The Power of Words-Video

This idea started with an ambitious question: How can we make our community a happier place?  Not quite sure where else to start, I went where everyone goes when they have a question: Google!   When I put the word “happiness” into the search bar, I was lead down a most surprising path.  “Happiness Quotes” was the first item to pop up.  

From there, I went to Facebook, then I searched for scholarly journals only to find that billions of people look for quotes, subscribe to quotes, “like” pages of quotes, and read books on quotes everyday.  I was on to something big: something about quotes helps to empower and inspire people.  

Next, I needed to know more about the community and found exactly what I was looking for.  The Knights Foundation and Gallup conducted a survey of over 46,000 people.  They found that there are three main “drivers” that bond a person to their community and of those three, aesthetics is one of them.  

At this point in my research, I knew two things: people love quotes and people are bonded to their community because of the beauty of it.  As I sat in the 7th Street Market in uptown Charlotte, it all came together: a combination of artists, quotes, businesses, and the community.  

With the cities support, we can create artistic quotes around the city of Charlotte, then people could feel empowered as they walked or drive through the city and our community would be a happier place.  In order to make this project come to life, we need your support.  

PIKTOCHART

Inside of the Department of World Languages and Cultures

Learning about the Department of World Languages and Culture was a fascinating experience.  I met wonderful people who are open for discussion and sharing about the adventures in culture and language that the professors and students embark on.   The faculty is amazing and pumped about their positions.

Dr. Shinabargar is the Department chair and very interested and in spreading some of the department adventures with students across campus.  As a chair, he saw this video as an opportunity to reach more students.  It was inauguration week so, he got extremely busy but he is open to help students learn more anytime.

With each professor that I met I was able to see into the departments personality and this project became very personal.  As they talked about their classes and their trips I started to wonder why if I could double major.  

As the professors spoke about their approach to teaching, I felt the passion behind their professional, it felt like love.  Students in this department get to experience futures and languages in many perspectives.  Professors spoke of foods and travel...Sounds like a great place to study.

Please see the video HERE!

VOXBOX

http://youtu.be/x1fTthKXbRk -Check out the video!


It didn't take long to realize that this VoxBox was going to be super cute!  When asking the children what they liked to learn, they were easily distracted or completely in search for the perfect answer.

THE QUESTION:
What is learning to you?  I started with the children and worked my way to the teachers and parents.  The answers given in comparison were so different in terms of the need to express.  Parents and teachers were all about giving and the children, well you will see how the answers varied.

GETTING TECHNICAL
Editing took a while but was fun.You'll notice that i grouped the kids who were more sure about what they wanted to learn. This created a sort of rhythm to the video.  I also tried to edit in a way where the audio could come from one kid. Being unsure at first but then speaking quickly and being sure of his/herself.

It took a while to figure out how to cut and move the piece of footage around.  I managed to get most of the students and teachers in the video.  The thoughtful pauses and looks on concentration are more in the beginning of the video and fade as the answers start to unveil themselves.  This project was amazing and I really enjoyed it!

The Chairs of WInthrop University

Hello Readers,

I hope that I find you warming up from that winter storm.  The storm left me a bit out of the norm and behind on my posts so, I apologize for those that you missed me but I do have a little treat.

THE PROJECT:
This is a quick video about all sorts of chairs on the Winthrop Campus.  It was very interesting to see the unnoticed, taken for granted chairs that we use everyday to rest our tired feet or study for an important test.  Though, on the other hand, there are chairs in galleries that are extraordinary.

Rutledge Art Gallery

THE REASONING:

 I was originally going to do the art sculptures of Winthrop.  There are plenty of them around campus and they were designed with the intend to be viewed and admired.

Mother by Jeromy Ross,

But, I thought of the chairs as a bit of the underdog when it comes to a projects like this.  The chairs are there for us when we need them and asked for nothing in return.  We don't say, " Hey look at that beautiful chair.  See the way the back arches to support our bodies?"

A chair in Tillman

THE PROCESS:
After I walked all around campus, I sat down for a few inconsistent hours in front of Premium Pro.  I found that the pictures we perfect for the project though getting my ideas out and recorded became the challenge.  I took several recordings before I arrived at the one you will hear in the video.  I wanted you to get a sense of activity and variance.  I used soothing music in the background to both comfort your through this journey and breakup the monotony of my voice.

I hope that you enjoy the video and thank you for reading!

The Garden of our Mind

Hey Neighbor,
Fred Rogers was an educator.  He was a revolutionist and an example.  The video above was a remix by PBS Digital Studio that took time out to highlight the true meaning of Mr. Rogers' efforts.  There are people in this world, like you and me, that are willing to go on a limb and be different.  All you can do is try, something amazing might happen.

Did ever grow anything in the Garden of your Mind?
He asks, "Did ever grow anything in the Garden of your Mind".  The garden of your mind is the place where the possibilities are endless, where cows fly and raging dragons roam, where hilltops cradle warm cottages along the breeze and heroic firefighters dance with the flames.  Some gardens have been overgrown with weeds, burnt by disappointment, and destroyed by invasion.  We must maintain our gardens despite the consistent efforts of the ugly, keeping it beautiful and boundless.  When we stop and observe and realize that the clutter is not us, we are not those weeds.  Those are only the obstacles, a continuous exercise to keep our gardens beautiful.  Then we can truly be free to grow our gardens.

Where is the love?
When the church is sexually abusing children and children are bringing guns to school to take the lives of their friends, when parents aren't home for dinner, and food is more dangerous then the medicine it makes us realize that we have reason to doubt and fear.  But we are not our fear nor our doubt.  We need to feel those emotions, understand them and let them go.  We are free to grow our gardens if we clear of the clutter.

To the abuser, the damaged, the killers, the haters:
You are not the clutter that you have been exposed to, that covers everything that you want to see be, it can be cleared.  Stop listening to the clutter instead sit back and observe it.