Fall ’20 Wk 10 – Vlogging & Critique

Due This Week

1. Critique Video on Medium
2. Discussion on BeachBoard

Vlogging

As the weeks of our COVID/Zoom semester fly by, there are more topics, ideas, media, and spaces of art than we have time to dive into. I’d love to spend a week just on vlogging. As I’m sure you know, some people have built successful careers through vlogging. A few years ago I started following a vegan vlogger from Seattle. She wasn’t huge on the scale of mega-millions that the top YouTubers bring in, but already at 18, she was earning more money in a year than I’ve ever earned in my life!

EC Life Vlogging

Since our primary mission this week is to make a Critique Vlog of our classmates’ Wk 9 personal projects, we won’t have a chance to do a more traditional “life ‘n stuff” vlog. But, you can do one for EC if you want to. Make your 2nd vlog, upload to YouTube (or Vimeo), and add it to this week’s Medium post for up to +10 points of EC.

Useful

I hope you’ll think about the power of vlogging this week! Yes, a few very successful people do make millions, or tens of millions, but that’s pretty rare air that requires a lot of work, talent, luck, and timing. There are many others who earn a more modest but sustainable living.

But beyond vlogging as a career, I encourage you to think about the many ways that the ability to make a Vlog or other Video can enhance all kinds of projects you will undertake in your many different careers. We’ve got about 60 different majors in Art 110 this semester, and it’s hard for me to think of even one where some video skills wouldn’t be a benefit. Whether you’re a Marine Biologist, a Computer Scientist, a Physical Therapist, or a Business Marketer, we’re all going to have to make presentations. If you’re a college student, you already know how boring PowerPoint can be. As temporal beings we love the experience of moving sound and pictures.

I believe that the ability to make a short video that presents your ideas with clarity and conviction is one of the most valuable skills you can develop during your time at The Beach.

Critique Video

This week we’re making Critique Vlogs of 3 of our classmates’ Week 9 Student Choice projects.

1. Find yourself on the Class Roster page. Critique the person above you, the person below you, and any 3rd classmate of your choice. If you are “Alastair Bayle”, then you’d go up 1 to “Aiden Vo”, and down 1 to “Alexander Mungia”. Plus your choice classmate. If you’re the 1st or Last person on the roster, then loop around, so the person “above” Agustin Rubio is Zorion Lampkin, and the person “below” Zorion Lampkin is Agustin Rubio. If you get to a classmate’s Medium and they didn’t happen to do a Week 9 project, then go 1 more person up, or 1 more person down, and critique them instead.
2. You can use our Artist Essay Template to structure your analysis of your classmate’s work. You can skip paragraph 1 “about the artist”. Paragraphs 2, Formal Analysis, 3, Content Analysis, and 4, Synthesis, should be a great way to talk about your classmate’s work.
3. You can set up your critique video any way you like. One easy setup might be to have your classmates’ projects on your laptop where you can be looking at them and then record your video on your phone. If you want to do a screen capture so we can see what you’re discussing as you talk that’s awesome. But not required.
4. No editing is required. You can simply punch “record”, talk about your 3 classmates’ projects for 2-3 minutes each, and push stop/upload. If you have editing skills, or if you’d like to give it a try, go for it. As I said up in the “Useful” section, video skills aren’t just for videographers anymore!
5. For many online platforms, like Medium, WordPress, and others, you don’t normally upload videos directly to that platform. Instead, you upload to YouTube (or Vimeo) and embed your video on your web page. Usually just pasting your YouTube/Vimeo URL on a blank line will embed the video for you.
6. In your Medium Blog Post include your Video and the names of the classmates you critiqued. You don’t need to answer any questions in your Medium post this week since your whole Critique Vlog is one big “answer”! 😀
7. Name your Medium post Week 10 – Vlog Critique

Discussion on BeachBoard

5 “bitz” as always! I hope you enjoy this week’s exciting new topics!