Week 7 Blog

 The content, learning, and assignments for this week in our Journalism class felt really fun and creative! Initially, I was pretty nervous about our video assignment for our unit 2 traditional reporting assignment. At first I wasn’t sure where to start, how I wanted to craft, style, and edit the video, and what I thought I should include. After doing a lot of brainstorming, writing down short pieces, and recording and deleting audio recordings, I ended up enjoying the entire process of crafting the video. What I had wanted to convey and capture became more clear and easy to piece together after attending the gallery and getting footage from the exhibit. I had a really fun time at the exhibit and felt super lucky to have been able to capture footage from the very last exhibit from the PAU gallery. I was really sad to hear that they were closing down, but was glad to be able to attend one last time and use it as a story. I also have been enjoying watching my classmate’s video reports and seeing their different takes on how to approach the assignment and seeing their interests through the video assignment. It has been nice to be able to get some feedback as well to make my video stronger. I honestly have never made a video report before, but I have had to record myself for a previous Spanish class I took in the past. I must say that recording myself speaking in English is definitely much easier and much more comfortable than recording myself speaking in Spanish!

The closing of the PAU gallery was very inspirational to some people. A close friend of mine is very passionate about art, music, creativity, and the freedom to express oneself in general. Having a non-profit gallery open to the public in the way that the PAU was had inspired my friend to begin brainstorming her own means of opening up a space like this. She came to the conclusion that she would one day want to open up her own non profit creative space. This creative space would entail a peaceful area that would showcase art, have room for yoga, stretching, and flow, as well as musical instruments such as a piano, guitar, and microphone. This idea reminded me of an establishment that I used to love to go to as a child called the EMP. The EMP stands for “The Experience Music Project” and is located in downtown Seattle. As of very recently, The EMP changed its name to “The Museum of Pop Culture”, but it will always be The EMP to me. I grew up spending a lot of time at the EMP with my siblings and have great memories here recording ourselves singing, playing different instruments, as well as looking at the different exhibits within the museum. 

One of my favorite exhibits in The EMP is a structure made of tons of guitars resembling a musical hurricane. I’m happy to have attended the final PAU gallery exhibit and speak with my friend who is interested in starting up a creative space as it made me reflect on many great times spent at the everchanging EMP.