Narrative of Feature Story

On a cool Saturday morning in mid-October, a group of boys made men by the sport, suit up for the reward of their commitment. As they walk onto the field you can feel the competitive atmosphere as friends, family, and fans gather in the stands. The black and white striped uniforms spread to different parts of the field as the players get ready for the kickoff, ready to show their skill against the enemy team. The referee blows air through the little black whistle and a loud signal spreads out through the air. The kicker takes a step and boots the kick off, sailing high and fast down the field. The game has begun and Ryan Wallace is ready to play.

Wallace is a sophomore football player for Olathe Northwest High School. For ONW football is a social output that also allows players to exercise and craft their skills. He describes what its like to be a sophomore football player with the Ravens and what makes up a good team.

“Trusting your teammates whether it’s to catch the ball or throw a good pass” is key to being successful,” he said.

Ryan also gave an outlook of what the season looks like in terms of practices and games.

“We practice everyday after school and if there is a day where we don’t have school we’ll still come in and practice in the morning. We have 9 games in our season, “Wallace said. 

You may be wondering why someone would commit to devoting their time to such a long and psychically challenging season. Ryan says it is because he loves the game and he’s played It for a long time.

CJ Vredenburg is another sophomore football player for Olathe Northwest. He also gave his perspective about the team sport.

“I play football because my family has always played it and it’s a really fun sport,” Vredenburg said. “It takes a lot to form a successful team,” “The most important parts of a good team are knowing each other well and being synchronized.”

It can be hard to balance homework with a large afterschool commitment like football.

 “We get out of practice earlier now than we did earlier this season. Before it was kind of hard because we would get out so late,” he said.

Being on the field with the team helped show the brotherhood of the players. They all worked together on the green turf to score points and win games. Ryan and CJ are just a small part of the team. The season is long and difficult, but whether it’s the sweaty hot practices or the numbing cold games, the sport has made them who they are. They are Raven football players.

Football Feature Story

Feature Story Experience

 When I first began my ONW feature story I was very excited. It was the first time I got to do a story on almost anything I wanted other than the fact that it had to have to do with an ONW student. I quickly picked the topic of football. I decided to focus on what it's like to be a sophomore football player for Olathe Northwest. I started by writing a list of 21 questions I felt were important if I wanted to answer my guiding question correctly. My interviewees were two of my friends that were on the team. Ryan Wallace and CJ Vredenburg gave me all the information about the team and experience that I needed. On a Saturday morning I went to ONW to watch the sophomore team play. I got a lot B-roll of my subjects with my iPhone. I interviewed the subjects a few days after the game. I really enjoyed getting to film the B-roll and being on the sideline with the team. After all the filming I  edited my footage in Adobe Premiere Pro. This has been my favorite project so far in video.

ONW 1:2000

Today I’m talking with Jake Herl. Jake is a sophomore at Olathe northwest that participates in baseball and wrestling. I caught up with Jake about how his summer went. Jake did a lot of things over the summer but, the best thing in his mind was baseball.  Jake told me about his summer baseball experience and how the season went for his team.

         Jake played for the Reds this past summer and enjoyed it through the pain of the losses. He is happy to be playing with the Black Socks this year because he feels it is a better fit for his skill level. He looks to the future as he grows in skill level and power as a player. Jake has played for a long time and wants to play for as long as he can. He hopes to play in college although he is unsure he will make the cut when the time comes. I asked Jake why he likes baseball so much. He said he liked how you could grow both as a team and individually in the sport.

         I found that my voice over was to long and that it was difficult to shorten it. I also found it hard to get a variety of shots during the interview. The majority of my shots were medium shots. I liked the way my video turned out. I wasn’t very happy with the background noise that was present in my video. I was unsure about how to fix that. It was unavoidable with the amount of time I had left to film. I really enjoyed this project because I got to learn more about Jake Herl and his baseball life and got more interviewing experience.

ONW Procedures Project

The purpose of this project was to show the procedure of checking out a book at ONW. Me and my partner, Jake, started by making a story board with detailed shots that we were planning to take. This included a variety of shots throughout the library. Once we had our story board finished we moved to the production stage and began shooting in our school's library. The shooting took two full class periods. After we finished shooting, we began the editing stage using Adobe Premiere Pro. I enjoyed using this program and found it easy to become familiar with. After I finished editing I shared my video in front of my class and received constructive criticism. I the went back to my video and reedited it as much as I could, using the criticism I was given. The video above is the reedited version. I learned how to use Premiere Pro and how to better use the 6 shot system. I also learned that music, white balance, and correcting lighting can pay a big part in the over all feel over your video. I would continue getting close ups of the subject. I would change the lighting and better use white balance in my next video. I would also get less pans. I will use the constructive criticism to form a better project. I really enjoyed this project and hope to build my skills in video.

Web Design

For this project I used Dreamweaver and created a 6-page website! I wrote all the code, created links, embedded videos and created my own color scheme. I got almost all the content featured in the website from my teacher. The website was made to help preserve invasive species and inform people of them. This website took me about 2 weeks worth of class time but I think it turned out pretty good! The following pictures are screenshots of the preview of my home page and my zebra mussel page.

SketchUp House animation

 For this project I composed a house in Sketchup. I made everything in the project except the plants, man, and car. I started with a normal rectangle then used the push pull tool to pull the rectangle up, creating a rectangular prism. then I drew a line across the midpoint on top. I then used the move tool to pull that line up creating the roof. Then I used the offset tool to make the gutters. After that I just used more rectangles for things like windows, sidewalks, doors, and railings. I used the paintbucket to color everything and turned on shadows to give the effect of light and the sun.