Donating Blood & Saving Lives at Olathe Northwest High School
Recently, Olathe Northwest held it's annual Blood Drive. Surprisingly, a lot of students volunteered to give blood, which was nice to see. Many students were nervous, but others had given blood before and knew what to expect. I, however, was lucky enough to join Tao on his adventure of donating blood. During this journey of sorts, I learned many new things and just going to the Blood Drive, overall, was a new and exciting experience. Especially since I was recording it; getting in people's faces with a camera is fun... Most of the time.
And so it Begins...
Before I could even begin filming, I needed to choose someone to follow around and "stalk" I guess you could say; I ended up choosing Tao to cut to the point. Little did I know that this was Tao's first time donating blood. He hadn't done this before and thought that Olathe Northwest High School having a Blood Drive was a good thing and overall a good program. Although it was fun filming Tao and the Blood Drive as a whole, the process you had to go through in order to donate blood... Well, let's just say that it took A LOT longer than I expected.
The Process Before Blood Donation
One of the things that bothered me the most about filming Tao and the Blood Drive was the long process you had to go through before you could actually donate blood. First, you had to talk to a registration lady that would ask you a lot of questions that I didn't really pay attention to; so if you're dying to know what she asked, this isn't the blog post for you. After that, you were required to fill out various papers that contained personal information for safety reasons. While the students were filling out this information, I was not allowed to record them in order to ensure privacy and for other obvious reasons. Then after you finally answered all the registration lady's questions and filled out all the paper work, you went inside and sat in the waiting area until a blood donation station opened up (yes, that rhymed; I'm aware; I didn't mean to).
Donating Blood
I know you'll hate me for this... Unfortunately, I was unable to catch Tao actually donating blood. I apologize for this gap in my story. Due to time constraints and the unexpected longevity of registration and paper work, I had no time left to catch Tao actually donating his blood. Yes, I would have liked to have been able to film him actually donating blood but I won't complain because I was able to learn a few things here and there while filming and editing this. Up until the end, I'd say I'm pretty satisfied with the way this turned out.
The Positive Side of Things
While I am sad that I was unable to catch Tao actually donating blood, I am happy that I was able to learn some new things while filming the blood drive. One of the things I learned was how to use my body as a tripod. This was extremely helpful and kept the camera from shaking and making the video practically unwatchable (in my opinion). I also learned a few things while editing this: The first of those is how to play audio from one clip while playing (displaying) a completely different clip. This was very useful and - in my opinion - gave the film a more "professional feel" if you understand what I'm trying to say. I was definitely able to utilize these skills in my Lego Day Video.
In Comparison to my Lego Day Video
My Lego Day video and my Blood Drive video are very similar. Both of them include me "stalking" someone for the day. I also didn't use a tripod in either of them; Hopefully not using a tripod wasn't too noticeable, as the goal was to get steady shots.
Lego Day at Olathe Northwest High School
Fairly recently (not as recent as the Blood Drive), Olathe Northwest had it's Lego Day. We e-Comm students took full advantage of it and built Star Wars Lego Ships. In my video, Madison (the one actually building the ship) is building the Millennium Falcon. I had a lot of fun shooting this and making her uncomfortable - unintentionally of course - and working on getting steady (not shaky) shots. Madison finished her ship pretty fast compared to the time it took me to finish mine. She had a lot of fun building the Millennium Falcon and hadn't worked with Legos in a while.
Before Building
Before she was able to build the Millennium Falcon, we had to wait a pretty large amount of time for a lego set to become available as there were a lot of participants (students). During this waiting time, we just worked on other projects and sometimes homework from other classes. Eventually though, we were finally able to get our hands on a Lego set and begin this journey of epic Lego building. Although it wasn't too "epic," I had fun filming it and she had fun building it, so I think that's what really matters.
The Building Process
The process of building the Lego ship felt pretty long but fortunately wasn't too hard. If I were to ball park an estimate of how long it took, I would say about 7 or 8 minutes, but I'm just guessing. She worked at a pretty steady pace and was good about not getting distracted. I didn't ask her as many questions as I would have liked to but I think it still turned out pretty good. Throughout the process, she looked very determined to get the ship built and stayed on task. After a while, she finally finished it and the final product was pretty awesome if I do say so myself. She was pretty happy about how it turned out and it was definitely worth the wait and work.
Reflection
Looking back on Lego Day, there are a lot of things that I could have done better but then again, there is always room for improvement. One of the things that I really should have done better was getting more shots in an effort to make this video at least 1 minute long, which - in case you didn't know - I failed to do. The other thing I would have done differently and will try to improve on next time is a bit less shaky shots. I know there weren't too many in this video but, while editing, there were a lot of shaky shots that got rejected. I find it weird how shaky shots work; while filming it doesn't look or feel like it's shaky until you go back and start editing it. Then, you realize that the shots were pretty shaky and wish you could go back and re-shoot them but there isn't much you can do about it; you just have to work with what you have. Sometimes what you have is better than you expected and other times it isn't. The last thing I would change would be in the Blood Drive video. A lot of my shots were out of focus. This bothers me and makes the video hard to watch. Getting my camera in focus before I begin recording is definitely something I'll make sure I do in the future. However, Despite all of my mistakes, I had a lot of fun filming this and I think that added to the quality of my video. I'm pretty proud of both of these videos. Although there are some things that I wish I could go back and change, I'm still satisfied with the final product.
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