Month: December 2018

Reflection Paper

I began reading the free writes that I had written from August 30th to December 6th and wondered if I had actually written them. I could not believe that I wrote about such childish things. While reading, I noticed a lot of things that I would not have in myself if I was told to recollect from the past. These writings contained so much information about myself that I would not be able to identify off the top of my head. There were times when I wrote about happy things and other times when I just could not help but be sad.

As I read, I noticed some changes in my writing. I noticed that I had gradually stopped mashing too much information in my sentences. When I compared what I wrote on the first day of class to that which I had written at the end of class, there was such a vast difference between the two. I realized that the one that I had written at the beginning of class was not as specific and to the point as the one that I had written at the end of class. The free writes that were written later into the semester were carefully detailed and to the point. While reading them, I notice the difference in my sentence structuring and choice of vocabulary. The way that I structured my sentences and my choice of vocabulary helped me build the tone of my writing.

Compared to the free writes I wrote at the beginning of the semester, the ones that I wrote later were more comprehensive and relatable. I know that it may be because I have changed personally as a person and have also had my writings corrected. Regardless of the reason, I know that my writing has improved and changed from that of the girl who walked past the glass doors of Baruch College at the beginning of the semester. I noticed from reading all the free writes that I was able to write in a more cohesive way than I did at the beginning of the semester. While reading my writings from the beginning of the semester, I realized that I would start with one idea but drift off to another making it difficult to follow. The free writes that I wrote later in the semester however, had a more direct and cohesive structure to them such that whenever I started a sentence with an idea, I ended it with the same idea. Making it easy for anyone who reads to understand the key idea.

I also noticed from reading all the free writes that I had become more comfortable writing about my emotions. I wrote in these free writes exactly how I felt and the reasons as to why I felt the way that I did. On some of the days, I felt excited because of certain events and on others, I felt quite down because of certain encounters. At the beginning of the semester, I wrote without giving much thought to what it was that I was writing. As the semester drifted by, I noticed from the free writes that I had began writing and expressing what it was that I felt more explicitly. This made my writings more personal and relatable than I would have expected.

Overall, I was surprised at how different I sounded in different writings. I noticed that the earlier writings sounded not as matured as the later ones. I was glad that I had such recollection of my first semester in college written down although there were somethings that I could not believe I wrote.

 

Laing, Frost. “How Green Was My Festival: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Staging Green Events.” International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 29, no. 2, 2010, pp. 261–267.

Summary

Climate change has contributed to the tourism patterns which has affected and is affecting the way that festivals are staged. People are now more interested in the preservation of the environment, therefore, green festivals are attended and supported more. many organizers of festivals tend to make their festivals green in order to get sponsored. Because these stakeholders invest in these festivals because of the benefits that they would reap, there tend to be conflict amongst the stakeholders. In order to avoid conflict between stakeholders, the organizers of the festivals need to keep in touch with them to know specifically what each and every one of the stakeholders require and make amendments to accommodate them. Festivals that aim to sustain the culture, believes and values of a society are more likely to be supported by these societies. This leads to the festival becoming a part of the society in the long run. Most of the event or festival planners advertise various waste management processes that makes their events green but fail to follow up and manage the waste products after the event or festival. Some stakeholders and sponsors invest in green events in order to get ne consumers for their products and do not really care for the environment. People who attend these festivals consider how green the festival is before buying their tickets. Many festival goers look at the food that is severed there before they consider going to the festival.

Critical Analysis

Many festival organizers around the world organize festivals to gain profit. Since people are becoming more concerned and protective when it comes to pollution and environmental degradation, these festival organizers have to make changes in order to get people to pay and attend their festivals. The demand for green platforms for these festivals have increased because of these concerns by people. Liang et al. (2010: 264) states that “Getz (1997) notes that some event organisers are actively seeking out these green venues, to be consistent with their underlying green platform, and this trend might require further research, to determine how widespread it is and explore the needs of the organisers in venue selection.” While getting a green platform for the festivals is very import ant for festivals that are advertised as green, it is essential for the location of the festival to be assessable to those who are attending the event.

Transportation then comes to play a key role in accommodating these green platforms. Festivals that are not located in areas that are accessible by public transport tend to be attended by people who own cars and other private transport modes like motorcycles. This in turn limits the number of people who will be attending the festival. Liang et al. (2010:263) studied that “Selecting a location or venue is an opportunity to consider issues such as access to transport, waste management and availability of green power. The availability and management of carbon offsets is another operational decision.” My collogues and I wanted to attend one Eid-UlFitrfestival but couldn’t due to transportation problems. It is always advisable to promote carpooling for event goers. This will help to limit the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere and also enhance the green concept of the festival. This shows that transportation to festivals are a major aspect when trying to get people to attend one’s festival. Organizers and sponsors tend to lose money when tickets are not sold, and their festivals are not attended as they expect. When this happens as a result of inaccessibility, sponsors are likely to withdraw their investments, and this leads to the festival being possibly brought to an end.

Another critical aspect of festival organization is the food that is to be served at the festival. Many festival goers look at the type of food that is served there before they even buy tickets to attend. Liang et al. (2010: 265) observed that “One might argue that not serving purely fair-trade coffee at a festival is at odds with a green theme and might suggest a lack of commitment to the green message on the part of the organisers.” Organisers of festivals who want people to return to their festivals need to take the food served seriously. This is because when people do not get appropriate food to eat, they tend to bad mouth the festival or event that they attended and even advise others out of going to those events or festival. This can hurt the festival as a whole and might even cause the organisers of festivals to lose sponsors which can lead to the closing down of the festival. This can also lead to the accumulation of debts for organizers of the festivals.

Review

Overall the authors did a great job in pointing out what constitutes a green festival. They also successfully indicated the things that can make a festival well attended or not attended at all. They also were successful at observing the methods that green festival organizers can use in advertising their festival. The authors pointed out some of the flaws in many green festivals that makes the green theme questioned by people. What I think was not successful in the paper was the title of the paper. The tittle is a little bit misleading in that when I read it at first, I thought the paper would be focusing on how green a particular festival was. Aside that, I think the authors were great at showing organizers who plan on organizing a green festival how to make the entire festival truly green.

 

 

 

References

Laing, Frost. “How Green Was My Festival: Exploring Challenges and Opportunities Associated with Staging Green Events.” International Journal of Hospitality Management, vol. 29, no. 2, 2010, pp. 261–267

 

 

This paper aims to describe to people how to successfully make a mashup video that has great sound and has no overlapping scenes using iMovie. It also goes into details about the little things that you have to take into consideration in order to make a very well-made video. The process discussed here would be suitable for making any mashup video.

Before making any mashup video, you need to be aware of the purpose you are trying to achieve with it. In order to do this, you have to think about what the main or key idea for the video is. This idea would serve as the theme for the video and subsequently guide you when finding information for your video. After the theme is realized, use the keywords in the theme to find related videos online. After getting an array of videos, carefully watch them and select the ones that are best suited for your theme. While using an iPhone, screen record the part that you like for each videos that you watched and save them.

After saving the clips that are suitable for your video, go to iMovie and select new project. Then, select movie from the options given. All of the pictures and videos saved on your device will pop-up. From the display, select those videos that you previously saved and click on create movie option provided on the screen. Play the arrangement and see how the video plays out. After watching, move the clips by clicking on them, holding down the mouse button and dragging them to new locations. This will help rearrange the clips to suit your preference. Replay the clips to verify that the current arrangements are suitable.

If the arrangements are suitable, move on to the next step which is splitting, trimming and cropping. To trim a video, you have to select the clip you wish to trim and then move the cursor to where you want the video to end. After trimming the clip to the size that is preferred, one can split any clip that they want to divide and take scenes out of by left clicking on the clip and selecting the “split clip” option. When the scene is split, you can remove the section that you do not want by trimming those parts. Subsequently, watch the video again and see if the scenes are the same sizes and whether or not the various clips blend into each other. If there is any clip that looks small, you can crop that clip by selecting the clip and then selecting the crop option on the top right-hand corner of the page. Then select the “crop to fill” option to make the video look as wanted. After cropping out all the clips that you want, the following step is to work on the audio for your video.

In order to have an audio that is not overlapping or that is suitable for the video, mute all the audios in the various clips. After muting the audios, you will have to decide whether or not you want to do a voice over or insert music. To insert music, you have to put the white cursor line at the beginning of your video and then select the insert audio option. Select the audio or music that you want to insert in your video and then decide whether you want to play that one music throughout the video or various audios. If you want to use various music tracks in your video, you will have to trim the first audio to the same way you trimmed the videos as mentioned above and then repeat the process for all your audios until you are satisfied. After inserting the audios, play the video to observe how it is and if it is as you want it. You can save the video and you are done with their mashup video.

Moreover, in order to do a voice over for your video, you have to make sure that the surrounding has no background noises.  Then select the “record voice over” icon and then move the cursor to the beginning of the video. Select the red “record” button on the screen and then start recording. After recording the message that you want to play alongside your video, make sure there are no errors or mistakes. If you are not satisfied with the audio, delete it and then repeat the process again. When the editing of an audio and clips are finished, you have successfully completed making a mashup video.