Reflection on November 5 class

I celebrated Guy Fawkes Day by working on my very first ReelDirector video. Michelle, Kari and I made a 1-minute commercial advertising Pictello. We needed two iPod Touches, one to create a Pictello story, and one to film it. The most confusing part was keeping the two devices separate, but despite our tight filming schedule, we managed to always use the correct one.

I'd love to explore more of ReelDirector's features, but what I liked best of what I saw is the "all-in-one" capacity--one device can be used to create the raw material as well as to edit and transmit the final product. In fact, the fly in that ointment was Pictello. If Pictello files formats were more generic, we could have done everything on one device, and the Pictello portion would have been higher quality.

We exercised many executive functions and literacy skills creating our commerical:

• planning
• collaborating
• writing a script
• speaking
• listening
• viewing
• pacing
• sequencing
• re-sequencing
• "proofreading"
• evaluating
• revising
• consolidating
• reaching closure

For me, the experience was also a crash course in Media Studies. I was astonished at the number of  decisions involved in making a 60-second project. We didn't even touch hair, make-up, lighting, etc. Creating video rivals opera as a multidisciplinary endeavour.