This assignment let me achieve my dream of being a beauty guru YouTuber. I thought of a life hack that I use in my life and looked up another to try and recorded them in my well-lit bathroom. Then I zoomed to iMovie to import the footage and edit it together. I made a purposeful choice to use overdone and cheesy effects and transitions to mirror a lot of the beauty videos I’ve seen. I also added background music to add to the old school YouTube theme I was going for and to make the video feel less empty. It may not be anything groundbreaking but I hope somebody learns something from my video!

There’s a few things I learned throughout the experience of making this video. The first is that audio can be difficult when you’re recording without a real camera. In earlier videos, I used Apple headphones with a built in mic but then I couldn’t be far from my computer and I was visibly using headphones. I tried something new for this video, which was propping the headphones up nearby and aiming them towards me. This worked surprisingly great and I could record without being attached to my computer. Trying new things and adapting pays off!

Secondly, I learned the true beauty of cutting while editing. Before, I used it just to piece things together. In this assignment, however, it saved me when I made a mistake and suddenly forgot how to speak. Using a jump cut, I was able to transition from one clip to another without having to re-record a majority of my video. This is a helpful skill and made my video more professional since nobody had to sit through what was roughly 20 seconds of me trying to think of a word.

Let me know if you use any of the hacks I recorded!

This week we had to complete an interview with a doctor formerly with a team investigating what’s going on in these parts with the infection. Even though I was the one answering questions, I feel like I came out of it with a lot more questions for her! Still, I do feel like I have more of an idea of what’s going on with the oncoming apocalypse. I’m glad we’re not alone. You can watch my interview below and get some insight on what people are experiencing.

Anyways, I had a fun time completing this assignment. I watched through the original video a few times and decided which questions I wanted to answer. I also looked out for parts in the video I could use as extra responses for realism and for reactions from Nessie. Then I recorded my parts with the video in front of me to make sure I answered appropriately. My realism was a little shaken by my cat joining me and then refusing to leave but I think cats can add to any video. After recording my parts (or re-recording, for many of them), I entered iMovie and started cutting and pasting it together. When I’m editing anything, I use the split tool mostly and then delete the pieces I don’t want.

The most fun part about this video is that I got to mix real life experiences with fiction. A lot of what I say in the video is true and experiences I’ve had in the past few weeks. Some stories and answers are exaggerated or made up, however. Try to guess what’s real and what’s made up!

I did the impossible. I made 28 Days Later look like a happy, totally normal movie. At the same time, I also created a sick ad for DS106. I’m insanely proud of what I did with this assignment so I hope you guys check it out! You might see yourself in it(most likely) and you’ll definitely relate.

To create this ad for the Mash a Movie assignment, I used 4K Video Downloader to download some clips of scenes I wanted from YouTube. I really recommend this for people who don’t want to or can’t download the entire film and chop it down! When I first started, I realized that 1) the violence of most of the movie would depict DS106 in a negative light and 2) there isn’t much dialogue to build off of. So ideas started forming in my head and I decided to use the two happiest parts of the film to create what you just watched. I chose some areas to dub over the audio with DS106 appropriate soundbites. I also added text and the DS106 logo to make it a cohesive representation of both what we do and what is great about the class. My favorite part and the most challenging part was adding text of things we do and making it so Selena “puts” them in her grocery cart. I used the movement controls in iMovie but it was hard to get it in a seamless movement. Hopefully the text is readable! I had a lot of fun making this whole promo.

As for the original 28 Days Later… I can’t say it was my favorite apocalyptic film. Going in, I knew it would be different from the usual types of movies I picked. Although I had watched Train to Busan previously, 28 Days Later seemed more like a thriller and gore movie than one really fixated on emotional issues and character development. This was partly true when I watched it. Throughout the movie, you get glimpses of the lives of Jim, Hannah and Frank pre-apocalypse but almost no background on Selena, a main fixture in the film. This may have been purposeful to show her as the “tough” girl with a mysterious, closed off past and to some degree, she does reveal this is true. However, she was the character I grew invested in and I was disappointed I didn’t get to know more about her.

The film’s cinematography and editing style is very notable. I wasn’t a fan of it but I can appreciate what they were trying to do and the innovation of the technique. Whenever there was an intense moment, the scenes would have quick cuts of camera angles and sound to represent the chaotic moment without showing it in its entirety. I’m bad at explaining it but you can view an example of it in the video above. This was an interesting technique that was very jarring and unsettling. However, it could be dizzying and make you feel like they skipped through core moments from big battles.

One thing I really liked about the movie was how it switched courses about 2/3 in, from a simple infection-based apocalypse movie to a more intense action-thriller with a social commentary. A big focus of the end of the film was on the military response to the infection in the UK. They single-handedly plan that the future will be one with sex slavery of women and find their victims in the two main female characters. They’re thankfully rescued but the viewer is left, or at least I was left, with reminders of tragic atrocities committed during wartime and in times when the structures of society fell apart. It was interesting to see a different sort of theme permeate this apocalyptic story.

All in all, I found the characters likeable and the action captured my attention. If you watched 28 Days Later, let me know what you thought of it below!