Ask a Student: UC Students Discuss Their Library Experiences

Tom Able wears many hats. He is a third-year e-media student, a Peer Mentor in Langsam Library’s Info Commons, a singer/guitarist in his band, Moda, a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity, and this past summer, he worked as a Student Orientation Leader (SOL) during UC’s New Student Orientation. It was in this latter role that Able and a fellow SOL, Shawn Lee, were inspired to produce a video using the Voodoo computers and video-editing software available in Langsam Library’s Student Technology Resources Center (STRC).

Playing off of Saturday Night Live’s “Best Of” series, Able and Lee created The Best of SOLs 2006, capturing the unique personalities of each of their fellow SOLs.

“The Voodoo computers in the STRC may look intimidating if you’ve never used video-editing software before,” Able said, “but on the contrary, they are very user-friendly and only take a short time to learn the basics.”

It took Able and Lee approximately one week to complete their 30-minute video: 10 hours for filming (using a camera they checked out from Langsam’s Multimedia Services) and 25 hours for editing.

Able enjoyed making the video and using the many features available through Voodoo, such as using still frames, adding music to slide-show montages, applying transition effects to move from scene to scene, and having images leap on to the screen.

Able advises fellow students to consider producing a video in the STRC as many professors not only accept, but encourage, multimedia projects as an option for certain class assignments.

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