My Leadership Strengths

"Be a True Heart Not a Follower."

I've never thought of myself as a leader. Definitely a follower, or worried mother-type trying to prevent her children from doing something stupid, or simply a quiet suggester, offering up ideas hoping someone else will put them into action, but never a leader. That is until I took the Gallup Strengthsfinder quiz, which turned my skills into leadership qualities that I could use to be a better leader. My Top 5 Skills were Deliberative, Input, Restorative, Intellection, and Futuristic.

Input describes people who have a natural curiosity and crave knowledge. They constantly file things in their minds to hopefully one day use this compiled knowledge to their advantage. This is completely accurate for describing me because, while I might not seem like I'm paying attention or participating, I'm actually just observing, and especially listening, to everything that's going on, picking out the pieces of information that are most important and will be most valuable in the future.

Deliberative describes people who take serious care in making decisions, weighing out all the pros and cons of every choice. They also anticipate obstacles. This is true for me because I always, in my head, plan out my routes and plans of action for everything. I plan everything out so I can avoid awkward or uncomfortable situations. That is one reason why I don't talk very much, because if I'm not prepared enough for the exact approach I have to take, then I'd rather say nothing at all than risk embarrassing myself in front of people.

Futuristic describes people who are inspired by the future and what it may bring. I very much live my life thinking about and planning for the future. I guess I just set goals for myself for my future because it's easier (and more fun) to think about the possibilities, the dream, than staying stuck in reality where I may not be the best circumstances or have the best chance to do what I want with my life. It's better to think about the future, to hope that everything will get better, that everything will all work out in the end.

Restorative describes problem solvers, people extremely adept at figuring out what the problem is being able to resolve it. I'm not necessarily the most verbal in addressing problems, but I guess I'm just more of a brain behind the situation. I like to figure things out and feeling the satisfaction of being able to solve them.

Intellection describes people who are introspective and like to think. I am always thinking about anything and everything, sometimes on a specific topic or task, and other times, just letting my mind run wild and seeing where it takes me. I love listening to people and the intellectual discussions (or stupid conversations) they have, even though I'm not as likely to take part. People fascinate me, everything fascinates me, and I like thinking about what other people think about and how they think. My mind is a never ending brainstorm.

This whole experience, with finding out that my natural qualities actually have leadership value, was very, for lack of a better word, enlightening. I've never thought I had many skills or that the few skills I had actually had any value. These little things that I do- collecting information, anticipating obstacles, planning the future, solving problems, and nonstop thinking- never seemed very important to me. But this experience, the interaction between everyone, and seeing who thinks like I do or whose mind works in similar ways was incredible to me. My involuntary processes and mindsets are strengths, and those strengths have value. Amazing.

Monsters University

An Adventure into the World of Sound Design

For my role as Sound Designer for our 2015 class short film, I read the article "Watch a Complete Sound Design Breakdown for a Scene from Pixar's Monsters University" by Joe Marine on nofilmschool.com. Now it wasn't so much an "article" as it was an explanatory video, but it was still beneficial to me in explaining somewhat what a sound designer might do and how the different elements of the designs work cohesively in the final product. 

It was particularly interesting hearing the sound design process for Monsters University from Tom Myers, the actual sound designer for the film, because it, being an animated film, provided a sort of extreme instance in which sound must be handled. The entire Monsters University world had to be created from the ground up in terms of sound. There is no reference in the real world as to what that world sounds like, other than Monsters Inc., which Monsters University is a prequel to and which had to be taken into account when considering technology.

Tom Myers talks about trips that were taken to college campuses early in the process to record sounds and get a clearer idea of what the film needed to sound like to be an accurate representation of a college, as well as the energy in the atmosphere that needed to relate between the animation and the sound to make it realistic.

He also broke down a scene from the film into the different types of audio that were added one by one to create the complex, "bulky" scene. He started with the voice audio, playing just that to the animation, then switched to just the crowds, then the music, and sound effects, and finally foley. He than put all these elements together, after describing which speakers each would be set to to create certain effects (such as playing the crowd noises on the overheads because of the crowds' position above and around the main characters, and to make the voices on screen clearer), and played the final mix of the scene. It was interesting being able to pick out individual noises in the scene after knowing they were there instead of just hearing it all as just one big noise.

So the process of creating/editing the sounds was tedious and bulky (referring to the shear amount of different sounds and effects that had to be worked into each scene), but the attention to detail that went into the film made it that much better. 

The article, while not containing much content text-wise, was very interesting and provided me with a better idea of what I need to do to make our class film sound amazing.

Here's the link to the article: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/07/monsters-university-soundworks-collection

True Affection

Music Video and Holiday Mishap

Welcome to the post where I will focus on the importance and necessity of multiple plans: Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and so on.

The Mission: Make a holiday/seasonal music video to be included in a holiday video medley to post on e-comm's youtube channel.

The Process: We had two weeks to plan, film, and edit this video and we had to use people in the school as actors to show diversity. Our Plan A was a New Year's Eve party with a depressed main character who eventually says "screw it" and joins in the festivities (set to the son The New Year by Parachute). But complications arose and we were unable to go through with our original plan. Problem was, we had a limited amount of time and we really needed to figure out what we're were going to do instead.  In cases like these, I'm glad to have planned for failure. Plan A was out the window and Plan B was only halfway there, thus Plan B and a Half was born! Plan B and a Half (PBH) included the song from Plan B (True Affection by The Blow) as well as a new and improved concept to go along with it. Planning, planning, planning, and we were finally able to film the Monday and Tuesday before the due date. We encountered a slight problem though; seems we had forgotten that the whole point of the video was to make it "holiday-ish," a key element which we completely passed over until we were at the very end of filming. A quick adjustment to the ending by adding a wrapped present and it still didn't really turn out "holiday-ish," but we could at least kind of claim it was.

The Story: Basically our story goes like this: two people (Lucas and Meg) are in love, but because they're in different cliques, their worlds are keeping them apart. But they still figure out a way to be together.

My Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofo07iozP-o&list=UUh-lU5OKHGmlvWCqjJ6mteQ

The Final Medley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_0NygarNqg

Hope you enjoy and Happy (insert winter holiday of choice here)!

Music Video Review

Little Game by Benny

Recently I have been obsessed with this video, Little Game. Not only is the song amazing, and the video incredibly well thought out and created, the message put out by both and the way this message is portrayed make this video truly remarkable. Not to mention the entire thing was the brain child of a fifteen year old from Dallas.

"Don't you think it's funny how they tell us how to live?
Don't you think it's funny how we're all delinquent kids?"

"Gender roles impose control and deceive progressive times.
Welcome to the land of the broken mind."

Benny uses this video to point out the strict stereotypes society places on its people about gender roles and what it deems "appropriate." The stark contrast between the white, representing the lack of other influence, and the blue and pink, representing the forced roles of boys and girls in today's society, displays just how society thinks its youth should present themselves and how there should be no other influence around to possibly "corrupt" a perfectly "obedient"child: boys obsessed with sports and cars and everything manly, and girls

only concerned about their looks on the outside

rather than their thoughts on the inside. The two who are shown going against the others are "glitches" in society, those who don't fit in perfectly with everyone else, even though, in all actuality, they are the ones who have a strong enough grip on their own reality to know how to do things for themselves and not because someone "tells them how to live."

"Hush boy, oh hush boy, don't say a word, throw on a jersey and
no one gets hurt. Hush girl, oh hush girl just bat your eyes."

The video also touches on the bullying that can be experienced by those who dare to break the stereotypes and social norms placed on them by society and enforced by the "broken minds" who see no wrong in the actions they've been programmed to believed are normal. The ones who defy what's considered normal are torn apart and ridiculed by society just for being the slightest bit different.

"Play our little game, play our little game tonight."

The action of mixing the paint on his face, which started with pink and blue both totally separated, shows what happens when the two opposites-- femininity and masculinity-- mash, and the fact that contrary to society's belief that it would end in chaos, it instead ended in the beautiful purple, a symbol that they two sides can, and should, work together in harmony.

The video showcases the power of a mind when it refuses to work how the rest of the world thinks it should, and how strict gender stereotypes amongst the population should cease to exist. The effects presented by the video and the music, and especially how they work together, give a sense of hope that there is a way to break out of the social norm and be who you truly want to be, who you truly are.

Here's the link. Watch it. I think you might like it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNr3x1kVVEc

Roller Derby Montage

A Glimpse at My Life as a Derby Girl

I play roller derby for the Kansas City Roller Warriors Junior Team (here's their site if you're interested: http://www.kcrollerwarriors.com ) and a few weeks ago one of my coaches asked if I could make a promo for our team. So I got my best buddy and together we tried to make something pretty cool.

Many issues arose in the pre-production stage such as me planning to one song and then a few days later finding out there was a vote for a different song (we ended up not using either in editing) as well as a limited time for filming. During the actual shoot, I found out the skaters had not been properly informed of my plan, and with only a two hour time frame, which was also practice time, I threw out most of my plans and we just went with whatever we could get. In editing, we had to somehow figure out how to turn our footage into an awesome promo, as well as a montage piece for our film class. We edited for awhile, chose a completely different song, and this is what we came up with. It was really fun to make. Hope you enjoy!

Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrqK0yQwIMg&spfreload=10

Music Video Review

Animal by Maroon 5

While many disapprove of the message given off in the video for Maroon 5's Animal, in which Adam Levine plays a stalker to a gorgeous woman (played by his real life wife, Behati Prinsloo) who enters his butcher shop and continues to follow her around, eventually making love to her in his mind, I find it very artistic and the story was well portrayed in the allotted time.

I'm particularly intrigued by the symbolism and parallelism between Adam hanging the pictures of her and hanging with the meat in the basement. The purpose of the two is to show how his obsession went from wanting to see her, to wanting to be with her. He was able to control the images, but he wasn't able to control her. He hung on a spot in the basement surrounded by meat, but not containing meat itself. Perhaps he realized his action would make him just as "low" as the dead animals around him. Or perhaps because he had been able to control a copy of her on the clotheslines in his room, he now wanted to control her body and just created a connection to the hanging of the meat. He saw her as a prize.

During the bridge of the song, Adam imagines making love to the girl and between shots of them together, he is seen in the basement somewhat mimicking his actions between him and the girl with the meat: he kisses her, he kisses the meat. This is yet another example of him seeing her as nothing more than a prize, a piece of meat that he can do what he wants with, can control. Before, he had hung with the meat, then he was distant  from it (on the opposite wall) when she was rejecting him, and then finally, when in his mind he was with her, he was all over the hanging meat, arms wrapped tightly around it and caressing it.

That's just some of the symbolism I saw in the video, but overall, I quite enjoyed it. Though I understand the message that some people are getting from it (stalking, raping, and the fact that his character seemed to think she was enjoying the whole thing), and though I absolutely don't support that message (seriously. I want to make that completely clear), I love the art of the video and it definitely expresses his thoughts in a way that makes you feel his same desire for this girl.

Here's the link for the full video if, for whatever reason, you haven't seen it yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpgTC9MDx1o

Watching the Making of a Commercial

Don't Underestimate Film Crews or Mothers Who Work at Dairy Queen

My mum works at Dairy Queen and around 8:30am on a Tuesday, she texted me during my video class saying something along the lines of "They're shooting a commercial at DQ. I asked if my daughter could come watch and they said sure. Do you want me to come get you?" and I replied with something like "HOLY CRAP YESSS!!!" Half an hour later I was perched between two tables watching the making of a Dairy Queen chicken strip commercial.

The first thing I noticed was just how many people there were on set. There were a lot! I played a game with myself (we had just learned about all the different positions on a film set in video class) and tried to match all the people with what jobs I thought they had. Once I had "placed" everyone in my mind, I started watching how each of them contributed to the production. But by far, the most interesting thing to watch was the interaction and communication between the director and the actress.

I was particularly amazed at just how many phrases the director had written out in advance and how many different ways he told the actress to say them: flat, normal, cheery, super cheery, etc. I loved how the director was making jokes to lighten up the mood and keep people from getting frustrated (though it seemed like most of them were having a pretty good time, despite being in a pretty serious time crunch).  Everyone was doing their jobs, but they were doing them in a way that made me think they all really love what they're doing and it comforted me knowing not every director is like those stereotypical directors in movies portrayed as major jerks.

I learned a lot about the perfection of lighting, the communication and cooperation that is necessary between all the people involved in a shoot, and the importance of being extremely prepared so as to remain on schedule among other things.

I also learned that it's never good to assume things about people because the girl you thought was just an assistant may turn out to be a producer who just really likes to be actively involved in anything she is a part of. But it's okay, because when you thank everyone for letting you come watch, and you start with the "assistant" because she's not too busy at the moment, you might just earn a new contact in your ever-growing search for experience in the film/video industry.

Here's the link to the finished video, if you're curious:
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152422159796669&set=vb.15508591668&type=3&theater