I decided to try to show some of the things most people would never see for my project. I chose videos that fit my theme of Everyday Lives Of The Military. Seeing a plane get pushed backwards is something I see all the time but whenever I describe it to my friends they always seem fascinated by all the aspects of it that I thought it would be perfect to include in my blog.

The first video me launching the plane during the day so it gives a clear view of the plane being pushed back. For the second I chose the same thing but at night. That video focused more on me going through the movements required to safely maneuver the plane backwards without hitting anything or anyone dumb enough to walk behind a moving aircraft. You can also see a little bit clearer just how much force it takes to get the plane rolling. The dust kicked up and myself being pushed by the blast of air coming off the engines is very noticeable in this second video. The third is something not as flashy but still cool none the less. It’s the view from inside of the landing gear as the tires come up and into storage. The last is just a fun little prank we pulled on the new guy. It can get boring during the day and it is fun to mess around every once in a while.

I found working with Premier a lot easier than the other programs we have used this semester. It was very straight forward, click and drag, for my editing. After getting used to the program it was easy to put everything where it needed to go. The only hard part was getting it to the time restriction. All in all I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

C130

This assignment was particularly hard for me. I had to use my phone as a recorder, and it was a pain getting the audio files to transfer to the computer and fit right for Adobe Audition. The two voices were set to way different volumes and it took a lot of tweaking to get it right. After reading my peer feedback, I went back in and tweaked my audio a bit more to make it flow more smoothly. I made the audio file huge so I could see exactly where me “um”s started and ended so I could cut them away. I am very happy with the final product.

Because of where I am at right now, my base has us in a complete lock down most nights and it was impossible for me to get recordings of anyone other than myself. The internet here is barely enough to connect to flash line and most nights it won’t even do that.  In the end I think it worked out as best as I could get it. I was hoping that being in Germany on a TDY would give me lots of stories to tell you all and show how servicemen and women act when in a foreign country, but this stupid flu put a damper on that. We are forced to isolate after work so the only time I see anyone else is when I am working or if we all decide risk it after going back to the hotel they have us in. Most days we will hang out in the office and play cards just so we can talk to people.

There is almost no difference to working here and working back home so there wasn’t much for me to share with these “interviews”. We all simply wake up, go to work, and come back to our rooms and do our own things. Nothing to exciting and very uneventful for a trip. Normally we all go out and raise hell at the local bars and spend our per diem on booze but almost all shops are shut down and the few that are open are carry out only. It’s almost like being back in Ohio right now!

This assignment was particularly hard for me. I had to use my phone as a recorder, and it was a pain getting the audio files to transfer to the computer and fit right for Adobe Audition. The two voices were set to way different volumes and it took a lot of tweaking to get it right. Because of where I am at right now, my base has us in a complete lock down most nights and it was impossible for me to get recordings of anyone other than myself. The internet here is barely enough to connect to flash line and most nights it won’t even do that.  In the end I think it worked out as best as I could get it. I was hoping that being in Germany on a TDY would give me lots of stories to tell you all and show how servicemen and women act when in a foreign country, but this stupid flu put a damper on that. We are forced to isolate after work so the only time I see anyone else is when I am working or if we all decide risk it after going back to the hotel they have us in. Most days we will hang out in the office and play cards just so we can talk to people.

There is almost no difference to working here and working back home so there wasn’t much for me to share with these “interviews”. We all simply wake up, go to work, and come back to our rooms and do our own things. Nothing to exciting and very uneventful for a trip. Normally we all go out and raise hell at the local bars and spend our per diem on booze but almost all shops are shut down and the few that are open are carry out only. Its almost like being back in Ohio right now!

Picking pictures that fit my theme was more hard than I thought it would be. I had to include pictures that included both my military and normal life, which is hard because I hate taking pictures. I decided to go with a mixture of my family life, school life, and military life. The top left is me in Georgia helping with hurricane relief after hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. The top right is me during a chemical attack exercise. The bottom left picture is the night my sister got engaged. The bottom middle is me and a friend coming back from Kuwait last year, and the bottom right is me tabling for my fraternity. All of these pictures are of significant or fun moments in my life and I think the variety shows that being in the military doesn’t make you any different than anyone else. That is the main goal of my blog. You see these grand spectacles of the military on movies and television shows, but in reality, everyone I’ve ever met in my time in service has just been a normal everyday person. Its almost like being back in high school to be honest.
I have never used Photoshop or any editing software before, so I messed around for longer than I care to admit trying to piece together five simple photographs into a collage. I originally wanted to have a specific picture prominent but decided that since my blog was titles “Everyday lives of the military” that it would be better to have every picture be relatively the same size to help show that every aspect of my life is equal.  So, after playing with a few of the tools Photoshop offers and after figuring out how to resize the pictures and build frames into the canvas, I did some math and built five frames to perfectly fit the 580 x 400 pixel background. I then cropped and edited the photos to fit into their respective frames. I think this is a massive step up from my draft as it looks cleaner. Just like that, my final “masterpiece” was complete.