Category: JRN 340 Assignments

Loki: A Quarantine Puppy

~ laurenbrewer ~ Leave a comment

My life in quarantine was pretty boring up until April 11.

Before April 11, I was worried I wouldn’t have anything to make a video about. I was not doing much other than homework and watching Netflix, and I was in my apartment alone.

Enter Loki.

Loki is a Norwegian Elkhound and Husky mix puppy. He’s almost 11 weeks old and he’s brought a joy to my family that we’ve never had. His adoration for us was seen the moment we picked him up. Every morning when I come upstairs, he greets me like he hasn’t seen me in years. Even though he’s been in our home for less than a month, I’ve learned the love of a dog is like no other. I had to make my video about him.

My original plan was to produce a sort of “how-to” video on how to teach a dog a trick. However, he was learning tricks so fast that I struggled to get enough footage, so I decided to just make the video about him. I interviewed my dad, Tim Brewer, about Loki. Both my parents grew up with dogs, and we’ve had a cat for almost 14 years but we’ve never had a dog. I wanted to hear his thoughts about how our life has changed and why we chose to get a puppy now.

I filmed the video on my Canon Rebel 6. I also used a tripod for many shots and held the camera myself for the rest. I edited the video with iMovie and hosted it on YouTube. I shot the footage in my house, yard and on a walk in Downtown Ada, Mich.

One of the difficulties I had while creating my video was Loki. Although he is the star of my video and I make him look fairly well behaved, there is a reason his nickname is “the Alligator”. He runs and barks and bites and chews and just creates havoc when he’s not sleeping. A lot of my footage is blurry because trying to chase him down with a camera is a feat in itself. At one point he stole my lens cap, which can be seen in the video.

Overall, I am proud of what I have produced. I’ve never filmed an interview before and I believe it turned out well.

Video Shooting: Camera Angles and Shots

~ laurenbrewer ~ Leave a comment

For this exercise, I used my Canon Rebel 6 and a tripod to shoot video. I shot a variety of camera angles, with multiple takes per shot. I then choose the best shots per angle and edited them into a short video.

The video takes place at my house and stars my dad, my mom, my sister, Abby, my cat, Sunshine and my new puppy, Loki. The clips show my family eating lunch, working in the yard and the pets doing various pet activities.

One issue I had while shooting was the noise level. At one point, my dad drove the lawn mower right next to where I was filming, which was very loud. My tripod also creaked when I was panning. I did not realize how loud those sounds would be on video, as I barely heard the tripod while filming.

The New Normal: COVID-19 Routine

~ laurenbrewer ~ Leave a comment

Unless you’ve been in the middle of the desert (I’m looking at you Jared Leto), you know about COVID-19, or Coronavirus. It has stuck people in their houses, closed restaurants and put life as we know it at a standstill. My job is closed and I’m stuck at my apartment all by myself. I’ve been trying to keep a normal routine as long as possible, but closures keep extending and frankly, I’m sick of it. Luckily, I’ve still got my classes to keep me busy. I was assigned to tell a story through photos about how COVID-19 is affecting my life.

Everyday I wake up at around eight or nine or ten. I stopped setting an alarm, so I wake up when I’m ready. I’ve been feeling stressed and have started to neglect my windowsill of plants. Hopefully I won’t have too many fatalities when this is over.
Even though I haven’t left my apartment in days, I still make it a point to get ready. My morning routine is important to me and when I lose it, I lose my sanity. I have quite the collection of makeup and look forward to painting my face each morning.
When I signed up for classes last November, I chose to enroll in two online classes. Little did I know, all my classes would be online. I make sure to set aside time to do a little bit of work every day on my MacBook.
Since I’m not working anymore, I’ve discovered I have an abundance of free time. I’ve started decorating my apartment and put some tinsel in the living room. With no roommates to judge my design attempts, I am free to do anything within my lease.
When I get bored of decorating, I paint. I bought 10 canvases before I moved in last August and had only used one up until this week. My mom has made some requests of paintings to bring home. I’m running out of white.

How to get Social Interaction During a Pandemic

~ laurenbrewer ~ Leave a comment

I was assigned a photography assignment to take headshots of a person. Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, I haven’t been around people lately. I’ve been alone at my apartment for a week now and I was starting to get nervous about how I would complete this assignment. Lucky for me, my family lives an hour and a half away and agreed to meet me for a social distancing picnic in Sheridan, MI. We met at a park beside a little lake and ate mac ‘n cheese and sat six feet apart from each other. I popped a macro lens on my Canon Rebel and was able to shoot my sister, Abby, from a respectable distance. It was photography practice for me and posing practice for senior photos for her. It was great to see my family while also doing homework on such a beautiful day. I was definitely starting to get a little cabin fever.

Growth Through Baseball: Part 2

~ laurenbrewer ~ Leave a comment

I interviewed Dylan Jespersen, Central Michigan University student, about his favorite hobby: baseball. Jespersen played baseball for more than 12 years and also coached. He discusses his love for the sport, lessons he learned and his favorite teams in this interview for my JRN 340 class.

Music Credit:

Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3742-fearless-first

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Vegetarian… but on a budget.

~ laurenbrewer ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been a vegetarian for over a year now. I tried being a vegan and I lasted six months, but I like cheese too much. Being a vegetarian as a college student is not as hard as people think it is and it actually gets easier every day.

When I first made the jump into meatless meals, I was still living in an on-campus residence hall. Luckily for me, Central Michigan University has plenty of tasty, dietary-need-friendly food in its dining halls, from black bean burgers to dairy-free mac and cheese. The hummus is exquisite. Being a vegetarian is easy when someone else is cooking for you.

Now that I’m out of the dorms and cooking for myself, it took some getting used to cooking meals every single day. I’ll admit I ate grilled cheese for lunch and dinner two straight weeks. It’s really easy to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, but since I don’t eat meat, I need to make a point to eat foods full of protein. I’m a big fan of tofu and legumes so I have not had any issues thus far. I do also eat a lot of fruit.

One of my favorite places to shop in Mount Pleasant is Aldi. The sourdough bread is really good and cheap! The snack foods, like pretzels and chips, are also very inexpensive and I can’t taste the difference between those and the name brand ones. I don’t like Aldi’s eggs and sliced cheese because they taste a bit different compared to what I am used to but the fancier block cheese is a steal. Aldi also sells some of my favorite veggie burgers.

One of my go-to brands is MorningStar Farms. I’ve yet to be disappointed by anything I’ve eaten from them. The mini corndogs taste just like actual hotdogs and the buffalo wings were the biggest hit at my Super Bowl party, even with my meat-eating friends.

While I try not to eat out a lot, plant-based options have been popping up at lots of fast food and chain restaurants. Burger King’s Impossible Whopper is one of my favorites and it was recently added to the value menu. Chipotle’s sofritas are a tofu-based beef alternative and I am obsessed with them. Although McDonald’s doesn’t have too many options, if you take the meat off the breakfast sandwiches, they are vegetarian-friendly.

Not only do I save on groceries because I don’t buy meat, I also am lessening the impact of the beef and poultry industries on the environment. Being vegetarian as a college student is the perfect time to start.