Article Review
I did not realize that bloggers create a persona to effectively target a certain audience. The article talked of being an expert in whatever it is you are wiring in because people flock to others who know their stuff. It is also a good idea to let others comment on your blogs, and respond to them because it will help a person feel like they are also part of building the blog. I figured that keeping things short would be on the list, and it was. Some people just like to browse so it is a good idea to have headings and lists for those type of people.
I am going to be doing a blog for my group in a few weeks, and I want to make sure it is up to par. I figure I'll start preparing for that now so I can start recognizing these effective things in posts that I read on a daily basis. I want it to be good because my group has done an awesome job at creating their content and I don't want to let them down. This knowledge is good to know if a person wants to make their content viral. The message has to find favor with many people so it is important to add as many positive characteristics to a post as possible because it can potentially bring in more traffic.

Application Log
I really enjoyed this week! My group got together to start shooting our first video, and it is kind of fun to see us all use the knowledge we obtained from the articles we focused on reading. The past few weeks, each person in our group read an article on audio or video, or both, and that was very helpful in our video shooting. I had a lot of fun with it; trying our best to apply proper audio strategies, camera placement, and shooting proper content is helping me learn immensely.
The video that my group is currently focusing on is interviewing students on campus to see how much they know about politics and American history. I thought it would be easy coming up with questions that were fun and creative, but there was a lot of repetition on what we asked and it seemed like we needed to be prepared with more questions for the next time. BYU students generally seem educated on most of our questions, but I was surprised at how many of the people we interviewed knew nothing. We are currently in the process of editing the video and hopefully I will learn that well so I can be better at it for our last video!

The article was a very simple read, as is associated with the websites touted "life hacks" in general. It talked of stability and lighting being key features in producing quality videos. One that I did not know was the digital zoom. Broida claimed that digital zoom is an absolutely great way to make a horrible video. He said optical zoom is good, but digital zoom should be left alone. Aside from those few things he talked about knowing your camera well so you can quickly click menu options when the need arises so you don't miss a moment.
My group is getting together next week to begin shooting our first video. None of us really know video so it is going to be a group effort to learn the process ourselves. The more each one of us does this then the better possible outcome we will have as a group for our final video. This article helped because I will be using these methods when we shoot our videos. Broida said outdoors is the best place to shoot, but we need to ace the audio to make that work. The lighting outdoors is best, but can be difficult for audio. We will be interviewing people for our video and they will be outside so it was good to read a little on the pros and cons of our ideas.

Broida, Rick. "8 Ways to Shoot Video Like a Pro." Lifehacker.com. 13 Nov. 2006. Web. <http://lifehacker.com/214043/8-ways-to-shoot-video-like-a-pro>.

This week in class we learned a few steps that it would take for something to catch on and go viral. We talked about remarkability and relatability.I feel like another thing that should be mentioned as a side note is how "cute"  certain content may be.
I saw a video this week that is starting to catch on almost like "Charlie bit my finger." This little boy was having trouble at 5 years old because he had too many girls he was interested in and was stressed about letting one go. The video was cute and simple and it was titled "When you have too many side chicks." It worked because the title was cleaver, it was super simple and relatable, and it was also just cute. If a 20 year old guy said the same thing it would have no effect, but because it was a 5 year old boy, the cuteness took hold and sent that video viral.

This week I had the experience of learning a little more about Photoshop. For our group project I have been assigned to make an info graphic.I never knew how to use Photoshop before, and I still do not know very much at all, but because of this project I got the opportunity to get introduced to it. Steve, in my group, taught me a little bit and I tried my hand at it from there.
I did not do too well by myself, but I still know more than I did before. I feel like it is a good skill to know because a lot of people are visual learners, and as I was helping to create the graphic we brainstormed ideas on how our content could be catchy, appealing, and send a positive message. It is hard to be concise and do all of that at the same time, so this is great experience for me to apply in future assignments and projects.

Video and audio are both areas that most of the team members of my group have little experience with. This week we all decided that each one of us should read an article on either audio or video so we can be more educated and produce higher quality videos for our assignments. I decided to focus on audio because I heard that audio tends to make or break a video. With that, I found an article that is great for beginners, one that teaches how to have decent audio even with an at-home camera.
I did not realize that each room produced ambient sound to the effect of making low audio quality. The article detailed rooms that were good to record in, and places that would take a little more consideration. Heavily furnished rooms are the best because it absorbs noises like electrical buzzing and echos. Keeping the microphone pointed at the subject is also critical. The author cautioned us, too that the zoom on the camera does not also zoom the microphone. I thought that was a funny comment, but apparently some are known to believe that. This article has particular interest to me because our group is thinking about doing interviews for part of one of our videos. The interview section of the article proved helpful and lead me to ideas for our own interviews.

The Sun Chronicle, "Importance of good audio." February 12, 2014, http://www.thesunchronicle.com/video_class/importance-of-good-audio/article_b353e69c-9424-11e3-98e7-001a4bcf887a.html

This week I  tried to make my social media profiles show more positive and uplifting content. I noticed that there were some things that show on my feed that are not particularly positive. I tried to follow a lot of political articles and news stations so I can stay informed. I noticed that a lot of news channels and political articles tend to post negative things.
I decided that I should unfollow some articles and news channels so I could start personally seeing more positive things. I figure that if I see more positive things in my own feed, then I will post and share more positive things for others to see. I am noticing more positive things in my feed and it has made a difference to me personally because I feel less aggravated when I read things on my feed. I feel better sharing positive content than negative so I think my decision will benefit me as I continue to apply what I learn in this class