It's All Over

Well, it is finally over. I don’t mean that in a way where I am thrilled. I mean it in the way that after all the work I went through; I finally had the chance to show off my final product. “A Look at Leukemia; Jeff’s Story” I can officially say was a success. I had some great feedback and nothing but positive comments were given when it was all said and done. Perhaps the greatest comment I received came from my one professor, Dr. Barner. You can always tell when he is impressed with something because he doesn’t give out compliments to often, so when I did receive a compliment, I was thrilled! He said that it really showed the families story. He also made the comment that her really felt like he got to know Jeff by the end of the documentary. That was the greatest comment of them all. The one thing I wanted to get across through this documentary was how great of a life Jeff led. I wanted people to be happy that a man was able to bring such joy to a family’s life even if it was for a brief period. Through my professor “getting to know Jeff” I really felt that I got the message across to the audience.
I was asked a lot of great questions. Quite frankly, I had questions in my mind that I was hoping people were going to ask, and luckily enough….they did. Some of the questions included, “What kind of struggles did you go through making this documentary?”, “If you could change anything about it, what would it be?”, and “What’s next?”
I answered all of them willingly and felt truly proud of my work. I couldn’t have asked for a better response.
As I watched the response from the crowd I saw a lot of different expressions. Some people teared up, some people shook their head, some people looked away, and some people just straight out cried (me being one of them). My one fear before showing the final project is that people would not understand what I was trying to do in the documentary or that nobody would feel a connection with it. That did not happen at all.

In the end, I couldn’t have asked for a better response. I feel that everyone was proud of the work I did which in turned made me proud. And I can say that it was definitely worth all the stress, time, and emotions that I put into the final product of “A Look at Leukemia; Jeff’s Story”.

THE TIME HAS COME!

The time has come to finally show off the work I have been doing for the last two semesters. This Friday, April 25th from 6:00pm to 8:30pm I will be talking about and showing my documentary. The actual screening is at 8:30pm. Talk about nervous!!!! About a week and a half ago I had a fellow student look at my documentary. He told me he thought it was very good and that it looked like I really spent a lot of time on it. That eased my nerves a little bit. But as it gets closer I keep having nervous thoughts pop up in my mind. Like, are there any jump cuts, does everything make sense, do I tell the story in a way that the family will appreciate?
I am proud of my work I just hope everyone else is proud of it too!
One thing that is making me feel better about this coming Friday is that I have three other friends in the Capstone class participating in the art show too. Josh Anderson, T.J. Renninger, and David Greig will all have displays of their projects as well. We all have talked about it and are all ready to finally present our work.
I can not believe how fast everything has gone. The last thing I will have to complete after this Friday is my e-portfolio and that is already almost completely done.
My hopes for my final presentation are that the family truly feels that the documentary is a great portrayal of Jeff, my professors and classmates feel that the documentary is well produced, and that everyone enjoys the documentary.
Other than that, I am well on my way to graduating successfully!

27 Days

That's it. 27 days until college is officially over. Of course the seniors have their senior week and graduation, but the last final will be over in 27 DAYS!!! It’s funny how fast time flies. When you look at it from the beginning, four years seems like a long time but when you’re at the end you truly understand why people say, “Cherish this time, it will all be over before you know it.”
These last weeks are going to go even faster so before I get all caught up in preparing for graduation, I want to fill you in on what the beginning of the rest of my life looks like.

1. My Capstone Presentation is in 11 days. I am both nervous and excited for people to see the final product of my documentary. I have put a lot of hours into it and feel that I have succeeded in my goal to make a documentary that will be appreciated by the Marszalek family.

2. I got my internship for the summer. The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society hired me to be a summer intern. It runs from May 12 to August 22. That was one of the goals that Mr. Weaver (my capstone professor) and I had come up with at the beginning of the year. Although it is not a full time internship, I know I will walk away having learned a great deal.

3. After the internship, hopefully The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society will be looking to hire a new employee and would look to me to fill that position. If not, at least I will have more experience in the work world and will feel confident to start looking for jobs.

All in all, I feel prepared for my future. At first I was a nervous wreck, but things always have a way of working themselves out. I am not ready to leave my dorm room or friends but I am ready to start my career and to make some money!

Big Interview

This was a very event filled week for me. I am almost completely done with my documentary, I finished the rough copy of my poster, and I had an interview for an internship at The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society! The interview is the most exciting so I will expand on that for this blog post.

I found out about the internship with the society by going on their website and checking out job listings for the Society. There were no job openings for the Society but there were internships open. I mailed and emailed my cover letter and resume in and was looking forward to hearing from them. Almost immediately I received and email back saying that they had already filled the positions. I was crushed. However, in my cover letter I mentioned how I met George Omiros and talked with him about the Society. Well I am guessing they read my cover letter and I received a call saying they would like to interview me for an internship. I do not know if it was because they saw that I knew Mr. Omiros or not, but I feel like that was a huge part in the phone call. Networking proved to be important and I truly know the significance of it first-hand now.

I went for the interview on Tuesday and will find out if I get the internship on Monday. Whether I get it or not, it was great practice and taught me a big lesson. I really am hoping I get the internship because it sounded like exactly what I would love to do. I feel I gave a great interview and am looking forward to hearing back to them.

I guess all I can do now is keep my fingers crossed to hear good news on Monday.

An Extra Pair of Eyes

Throughout my years in school I have always enjoyed the idea of creating something all on my own. Although I would be nervous about a project at first, once I started it I would continuously become more excited to see the finished project. Group projects have always been something I enjoyed doing as well. However, when it came to group projects I felt that I had to be in control and always “tweak” it till I thought it was good enough. That was both a good thing and a bad thing because I knew the finished project would be good, but getting there was always a little more difficult.
As I started my documentary I decided that I did not want anyone to see it until it was the day of my presentation. I wanted everyone to be excited and surprised that I was able to put together such a good piece of work. That, of course, is still my hope that everyone will be impressed with what I have put together. However, what I have come to realize this past week is that it’s okay to get a little help and input from others.
This past week I have been working on putting the finishing touches on my documentary. Making sure the audio sounds okay, looking for any jumps in the pictures, and making sure that the story transitions well are just some of the things I have been looking to improve. Watching it over and over again, I became increasingly disappointed about one particular part. In this certain part, a high degree of emotions can be felt but I just thought it wasn’t as powerful as it could be. I didn’t know what to do about it and had almost come to the conclusion that I would not change it. As I was finishing up the last little bit of work I was doing for the day, my boyfriend called me. I told him to come to the lab as I was finishing up. When he finally got to the room, I once again was watching the part that bothered me. He saw the part as I was watching it and could tell I was not happy with it. Contrary to what I wanted, I showed him the why I was unhappy. Then without any hesitation he gave me the suggestion to move the part I did not like to another spot. At first I was like “Nope. No Way. That won’t work”, but then I tried his suggestion. Not only did it work, but it made the whole thing so much more powerful.
I guess the lesson I learned here is that although I love coming up with things all by myself, having someone to give a little extra help can make all the difference in the world.

I want to do everything!!!

As the end of the year is coming closer and closer I continually feel the pressure to find that job I will love for the rest of my life. After talking to my mom several times about this huge task I realized that just about everything sounds good to me. Well maybe not everything, I wouldn’t want that job you see on the reality show “Deadliest Catch”…that’s a little to cold, not to mention dangerous, for my taste. However, the more we talked about it, the more I realized just how interesting a lot of jobs sounded to me. My mom brought up the idea of going back to school to become a gym teacher. That has been one job I have always seriously considered. My uncle brought up going to graduate school and getting a graduate assistant job coaching basketball. My sister brought up the idea of event planning as my career path. All of these suggestions I have been getting really sparked my interest. I now realize that I am even farther away from finding out what my “dream” job is than I ever was before. One thing I do know is that I do not enjoy news. That sounds bad considering I am a broadcast major, but that’s just how it is.

One helpful piece of advice I did receive was that I do not have to know what my future holds this instant. I might not find my “dream” job until I am 40-years-old and that’s okay. The point is that I am looking at my options and realizing I am a woman of many talents that does not have to decide the rest of her life right now.
It would be great to find a job by the time I graduate, but if I don’t, I might as well have a fun time as I discover what might lie ahead.

For anyone else looking for jobs right now, may I suggest that you just type into Google the exact job you are looking for. For one day I avoided going to the job search sites and stuck to Google and found many jobs that I had previously not found on any other sites. Most likely if you find a job opening it will be linked back to some job search site, but I found it a lot easier to find exactly what I was looking for.

Just a little tip!

New Challenges

As I start to really edit my project together and piece together different interviews I keep asking myself this question, "Why does this documentary seem harder to put together than my last one?" I am having some problems piecing the different interviews together to make some sense. My last documentary, "Voice of Abuse" was much easier edit together.

Then I realized that the big difference between this documentary and the last documentary I did is that fact I have more interviews to piece together this time around. In the "Voice of Abuse" we had 3 interviews that needed to be edited. However, the majority of the documentary was based solely on one person. In this new documentary I have 4 interviews that are all equally important. I can not base my other interviews off of one "significant" person because they are all just as significant. I found that a good way to make transitions from one part of the story to another is to use the transition of 'dip to black'. I plan on looking up other effective ways to make transitions from one part of a story to the next.

One other problem I am having is coming up with a title for my documentary. I came up with the name, "Leukemia; One Family's Story", however, after talking to my Capstone class they suggested that I make it more personal. So, taking their advice, I came up with..."Leukemia; Jeff's Story". One thing I can say is that I do not feel that any title can effectively the emotions and power of the Marszalek Family's story.