The document discusses the creation of the first annual "Living in the Light" video yearbook by a high school student for her church youth group to capture memories and help engage teenagers in their faith over four years of religious education classes. She used various software like Photoshop and Premiere Pro along with a video camera to document personalities, events, classroom activities, and volunteer work over the year for the youth group. The project involved extensive coordination with her youth director and catechists as well as challenges in depending on others and not all events being completed yet for the full yearbook production.

1. Hook: This is my mother’s yearbook from 1982. The yearbook is not the average favorite book
and many times is found with dust on it, but when that dust is blown off and the cover is lifted
again even after five years the things inside ignite priceless memories. Now, here at Creekview I
am on the yearbook staff and am helping to create a place for these memories is a huge deal
for me. I wanted to capture that ability to freeze time for my youth group at church as well. It was
my sophomore year when I realized we were taking the same basic religious education class for
the third time and having random teachers placed in our classroom. At that time I joined with
my church’s new director, Pam Gardner, (who happens to also be one of my project facilitators)
to develop a four year course that would keep teenagers engaged in their faith. My job, as the
now senior director is to use the “You Cat” to help put the teachings into a high school friendly
instruction set, as well as to be as deep into planning events as possible. We have gone from 9
students my sophomore year, to 15 my junior, and 34 my senior year. It is a year to remember
for everybody. I have worked endless hours in the classroom, and away, to first make the
memories happen, and then to use the latest technology in adobe products to make the first
annual Living in the Light video yearbook.
Research: For my research I posed a question, “What are the aspects of Graphic Design that
make it aesthetically pleasing?” My future career plans are to go into Graphic Design and since
my project is visually based, I figured it would be good to have the best possible ideas of what is
pleasing to the eye. I learned a lot from my paper. Symmetry is extremely important and color
means everything. The content provides the essentials, but there is no way to have just a few of
these elements. Every single one is important if you want the right image.
Product: So we have already covered the “what, when, and why”. What is important now is the
“how”. I mainly used Photoshop and Premiere Pro to help with the creativity. Photoshop is an
editing software for still images and for creating images. Premiere is for editing and producing
videos. I used an external hardrive to be able to switch between my Macbook Classic and iMac
pro. All the photos were taken with the Canon Rebel T3i. With so many things to keep track of I
decided early in the process that I needed a binder, or portfolio. That is it right here, you can go
ahead and look through it. I split the video into four major sections. Personalities, festivities,
classroom, and volunteer work. I chose to call the student sections Personalities because I
wanted to use something other than the generic smile for the camera picture. I made signs with
each student’s name on them and will periodically have the students stand with their sign for a
picture filled with personality. We scheduled events throughout the year to make the fun extend
outside the classroom. Though, some of the biggest events have not happened yet. We are
opening a new building in two weeks called The Barn. Here we will host a retreat with the
confirmandees and a traveling group of young adults called NET as well as a mass birthday
party. Separate event nights are being held for the girls and boys. Those are coming up soon,
and we are taking a pilgrimage to Maryland in June. It is in the classroom that the magic
happens. We chose at the beginning of the year to separate the boys and girls and it has made
a world of difference. For the first semester our girls were in one classroom doing an in depth
study of the ten commandments, while the boys were in another learning about the history of
the church. At christmas they switched places. The finally section highlights the Volunteer
events. In October we held a fall festival fundraiser and the pancake breakfast to raise money.
We also sold sweatshirts throughout the year. A few of our students even attended the Life
Chain.
Project Facilitator: I had two project facilitators because I had two aspects to my project. The
first is Pam Gardner. She is my youth director whom I have spent the majority of my time with.

2. She and I sent over 180 emails and spent two hours together every Sunday. The other is one of
my mentors, who happens to also be a teacher here, Ashley Estapa. Her part has not come into
play much yet, but she will be helping me with the design elements and the processing of the
yearbook once all the events have taken place and I am ready to put it all together.
Work log: There were several hours I worked with the catechists and my facilitator and several I
worked on the video so far. Though, I feel as if the hours I worked on my video don’t quite count
yet, so I counted the ones with the others. I counted preparing and working for the fall festival.
Then there were some meetings such as planning and making posters, scheduling the to save a
life movie preview. We had the actual showing of the movie. And then in the same day we had
the Romance without Regret movie and discussion starter and the Christmas party. Lastly was
some of the volunteer work. I did not count anywhere near my hours worked because they
seemed to go on forever and many I was incapable of documenting.
Struggles: I found my biggest problems to be that I could not do everything alone. I was
dependent on answers from Pam and responses from my students. Another was that a lot of
the events have not happened yet. So far my technological problems have only extended to my
own goof ups with filing incorrectly. I cross my fingers that it doesn’t get any worse than that.
What I learned: There is always more that you can say and do. The extent to which you
communicate can be infinite and you should never sit silent in the back. I would do this stuff
every day for the rest of my life. I loved it. Both being with the kids and putting it all together. I
hope they can look back, watch their video, and relive some awesome memories.