The message of this PSA was to inform the public about a imbalance in the workplace. The statistics of this imbalance were shown through our bodies in the beginning of our PSA. Then through repetition of statistics of how many people of various ethnicities had at least a bachelor’s degree, we were trying to help motivate people from various underrepresented communities to take initiative to finish higher education. In order to reach the goal of having a more diverse community in the work place, we realized that we had to start from the source of the river – mainly, the teenagers who will start their journey into higher institutes of learning. Thus, all of the people in this PSA are teenagers, so that the teenagers who see this PSA will be able to better relate. Also, because the statistics were different for different ethnicities, we had each person of a specific ethnicity to talk about the information that pertained to them. This PSA will hopefully affect the underrepresented teenage community who may or may not have thought about attending college. By seeing fellow teens who look and are like themselves, the teens watching this PSA may become inspired to take their education to a whole new level. Plus, the modern music in the background only adds to the teenagers being lured into watching this PSA.

For this project, i helped with editing parts of the audio and also helped with taking pictures of the statistics represented by fellow SMASH scholars. If i had more time, however, i would have worked on helping with special effects and editing the visual part of the video itself, as i am not as efficient in these areas. I chose to help with the parts that i worked on because there was a limited amount of time, and these things were the things that i knew would be easier for me.

For my silent film, i worked together with Liliana Pang to create the story of two girls in search of different methods to pop their popcorn kernels. After painstakingly filming and editing the video and the audio, our silent film was born. 

One day, two girls go on a hunt to find more popcorn after they realize that they have eaten all of their popcorn even before they finished watching their movie. Thus, they take the unpopped kernels to their microwave, only to find out that it is broken. Will they ever find a way to pop their kernels so they can finish watching their movie? Or will the have to suffer through the rest of their movie without popcorn? 

For my second assignment, i traveled over the bridge to the Foothill Dining Commons where i was able to see and ask about the food being served there. The food there, while it was not “homemade”, still contained valuable nutrients necessary for daily life. The dining commons provided many choices of foods to choose from, including a salad bar and a sandwich bar. 

The purpose of this assignment was to capture the true thoughts of SMASH scholars and staff about the food. The hardest part of this assignment was actually figuring out how to get started. After planning out what i have to film and who i have to interview, it was easy to film and edit the clips. 

There are three basic necessities of life: water, shelter, and food. During the five weeks SMASH scholars and staff spend on the UC Berkeley campus, much time will be spent in the dining commons of Stern, in search of nutrients that are basic for survival. At the end of their dining experience in the Foothill DC, do these students and staff members leave the dorms feeling satisfied and happy?

For my second assignment, i am going to be making a documentary about the different aspects of Stern Dining Commons. How do SMASH scholars and staff feel about the food and the environment? Do they eat it because it is tasty or simply because it is free? This documentary will portray how this group of people successfully survives 5 weeks of eating in the dining commons.

This video was filmed with our new flipvideo cameras and a program called Final Cut Express on our MacBooks- also new. Filming took place during our first day of class, June 24th, with our film production groups. Each group had a different set of questions. My group, group A had three questions that we answered: which movie first inspired us and why, who films the most in our family, and what we would like to show the world about the SMASH program. Each one of us had different and unique answers, which were then edited together to make one final video. Because each one of us edited the clips independently, we produced four different versions. Here is my take: 

Though the actual filming process took less than 30 minutes, the editing process took more than 2 hours. Each clip had to be cut so only the desired part was left. These cut clips were then arranged and combined – in whichever way we wished. Then, special effects had to be added. Effects were added to make smooth transitions form clip to clip. In addition, text was added in between clips to visually show each question in the video. Finally, the whole video was “rendered” so that it could be watched as an actual video rather than as a slideshow of the various video clips. This rendered video was then converted into a quicktime file and uploaded to Youtube for the world to see. Overall, it was a fun experience, and I was surprised to see how well my video turned out, as i didn’t have any previous experience with editing videos.