PSA iMovie Reflection

1.
I recall that our group worked well together, primarily at the onset of the project when we were dividing up the tasks. Our strength as a group came from our diverse talents. I was able to call on my contacts with the Cal State Poetry community and contacts at Clarke Field House to interview some of the poets such as Ant Black that were throwing down that night. With my camcorder I got some good interview and raw footage to throw into the hopper.
The weakness of our group might have been that lack of consensus as we were wrapping up the editing process. There were some strong personalities that ran roughshod over some of the other members contributions. Certain visions were ignored and our main editor appeared immune to input from others. Also some team members seemed to have a frustration level that was easily engaged.

2.
I consider myself a key contributor to the project, particularly at the beginning. I was able to articulate a good idea during the brainstorming and storyboarding exercises. I also capitalized on the ongoing poetry event and captured a lot of good footage along with a clever interview script. I also selected the music we used….but hey….How can you go wrong with Greyboy All-Stars?!

3.
This project was a real eye-opener for me. My awareness of the achievement gap came about primarily from the terrific statistics and anecdotes provided by the two team members tasked with the research. Of course the Ant Black interview had a lot to do with it as well.

4.
I can definitely see myself using iMovie in the class but would need to put a few controls in place. I don’t mean control that would stifle creativity and spontaneity. What I mean is more in the way of ‘spatulating’ the talent so that there are balance talent loads. O point in having all the ‘techies’ on the same team. By making sure each team has a good mix of talents, working styles, (and yes flakiness) the best videos can then be produced.

5. I had such a blast with this project. It was so much easier to quickly get up to speed than using Final-Cut Pro, which has a longer learning curve