Marketing Me!

It’s that time of the year again! It is time for the 10th Annual Moving Pictures Film Festival at Peninsula College. I submitted a few videos to the film festival last year. However, this year has been a little different. I have been extremely busy for most of the quarter and feel like I have been somewhat rushed to get my work done so I don’t quite feel that I’ve really been able to put my all into much. The one project that I really am putting my all into isn’t done yet either. That would be my documentary about the local non-profit, 4PA. I did throw together a quick trailer for it though! I will be submitting the trailer to the festival this year at least. I will certainly submit the final product to the film festival next year for sure. Like most creators, I’m probably just being a little too overcritical of myself and my work.

I have also had the honor of producing the film festival this year by putting all of the videos together into one video file. I’m also hoping that I will be available the night of the festival so that I can actually attend it. Sounds like I missed out last year when it was discovered that my friend who starred in a lot of my work was apparently already famous.

I will be very proud of my 4PA documentary once it is done and will market it heavily. You can count on that. I will also make sure I market the film festival on social media by sharing online posts.

The Impact of the Watchmen

First and foremost, “Watchmen” was the first of its kind. It stood out from the crowd in an exemplary fashion. It put other comic books to shame. The writer, Alan Moore, took a more non-traditional approach to writing it. For starters, the storyline doesn’t take place in a fictional city like most other comics do. It takes place in New York city. Also, this story was portrayed as more realistic. While it is still loaded with physical impossibilities, the comic had a more real feel to it due to its setting, timeline, and character personalities. You would also find that the Watchmen graphic novel didn’t look like it fit in on a typical comic rack. The front cover would seem much more boring than that of a traditional comic book. These factors definitely made it unique.

https://screenrant.com/how-watchmen-changed-comic-books-forever/#11-cold-war-commentary

It’s been several years since I have seen the 2009 film adaptation, but I do remember owning it when I was a kid. I can recall the first time I watched it and what my reaction to it was. I could tell right from the beginning that something about this superhero story was vastly different from any other superhero story I had ever seen or read before that. There was just something about how it was filmed that made all other superhero movies seem like corny fiction but this, this was real.

https://www.vox.com/2019/10/18/20917361/watchmen-hbo-comic-superheroes-explained

This work of art was certainly one of a kind and I am still waiting to see something that tops it.

Edutainment

What is edutainment you ask? Why, it is the delivery of education while the viewer is also being entertained. The best example of this in my own memory goes back to my childhood. I won’t ever forget watching those videos in elementary school classes. Bill Nye the Science Guy. It’s hard to just say that without singing it like it was sang in the renowned television show’s hip, upbeat intro sequence.

Bill Nye certainly mastered this technique. He delivered short and sweet bits of valuable information to young viewers while often acting somewhat silly to add a factor of humor to the mix. This formula keeps things from getting stale. We tend to to tune things out when they become slow-paced, repetitive, or not as stimulating.

This day in age, we need that constant stimuli to keep our brains engaged. I apply this same method when I create training videos for the company I work at. I always try to incorporate some type of mild humor in it to keep the viewers engaged. This also ensures that they are always paying attention and willing to watch the videos in the first place because they can expect to see some funny twist on what would normally be a very dry and boring topic.

https://futureparty.com/edutainment-short-learning-videos/

https://youtu.be/g5BHxozBPuA

My Ultimate Level-Up

I would have to say that I had a couple different perspective widening experiences with media. The first was when I was in Stevens Middle School in 6th grade. We would watch a daily news broadcast on the TVs in the classrooms. The broadcast was produced by the 8th grade students in Mr. Edwards’ Advanced Media Technology class. I immediately knew what I wanted to do when I got to 8th grade. I thought it was so cool that we could produce things like this as an 8th grader. Next thing you know, I was in that very class when I was an 8th grader. I stood out from the rest of the class though. I didn’t help produce the daily segment with everyone else. I was off working on my own weekly segment called “The Jesse Report”.

The second experience was more recently as an adult. This hit me once I realized there was potential for me to practice my media production skills at my current job. This got me back into the game. I had a newfound desire to chase my dreams once again. After heading down this path, I started to discover all of the technological advances we have made in media production since I was in that Advanced Media class in middle school. I hadn’t really kept up with the times to be honest.

What type of player am I, you ask? Why, I am definitely a cross between the achiever and the explorer. I love playing games like Bethesda’s Fallout & Elder Scrolls series plus the entire Assassin’s Creed franchise. The AC games are great for the integration of historical events, landmarks, and locations into a fictional storyline. These games offer a huge open world that is ripe with many different locations to discover, quests to complete, and collectibles to find.

I want to level up in life by completing the Multimedia Communications program at Peninsula College and seeing what the future brings.

Side note: I had really hoped to find an old video on YouTube of the Stevens News Network from back in the day, but had no luck.

Respect & Responsibility

Those are two very strong words when it comes to the world of art and ingenuity. When it comes down to it, one of the biggest driving factors that inspires creativity is the incentive of recognition. I’m very sure that it would be completely devastating to spend countless hours, days, weeks, months, or years on a new project or piece of art, just to have someone else copy it and take all of the credit for it. I kindly ask anyone reading this to put themselves in that person’s shoes. Just imagine for a moment what that would feel like. It is absolutely inhumane if you ask me.

To be honest, I was very disrespectful and inconsiderate in the creative realm myself before taking these classes. I suppose I just hadn’t ever stopped to think about the fact that using copyrighted music in my video projects was rude, wrong, illegal, and disrespectful. I’m glad that I can see that now today and act accordingly. After all, if we don’t practice good ethics and let all responsibility go out the window, the incentive of recognition becomes compromised. With that jeopardized, the flame of inspiration may be short-lived in what could’ve or would’ve been potential new artists.