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