I'm glad Beth made it an assignment to attend capstones as I have never experienced this before. I am also glad that my first experience was at a time when there were not that many students presenting otherwise I'm sure I would have been overwhelmed. I did not get a chance to see all of the projects being presented, but did see a number of them. I discovered Tyson Tiede's music from his band and really enjoyed their sound. I really liked Garin Grist's video about the female inmates and found it very compelling. I also thought Joel Stein's short documentary centered around a cosmetic surgery was an interesting approach for his subject. I spoke with him about his project, and he told me he was permitted to film the whole surgery and would be doing a follow up video for the same doctor. Since I knew Joel, I decided I would ask him the questions we were given for the assignment. First I asked him how the week had been for him. He said it was stressful in the sense of meeting all of his deadlines. He had his editing completed, but he had to make sure the video was in full HD and ready to be uploaded to youtube. I asked if he could have changed anything about his project what would it have been, and he replied that he really wouldn't have made many changes. He said the woman he interviewed was easy-going which made the process for him easier. Then I asked him how close his final outcome was to his original intention. He said the final outcome was pretty close other than wanting to do a 3D title sequence, but he didn't have enough time. Other than that he was pleased with his work. If he had had one more month to work on his capstone, he said he would have added the 3D title sequence to make the opening more engaging. Finally, I asked him his advice about working on capstones. His response was to pick an early deadline which forces you to have certain parts of your project finished. He said normally he would have procrastinated, but the woman had scheduled her surgery over the summer which forced him to be prepared to film. In turn this also gave him more time to edit.
I am thankful that I took this class because not only did it help me effectively gauge just how much work should go into the capstone, but it also made me ultimately realize my interests have changed and that new media is not the field I want a career in any longer. One of the things that made me realize this is my difficulty in choosing a topic for my capstone.
I thought that Beth's breakdown of the project was very helpful, however. Had I been more passionate about my major and felt more confident in displaying my abilities through a capstone, I would have successfully chosen a topic and proceeded towards the deadlines required. I was appreciative that our opinions were always taken into consideration, and I have always admired Beth for her sincere concern towards her students. Beth was always willing to offer advice or listen to problems and I can speak from experience.
I thought the guest speakers were helpful because they gave us a great deal of useful advice. Obviously it was our choice whether or not we wanted to accept it or not, but these former students went through the process. Certain things they did for their projects may not have particularly applied, but in my opinion the beauty of their advice was the opportunity to either accept it or ignore it.
I found every assignment to be helpful whether or not I wanted to complete it because it helped further our progress towards our desired projects. I think the Project development issues assignment was significantly helpful because it forced us to logically think about potential issues we might face while working on our projects as well as a preliminary budget. In the event we should face any of these issues in the future, we would have a head start towards the solution.
