Finally...the final podcast!

I am thrilled for this to be complete. I have a newfound respect for all the EMAC people in the world. It was an enlightening experience to say the least.

Brandi, Ashley and I always have a blast taping our videos and this time around was no exception. We were together way too long, but once we actually started working it went pretty fast. I think we might have learned one or two things, so we had much fewer stops and starts. And we finally used one of our colleague's very good idea to use a laptop as a teleprompter. This saved us so much time.

THe editing process was surprisingly simple for me this time around as well. I am NOT a fan of Macs and I will never own one. THey are not nearly as user-friendly as they are so often touted to be. Thankfully, though, the one I was working on hung in just long enough for me to complete my project. Not so thankfully, it seems that at least one of the three of us has some kind of major technology problem while editing every time. So, I'm ending the podcast series on a vaguely negative note. However, as you can see in the podcast, I'm gearing up for graduation and ready to take all this experience with me when I go!

More podcasting fun...

The number two podcast...

My second podcast experience was nearly as painful as the first. I was so optimistic, but I was definitely disappointed. I had a lot of fun shooting the video. I made dinner and invited several of my friends over. They did not all realize that they had been recruited to star in my podcast. We actually had a very interesting conversation that went on way longer than I expected. That's what I get for inviting over a bunch of graduate students.

The experience of editing was the major problem. I still was having issues with my hard drive, so that was a key factor. Also, we went to the library to edit. We learned at our cost that the library's version is much older than what we use in our lab. We asked so many questions of the help desk that one of their staffers nearly had to pull up a chair! Other problems we faced: the camera we had was incompatible, we had issues logging in, the headphones I had on loan from the library didn't work, etc. To top that off, I had an hour and a half of footage to sort through. It took that long to import! Around 1 a.m., I was finishing up my editing and I still couldn't save to my hard drive. I tried to export the finished video as an MPEG-4, but that wasn't possible. I saved it for web, which compressed the video as a Quicktime file. Apparently, that was not a good idea, because as you can see, the quality of the video was severely hampered.

Podcasting is evidently not for the faint of heart! I'm going to hang in there; I have high hopes that my next experience will be better.

Podcast #1

The first podcasting experience was definitely interesting. Ashley, Brandi and I all met to film our projects. I did not expect that we would have difficulty with the equipment, and fortunately, we did not. The most frustrating parts were figuring out the lighting and figuring out how to be on-camera. I, especially, struggled with writing for the project and communicating what I wanted while being filmed.

Once the filming was done, I was completely intimidated by the idea of editing. It turned out not to be as inconceivable as expected. It was, however, extremely time-consuming and requiring an attention to detail that I really do not possess. Further, issues with the external hard drives have made this more confusing and frustrating than surely was ever the intention. I borrowed a hard drive that had been formatted for a PC. I discovered this in class. Then, I went ahead and saved my completed podcast to Ashley's hard drive. Sadly, her drive died. Add to that the stress of studying for comprehensive exams, and it makes for a not-so-enjoyable experience.

I am optimistic that the next podcast will proceed much more smoothly. Soon, the technology problems will be figured out and the fear of the unknown will be replaced with confidence of the not-quite-novice.