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I can’t believe it, it’s the last week of genius hour. It went by very fast and I definitely learned a lot of things. My original idea was to film myself doing catch, clean, and cook fishing videos and it stayed that. I am super happy with how everything came out and how much I have learned. I learned how to make videos, which is something I wasn’t the best at before. I finalized my videos last week and they are great. I also learned how to clean and cook certain fish. Of the cleaning part, scaling the fish was pretty cool. It is satisfying in a way. With the cooking the best part was me actually getting to try the fish. I had never tried any of the fish I caught before, so it was a new experience for me. It was also funny to have my dad filming with me. Sometimes he would congratulate me during the video or make little comments that made it really funny when I had to edit the videos. Since I reflected back on my project the last thing I have to do is my final presentation. I have been watching the videos from the last students that gave good feedback on what to do and what not to do. I looked over a couple of their presentations also. I saw a lot of them had their different weeks with pictures of what they did. So I got some pictures together that I had and it helped me with my presentation a lot. I have worked on my presentation a good bit today (Sunday), but I am going to finish it up tomorrow (Monday). I will present the first thing on Wednesday, so that will be exciting. I will probably present in front of my family to see what they think. Other than that it has been a really fun 12 weeks and I am very happy with how everything came together.
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Week 11 : Finalizing My Videos12/5/2021 It’s week 11, very surprising how much has gone by and how much I have already learned. I have all of my stuff done. I just need to look over some of my videos. I have them almost fully edited. I can definitely see the difference in how the videos look. I honestly think I like my second video the most. I have this one clip of me casting then I have some clips of how nice the golf course looked and the pond that I was fishing in. I added those all together and even a video of a Heren that was on the bank. I added some music over that and it looks really good. I like my other videos too. The catfish one was super cool also. I liked filming at night even though it was super cold. I actually got myself reeling in the catfish. It was a great sized catfish so it was perfect to clean and cook. The bream video was also really cool. I caught a bass in that video and I didn’t even need to. So that was a cool addition to the video. Sadly I didn’t catch a trout. That would’ve been nice, but it was the only one I failed at so it’s not that bad. So overall all of my videos are really good. I think they all came out super good. I need to get them on weebly. So that is something I need to do on top of starting my presentation. I’m pretty sure I am going to have to upload them to youtube then post them on weebly. I remember seeing that option when I have edited my site before. I will make another page with it being called “my videos”. I will link those on there. I think they will easily get on my site. With week 12 I am going to work on my presentation and complete it.
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Week 10 : Species #5 Video Process11/28/2021 It’s very surprising that it has been 10 weeks since I started. Last week I attempted to catch a trout and sadly failed. That means I did not get that much film but I got some clips of the scenery and me casting a couple of times. So as I would normally do is edit my video, but there is no video to edit so I needed to do something different for this week. I decided to add in the casting clips and scenery and do a little bit of editing on them. So this week since I didn’t have to edit a video I decided to look back on my other videos to see if I can improve them at all. I definitely saw the most flaws in my first two videos. I really saw a lot more improvement in my 3rd and 4th videos. I did as much as I could in the editing but you can still see the improvement from me actually filming. Also looking back at my process I can see that the 12 week - 12 fish would have not worked at all. I am glad I noticed that earlier. That is why I decided to only do 6 fish, but that also didn’t work out. This didn't work out because I didn’t take the final presentation into consideration. That is what I will be working on in the next upcoming weeks. I looked at the videos for recommendations on what to do for the presentation and I am still planning out what I am going to do. I am going to practice it as much as I can and really get it down pat. I am excited to make the presentation and make sure I can show my progress and kind of teach what I learned so others can get an idea of what I actually did.
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Week 9 : Trout - Species #511/21/2021 Yesterday I did my last species for my catch, clean, and cook. I successfully completed 4 out of 5. Sadly yesterday I did not catch a trout like I had planned. It sucks not being able to catch a fish but catching a trout was going to be my most difficult anyways. I was in boone for the weekend and trout live in the mountains in small streams and rivers. My dad and I stayed in a cabin there. Right outside of the cabin was a river. When catching a trout you want to get in the water. You don’t really catch trout from the bank. So since the water is cold you have to wear waiters which is what I did. They are basically waterproof bibs with built in boots. Some waiters have special bottoms on the boots so you can’t slip on the rocks that are in the river. I used a small fly from the brand Joe’s flies. Flies are the most used for trout. You can also use a small rooster tail. Trout are meant to be caught with very small and low profile baits, so flies and rooster tails are the best things you can use. I used a spinning reel but a lot of people use a fly rod and fly fish. Fly fishing is much more difficult and pretty hard to master, but also very cool to watch and fish that way. I fished for a while but had no luck. I still got some videos of me casting and moving around in the water so at least I have something to put in my final video. Also I had planned on 6 fish, but with the final presentation I will need some time to do that and plan it out. So next week I will put in clips of me fishing and that’s about all. I will probably start looking into the final presentation and fixing some of my older videos.
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Week 8 : Species #4 Video Process11/14/2021 Week 8 was a pretty good week. This week I had to edit my bass video. I really liked how the video turned out. I still can see where I am getting better, but I am obviously not a pro. I noticed throughout making the video that it was going to flow very well. When making the video I thought about thumbnails and how I am going to do that. I was thinking of different ideas and I am going to ask one of my friends who had Adobe visuals and design to help me make some thumbnails. Also I noticed the sound quality. I wanted to get a mic but never got around to it. I still have two videos to make in week 10 and 12, so I am still considering purchasing one to make my videos better. With the quality of the videos it is great. I said this earlier but I am using a Nikon camera, the D3500. It makes the videos so much better. I love not having to use my phone to video. But when I video I need to make sure it is always focused. In some clips I look back and I notice that it is a little blurry and it can be better. But when editing I make it work and add some things in so that is not what you focus on. When filming I make sure I get some great videos of the scenery around me. It was very pretty and me capturing that on video plays greatly into the video itself. It also helps me add something different while I am editing. It lets me put some basic music over those clips to make the video more enjoyable. Also you don’t just wanna see me talking the whole time. From me watching videos and learning, I can see how those short little clips can change the whole video greatly. With not being able to actually be there you can at least see it when I film those short segments of what’s around me. In last week's video I got a video of a blue heron. I wish I had something like that last week to put in my video this week but I sadly didn’t. I still got some different things to put in the video though. This week was great and I hope I can have a productive week next week also, onto week 9!
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Week 7 : Largemouth Bass - Species #411/7/2021 Week 7 was another great week. I caught a bass this week. I went to a pond in Lexington. The pond is one of my dad’s patients. He usually talks about fishing and the things he does to his patients and then they let us come and fish at their ponds. This pond was the first time we have both gone to it. I was kind of worried if we were going to catch one or not. Catching bass is great during the morning and we came a little later than we should’ve but still scored on a fish. I started out with a Berkeley whopper plopper. This lure is for top water and makes some great sound. This lure is my go to when I try to catch bass. It didn’t work so I decided to switch lures. I went to a minnow lure with a spoon on it. I did this because I could see small minnows on the bank, so I knew what the bass ate. I thought that bait would be perfect so I switched to it and it worked. I caught the 2 pound bass right near the bank. I was super excited cause I was worried we weren’t going to catch one. Since I got the catch out of the way I had to clean it now. The cleaning process is like the bream and crappie I did on week 1 and week 3. I did the exact cleaning steps I did with crappie and bream with the bass, scale, cut head, gut, cut tail, then wash off. Now since I did the cleaning part I needed to cook it. This week I decided to bake it. I had to watch some videos on this to figure out how to do it. We baked it with some carrots and potatoes for 20 minutes. It was actually my favorite. It was super good and I would definitely eat it again. For the videoing process there is not much to say. It was just like the others. I talked a little bit more and we got some more clips of me casting. I sadly didn’t get the part of me actually catching the fish. We had a lot of doubts and we were about to leave so my dad was fishing too and not filming. I explained that in the video but all around we did a great job with filming. Now I have to edit the video in week 8. I think this one will be similar to the other ones. My editing has gotten better and much faster. That’s it for week 7 now I am onto week 8!
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Week 6 : Species #3 Video Process10/31/2021 This week was very fun for me. I caught a crappie last week and completed the video process this week. I know I mention this every video week but I am honestly seeing much improvement in my editing skills. The actual video is playing a huge factor into actually making the edits good. When videoing I got a super cool shot of a crane or blue heron eating a smaller crappie that I caught before actually getting the bigger crappie that I decided to cook. When watching other catch, clean, and cook videos on you-tube you always see something like that happening in the video. I finally got a moment like that, that I was able to put into the video. With the editing I want to download and try out some different soft wares. That is something I need to research and watch videos on. Since I am still classified as a beginner in the videography, I still want a more basic editing soft ware. This is something I am going of take into consideration with my next video. I think having that will improve the flow of my videos. Also I filmed more of the scenery around me. It looked great with me being on a golf course pond. Just something about a golf course towards sunset looks very good on camera and in person. Another thing I would like to improve for my videos is the sound quality. Just based off watching catch, clean, and cook videos on you-tube and generally any video they have great sound quality. I feel like that is one of my flaws in my videos. Even though the audio isn't awful, it is still not good. I will be researching a low budget mic that I can attach to my camera. Preferably something from amazon so it can get here quick so I can use it for week 7 on my new species. Onto week 7!
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Week 5 : Crappie - Species #310/24/2021 Week 5! I already can feel my progress in my project. I am learning a lot. Looking back at where I started I have made huge progress. Starting off I didn't even know how to cook any type of meat. Now I know how to cook 3 different types of fish and 3 more to come. The catch, clean, cook process has been awesome. I can really see my liking of the project by watching the videos. Yesterday I caught crappie. This fish is very good eating. We caught a really good size on a super good day for fishing. Crappie are one of my favorite fish to eat now that I have tried multiple and even cooked multiple. I really like the taste. As for catching the fish it wasn't much of a challenge at all. I caught it at the Oak Valley Golf Course in Advance, NC. I actually live here so it wasn't bad at all to get to the pond on hole 7. I actually have fished here before so I knew that I had a good chance to catch a crappie. I could've caught a bass easily out of that pond but that wasn't the plan for this week. I have a good idea of what fish I am going to catch next and I am really excited. For the cleaning process it wasn't that much different than the bream. They are both very similar in size and shape so it all worked out from prior knowledge and help of the videos. Now for the filming process of this week. I honestly felt like I did a better job than other weeks. I felt like I could've done a little better but it was still an improvement. Being in front of the camera and knowing what to say is a work in progress. All I feel like I can do know is really watch the body language and what the ¨pro" youtubers are actually saying and doing. Watching back the clips, everything was fine, audio and visual. I actually use my sister's camera and I have been watching videos on the specific camera also. I didn't know about some of the settings that can improve my quality. Lastly from watching these videos I have seen many people with mics. I talked to my parents and I am going to buy a mic for my next video. This is something I should've done earlier, but it's all in the learning process. It's why we are doing the project. I can wait to crack into editing this video and learn more video tips from videos during week 6!
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Week 4 : Species #2 Video Process10/17/2021 Week 4 was a good week for my genius hour project. I learned a lot more in the video process than I did in week 2. I watched a lot more videos and did a lot more deeper analysis into the video process. I also watched more videos on how to better edit them. I did a better job actually filming the video so that made it easier to edit it. While filming the video I talked a lot more than I did in my first video. I explained a lot more and did an all around better job with it. I also showed more of what I was doing. I got me actually reeling in the catfish so that was awesome. Being able to add that into the video makes it a lot better. When doing the cleaning process I talked some more also and really explained what I was doing. This helps a lot when I am editing cause I can add some things in and really connect to pieces of the video better. It also makes them longer and more enjoyable to watch and edit. I decided to add more transitions into the video. And I did more montage type things. I looked back at my previous video to pick out my flaws in editing and the filming of the video. For my next video I feel like I can better in some areas. I can help fix that during the filming process. I feel like I need the video to flow a little better. I am excited to see how I do. I am still having a lot of fun catching, cleaning, and cooking the fish. But also have a lot of fun filming that process. I need to watch some more videos throughout the week so I can better in these areas. I can't wait to see how my next video comes out. I think it will be even better than the one before. I am learning a lot and have a good time while doing so. Onto week 5!
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Week 3 : Catfish - Species #210/10/2021 So far my progress has been great. This week I chose to catch a catfish then clean and cook it. I have caught many catfish before but I have never cleaned one and cooked one until Saturday. This was 100% better than my first catch, clean, and cook. The first one I did on a portable cooking area, but this time I did it on a stove in a kitchen. This was a really cool experience with the catfish. They are one of my favorite fish to cook and now one of my favorite fish to eat. We got a really good size and I was super excited that we did. A super big catfish can be bad eating. They tend to have more bacteria and are just a lot unhealthier than smaller ones. I caught this fish on Lake Tillery. This is my main spot when my dad and I go cat fishing. Also I caught the fish during night because this is when they are most active and the best time to catch them. So the video process. This time definitely an improvement from week 1. During week 3 I watched videos on youtube more in depth. I listened to what exactly they said. I listened to the tone of how they said something and tried to replicate that. I also noticed different movements and camera angles that were very cool and looked very good and fitting in the video. I took what I learned and I thought I did a pretty good job. I still think there is different things I can do better at, but I will get to see those things in the editing process of week 4. I am excited to learn more about editing. Onto week 4!
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