class. 

Now I'm going to talk about the four page magazine project. This project is still pretty cool. Writing articles comes very easily to me so that won't be an issue. I mean, have you seen how article/essay like my blogs are? The project doesn't limit you on what your magazine can be about. This means that any topic is on the table. There are also many resources that provide tips and tricks to create unique covers and show some cool ideas on how to organize the magazine pages.

The downside to choosing this project is that the software program that is being used isn't very easy for me to work with. The program is called Indesign. It's not that it's a bad program, I just don't understand it as much as Premier Pro. I kept getting lost during the tutorial and I kept messing everything up. Another disadvantage is that magazines aren't very popular. As of right now, the most magazine exposure I received was a few weeks ago during class when we were learning about magazine cover techniques. This is pointed out in the article, "Survival of the fittest: four editors on the future of literary magazines" by Joey Frankin. The article shows how four magazine editors are adapting to the decrease in popularity of magazines. It states that, "Literary magazines have never faced so much adversity..." which is the primary reason why I have not had much exposure to magazine articles.

Now, I am a very logical thinker. As you've seen from the text above, I assess the different opportunities and detriments of each choice and decide what is best for me. Although it seems that there are more downsides to choosing the journal article, that is the option I choose. I find that multiple smaller problems are a lot easier to deal with than a few big problems. Especially when one of those big problems are that the project may not be completed. Even though I will need help with the software for the magazine, I will have a much higher chance of getting it done than the video project. 

There is also another factor that I didn't even mention. This factor is that this project can be done with the help of other students. Before the second week of class, I already had someone who I planed to work with. We both decided on doing the magazine project for basically the same reasons. We even planned out some ideas before hand on what the magazine issues would be about. The ideas may shift as we continue to work on the project, but we have a basic idea. As for the problems I have with this project, we will work together and make that we don't fall behind.

With all these factors in mind, I have decided to do the four page magazine issue.