End of the Semester Once Again...

As an aspiring journalist and a student interested in becoming a producer of content, I found this course both enjoyable and helpful. Especially when it comes to video and website production, I am an amateur in every sense of the word. Though I have shot and edited some videos on my own before—and have intentions of making more in the future—I didn’t really know the basics of it, which is why I really liked getting to play around with the lights and doing some of the shooting exercises.

I thought the sequence in which the materials were presented was very organized. It makes sense to me to start the course with old technology and work your way up to today’s digital world, especially since all of these things are pretty much integrated these days. However, I did think that there was too much focus on the history of such things as photography, film, and the Internet. As a Media Studies major who has previously taken both Media 180 and Film 101, those parts of the lectures were rather repetitive and wearisome. Though I understand that not everyone in the class has taken these other courses before, I was hoping that there would be more focus on techniques and production.

At times I found the reading excessive, but I did like our primary textbook. A lot of the topics that we covered were rather basic, but I thought that some of the readings were pretty dense in comparison. I enjoyed the lectures more especially because I thought Professor Lucas was able to cover all of the basic concepts within the class period.

I certainly think that I’m leaving this class with skills that will be helpful for me in the future. It would be really difficult to move forward in my career path without knowing the basics of all of these different media. The three-point lighting system and learning how to manipulate light has actually already come in handy at my internship this semester. If finances and time weren’t a problem, I would definitely want to go out to make some documentaries and start producing content on my own.