blog 6. well, this has been fun

Pre-TED

I was pretty proud of myself for starting on the script to the TED talk the day that it was assigned. It was unexpected because I was unconventionally motivated for a public speaking event. Either way, my script was basically done about three days before the presentation. Of course, then on the day right before (Wednesday), I decided I wanted to take my messagee in an entirely new direction...which then led me to rewrite about half of my script. I suppose you could say it was a pretty stressful 24 hours.

Post-TED

If you asked me how I think I did or how I felt during the presentation, I couldn't tell you. It went by so fast, and it's really all just a blur at this point. I've never been a natural at public speaking, so there were definitely things I had to consciously be careful of, such as speaking in a monotone voice, speaking too fast, or not maintaining eye contact.

check out @mattsurelee on IG

I made it through without any major slips, which was a pretty great victory! It went smoothly, considering less than 24 hours prior I had neither a complete script nor a complete PPT. Also, both of my videos played (thank goodness!), despite my laptop connection having a long history of letting me down when I need it most. In any case, there were also ~more than a few~ things I could have done better. Here are the main things I would definitely fix if I did this again:

1. In order to keep with the time, I focused decidedly less on my final product and more on the message. I didn't elaborate as much as I would have liked on that part of the presentation. In hindsight, I think this was also in part because my message had more to do with the process than the product. I wasn't the most successful in tying every aspect together.
2. Anyone who has ever had a conversation with me would know that I tend to speak pretty fast. That, on top of nerves, equates to me talking at the speed of light during presentations. This is probably something I can only overcome through practice, so... good luck to me, I guess.

All of this being said, let's move on to the better part:

1. When I mentioned earlier that I took a different approach to my TED talk, I meant it. My message was entirely different from the kinds of things I usually do, and it worked out well in the end. Especially for a project dealing with intrinsic motivation and positive messages, I think the honesty I tried to convey was really suitable.
2. In reflecting on my own presentations, the first thing I consider is memorization. In this case, I'm happy with my familiarity with the script. Of course I had a few slips, but nothing I couldn't recover from. (yay! 👍) Most importantly, I tried to distinguish this kind of TED talk from other presentations like the Brain Project. This definitely had a certain level of informality, so memorizing the script contributed to the conversational-like tone.

And lastly, before I say good-bye to the Genius Project 2019™, here is one last video I made of my trip to New York City over Spring Break.

It's just something small I made in about 15 minutes, so nothing too great to see here :)

- And so, it ends.

blog 5. reflections on the product (part 2)

Today is April 7, which means it has been exactly 104 years since a woman named Eleanora Fagan was born in Philadelphia. You might know her better as Billie Holiday. Today also marks 155 years since the first camel race in Sacramento, California and 66 years since the unveiling of IBM's first commercial scientific computer. It's National Beer Day and National Girl, Me Too Day. Today we celebrate the birthdays of Russell Crowe and Jackie Chan, as well as Mr. W.K. Kellogg, without whom we would not have Poptarts, Froot Loops, or Rice Krispies.

Me contemplating life without Froot Loops (the best cereal)

Most importantly, however, April 7 means it has been exactly 53 days since the start of the Genius Project™. That's right; we've arrived. Fifty-three days ago, at the start of the project, I had very high hopes for the final product. I had this great vision of how it would turn out and the steps I'd take to get there. It turns out things don't always happen as smoothly as the way you planned (shocker, I know). Video-editing, for instance, was a lot harder than I anticipated, and I ran into a lot more difficulties. So instead of focusing on the final trailer as a whole, I decided to approach it from various smaller angles. For example, in order to measure my success, I set two criteria independent of each other: music and transitions. This was done in lieu of judging the trailer as one cohesive film because as you'll see, I wasn't very successful on that front. Basically, I'll just be reflecting on my ability to incorporate transitions and music separately.

I'm generously rating this a 4.7 / 10

Music

I used three different scores for this: music from the original trailer, music from the recut, and Best Horror Music Ever! Even though I tried my best to align climaxes in the music with certain critical scenes, it definitely still sounds choppy and abrupt at times. The hardest part was trying to navigate different parts of the music relative to jump cuts. I had to calculate it down to the hundredth of a second in order to make everything match up precisely. It's pretty rough towards the end. Also, since I failed to establish a story line, the entire video seems extremely random. It was hard to distinguish where the musical climaxes should line up.

Transitions

I aimed to incorporate two different types of transitions into the trailer, a jump cut and fade-to-black. They're both pretty aptly named; a jump cut is when one scene suddenly jumps to the next, and a fade-to-black is when one scene fades to black before the next one appears. I managed to include both, however rough it may have turned out. I used a lot more jump cuts than I probably should have, which contributed to the sporadic nature of this "trailer." In fact, I wouldn't even call it a trailer at this point; it's more like a compilation of various clips that I edited while only considering technical aspects. Fade-to-black transitions are commonly used to create mystery by showing glimpses of high-intensity scenes. You'll see that I've attempted to copy this technique at the very end.

P.S - pre-TED thoughts

This week, I found my motivation rising again with the prospect of the TED talk. I actually started writing my script the day it was assigned, which is how you know I'm motivated. I generally despise these sorts of presentations, but strangely enough, I had a lot of decent ideas on the direction I wanted to go in. I guess it was about time anyways. See you on Thursday!

Videos used in recut:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f516ZLyC6U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYKpIr1lSG0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycoY201RTRo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKPK6c0mKE0