With winter coming into full swing and our first snow fall was today, I can’t stop thinking about going skiing in my favorite city in the whole world, Park City Utah.  When planning my getaway I can’t help but want to be in Park City when the independent film festival is there, Sundance.  I’ve been to the festival before, but I had never been after working on a film/movie of my own.  Though our class project for the Top 25 class is very small in comparison to a Sundance Film, it is still a way for me to relate to all the hard work that goes into the films that are shown at Sundance.

I found this article online today from the Salt Lake Tribune about films that are coming to Sundance this year, what ones are must-sees and what ones are not that big.  What I like about this article is that it is a blog and by the “culture vulture.”  I think that independent films are very important in our culture, they are interesting and always about topics of controversy; this year the must-see controversy is the “Mormon Proposition.”  The festival’s homegrown controversy, as former KTVX reporter Reed Cowan looks at the LDS Church’s role in the campaign for California’s gay-marriage ban. It is a must-see — or a must-boycott, depending on your point of view.  Independent films are growing and growing and Sundance is the place to be to experience it all.

Apple say that “the faster the tools, the more time you have to be creative.” But I don’t think Final Cut Pro 7 makes it even easier to edit quickly, accurately, and flexibly with a range of interface enhancements that make everything from editing and trimming to sweetening and finishing more efficient.  I think our group wastes a lot of time rendering the video, when our time is valuable and the program moves slowly it can be very frustrating.  I like the real-time editing, but again rendering causes a lot of problems with the overall production.

In the end, the project is turning out well, so I guess I can’t complain about the program too much, but I still don’t like Final Cut Pro that much and I would rather use an easier program.

The W3 Awards honor creative excellence on the web, and recognize the creative and marketing professionals behind award-winning sites, videos and marketing programs. Sanctioned by the International Academy of Visual Arts, the W3 Awards is the first major web competition to be accessible to the biggest agencies, the smallest firms and everyone in between. Elias/Savion client Web sites, The Event Group Productions and SRS Energy received recognition in the Silver category.

I think it is cool that website can be so interesting and ornate, considering the fact that they started out so simple and minimal.  I’m glad that we have to learn web design because it is so prevalent in our life and they way we use the internet.  It is also awesome to know that a company that I have worked for can win such an award.

I went online to research HTML and to see if there were any user-friendly site to help me along in class and to teach things that we might not cover in class.

I found this cool website that has some really important information for learning HTML and how to use it.  It is an absolute beginners guide on how to set up websites and CSS.  It tells you all the basic tools that are needed to set up a website and how to go about finding these tools on the comupter.  Though it is rather long, it has a ton of information on all aspects of HTML and CSS.  It is a great referance guide for someone new to HTML like me!  It is important to know how to use html and I’m glad that we are learning it in class.  It is very relevant to many jobs, projects, and other things in life because the internet plans such a dominat role in our society.  Being able to use HTML and to create and edit websites opens a lot of opportunitues for jobs and internships, as well as, personal online media growth.

I found an article online comparing the two sites and it talks about all the features that they two programs have to offer.  I know that Final Cut Pro is a more advanced version of a movie/film editor but I can’t stop wishing that we were using iMovie for our semester project.  It is a learning process and I hope I will figure out how to make the most of Final Cut Pro and all the new and improved features that it offers us for making an awesome movie.

I know, I sound like a complainer but I like easier, more user-friendly programs.

I decided to look up helpful techniques to interview people with. Though this is a very simple website it has information that it simple but very useful when it comes to conducting interviews.  I think that simple sites like these, with simple information can help just about everyone when it comes to conducting interviews and being interviewed.

It is a cool blog because the people on the site are creating very interesting things for many different reasons and they are from all over the U.S.  Though the site is older and there for using the older version of Final Cut Pro, it is interesting to learn about what all Final Cut can do and all the new ways people are using it for.

I am excited to work with Final Cut and know that it will be a learning experience to make a digital video of our own.  There is so much that one can do with this awesome editing tool that there is no way to learn it all by oneself.  It is very helpful to have blogs like this, and people to teach others how to make the most of the program and to make the best videos possible.

Movie Edit Pro has several things about it that make it user-friendly and helpful.  It’s easy to use, it imports video from everything from old VHS tapes to high-definition camcorders and everything in between.  If you don’t want to spend too much time learning how to use its finer points, it will automatically import and edit your home movies, not to mention your own cinema masterpiece.  The program also allows the ability to create soundtracks to match the scenes.  It also allows to fix shaky footage, sharpen and brighten footage, and many other features.  It even has the ability to export the masterpieces and old videos to your phone.  Movie Edit Pro is the best bang for the buck when it comes to spending money on an editing program.

This relates to the project that we got assigned and started to talk about today in class.  Though we aren’t using Movie Edit Pro in class, we are using Final Cut Pro, Apple’s software, the idea of video editing is all the same.  The ability to edit videos and make them into something more then just the standard same old video is an awesome idea and something many people can take advantage of.  Video editing is becoming more and more popular especially with the rise of independent film festivals.  It is going to be very interesting and exciting to edit and make a film of our own for school.

I think these kinds of sites are helpful and a great resource for everyone.  They are a way to access information from around the state, and even around the country.  It can be hard to find useful and helpful information online these days and OhioLink and other search engines through school are important in finding good scholarly information.

I think that sites like these are very important for students and others to use for research and other needs.  I have never used Google Books before, but I have used Academic Search Compete and other school sites to research and they have always been very helpful.  Many sites that you find online are sometimes unreliable and not scholarly.  By using these sites you can make sure the information that you are getting in relevant and scholarly and definitely helpful.  Without sites like these our information would be limited and everything or most of what we need it not as available, or as available as we would like and hope it to be.