The three skills I feel most confidant in are coming up with pitches, photo taking, and video editing. Although I know that some people really struggle to come up with pitches, this hasn’t ever been an issue for me. I often help my friends in other classes come up with ideas for pitches too because it’s fun for me. One example of this skill was my postcard audio project. My initial pitch fell through, so I had to think of something really quickly, and that same day interviewed a guy from the Bottle Rockets which I think went really well.
I have always enjoyed taking photos but I do feel like I have learned important rules of technique and have further developed my “eye” in this class, which has greatly improved my photography. It is the first class I have taken in photography and I definitely have a new love. One example of this in my work is understanding creative angles. I think that the key to good photojournalism is interesting angles. Good photojournalism has an artistic sense to it. The key to interesting angles and making photojournalism artistic is developing your eye, as Alejandro discussed in class, and I think I am improving in that regard. I think all three of my real person photos were pretty interesting angles, and I definitely feel like my artistic eye was reflected in my photographs, particularly the one of Hannah Steele riding a tricycle. The moment that I saw this I knew I had to take a picture — the disco ball, the symmetry, Hannah’s stoic face.
I feel confidant in video editing because it just feels natural to me. In my head I know exactly how I want things to look, and video editing started to feel intuitive after I learned the basic gist of the editing software. I think I have a pretty good intuitive sense of what looks good, how long someone should be on screen, how and when to fade in and out. One example of this in my work was my first video project, which was my first time ever dealing with video editing software. Although it was kind of daunting to have the hardest section first, I didn’t feel too overwhelmed and actually really enjoyed editing my work. One of the important things I did in that first project was avoiding jump cuts by starting interview audio before actually showing the face of the person talking. Video editing was definitely fun for me.
I would like to improve on using the camera on manual, audio editing, and interviewing. I am not confidant in using the camera on manual. Although I am starting to figure it out, I am nowhere near fully understanding it. It seems tedious, in a way, to focus on understanding how to maneuver the camera when I can just use auto. On one hand, I want to be a cool photographer who understands the camera, but on the other, I know that I can take beautiful pictures on manual with little effort. The only way to improve this skill is to keep going out and taking pictures on manual and essentially forcing myself to learn. I will also look towards my friends who know what they’re doing to help me out.
I need to learn how to edit audio better, and I think that the best way to improve this skill is to take a class through KBIA and listen to podcasts. I think that there were a lot of things I knew intuitively about video and photo because I watch a lot of videos and look at a lot of photos. I don’t, however, listen to a lot of podcasts. This seems to me the best way to develop a type of intuitive understanding of audio.
Interviewing is very hard for me because I am sometimes unexpectedly shy. Sometimes throughout this class I’d be walking up to a source to interview them and would have to walk away because I was so nervous, which is absurd because that’s literally going to be my occupation. I usually find a way to fight through the initial shyness and fall into a type of “reporting mode” where I am capable of talking to anyone, but it often takes a while to get myself into this mode. I think that the key to combatting this is to simply keep doing it. It will get better with time and experience — I will feel more confidant in myself and what I’m saying once I’ve been reporting for a long time. Another way I think I can fight this is to basically follow another journalist around. I feel so awkward and weird when I’m walking around looking to interview people, but if I realize that other people do this too, I think I’ll feel more normal when it’s my time to interview.
Clare Elena Roth 