3/27/2022 4 Comments Week 5: SUCCESS!3/27/22
This week was a pretty fun and successful week. For the first time, we did an actual bake! Spencer, made a German chocolate pound cake while Bryce tried out some new filming angles to aid in the experience. Cayden however, couldn’t join us this week for a multitude of reasons. So we had some challenges with only 2 people instead of the usual 2.5 people. But in the end, it turned into our most successful week so far! Bryce: I had some challenges with the recent video, since we didn’t have the usual help of Cayden holding the mic. But, it is my project so I had to make do without him. We had to take more takes than usual because of the newfound difficulty, but also I tried some different angles which were a bit weird. The upcoming video I am holding off from uploading for another few days, since I want to use a couple more edits. I don’t plan on making it look “great” but I do want to maybe add music and also some transitions. I don’t really want to add effects nor do I want too many transitions. I am just going to use the upcoming video as a test so that we use it as a base for future films. Spencer: This week was an absolutely fabulous success. Even with a man down, we absolutely crushed it. For the first time in weeks, we actually had a solid plan of execution for the bake, days before the actual event. It was decided that since I had an event planned on Saturday afternoon, that we would do the filming and baking in the morning. So, I got up at 9:00 AM on Saturday morning and picked up Bryce from his house so we could begin the bake. From there, I began to lay out the ingredients and the equipment, while Bryce set up the equipment. Within 30 minutes, due to some argument about baking equipment we got to work. I combined butter, sugar, flour, vanilla extract, salt, and baking powder into a batter-like mixture. It looked so delicious that I had to try some, very cleanly of course. Next I set it in a greased pound cake pan to bake for an hour and 30 minutes. From there we hung playing VR until the cake was finished and set on making the icing which proved to be a challenge but a success. Sadly, Bryce and to leave early, which was sort of lucky sense the power went out as I was icing the cake. Stupid wind. I loaded the cake into the car and took it to the dinner with friends and it turned out to be a massive hit. I was so happy for the first time about baking that it has encouraged me to try out even more crazy recipes. Until next time.
4 Comments
3/20/2022 5 Comments Week 4: Directional ChangesThis week is one of our down weeks, where we are searching for what we plan to do. Currently, we are thinking about what kind of things we want to cook and also how we will edit them. We have a new email that we will set up so we can get recommendations for the future.
Spencer: The beginning of the fourth week was not very productive on my end. Balancing school, MPA, and extracurriculars have been quite difficult and has led to little progress being made. However, this past week's experimentation has led to a conclusive idea on how I will proceed going forward. I have found that while cooking is a good way to learn how to make balanced meals and take responsibility for the adults, it's quite boring. So, I have decided to pursue a more baking-oriented path. This is not to say that I don’t want to cook every once and a while just for fun. I believe that even though cooking and baking are two different things, they can both be incorporated to aid the other. Anyway, I look forward to working long hours in the kitchen, taking big risks, and falling into diabetic-induced comas from eating too much sugar. Bryce: I was finally able to finish the video last week. It should be uploaded on youtube as of writing this. I will be editing the newest video to hopefully be cleaner than the recent video. I did think that I should maybe add some music so I will be trying to find some (legal) music to use so I don’t get my projects taken down from copyright. Maybe this would be a good time to ask for some recommendations in the email. Once the video is up in good quality I will link it but it won’t be up immediately. 3/13/2022 6 Comments Week 3: Getting an upgrade![]() This week was a very productive and innovative week in which a lot changed production and culinary wise. First and foremost we upgraded the production on our video which included a boom mic and stand for our camera. We also kept the video stable by propping the camera up instead of holding it manually. Hopefully, the footage comes out great. In the upcoming video, the quality of the audio wasn’t great so I had to completely cut the audio. There were some problems with learning the software, and I am still learning but it did end up making the edits take longer. The video will take longer to upload due to some problems with the premiere but hopefully, it will be up by tomorrow or the end of the week at the most. In the recent video, we swapped to a different mic to minimize the static. The video was also swapped to be a simple view of the ingredients and the cooking process. I think this will come out better than the last video and will maybe require fewer edits. When we were recording Cayden and Spencer did have an issue with how the mic worked so there might be some parts that are quieter but I think I can fix that in post. I decided to take a break from baking this week, and instead have decided to pursue a cooking experience. Instead of German Chocolate cake, I instead cooked chicken noodle soup based on my mothers recipe. This sudden change was due to a change of plans for me going to the beach. It was not all smooth sailing even though I prepared many of the ingredients in advance of Bryce and Cayden arriving. I started by mixing together carrots, celery, garlic, and onions. There I sautéed them in a pan and added assorted herbs such as bay leaf and basil to bring out flavor. However, I forgot to add said herbs until the vegetables were half sautéed. Next, I added in 6 quarts of chicken and vegetable broth to create the primary part of the soup. Then, I brought the soup up to a boil and added in a shredded chicken breast and let the soup simmer to allow the chicken to cook evenly . Finally, I garnished the soup with another assortment of herbs and spices that included nature's seasoning, oregano, salt, and pepper. The finished product was appealing in all aspects, which my group confirmed by taste testing it. It did however need a little more salt, as all things do. Overall, this week was a great success in both fields. Spencer tried a new kind of cooking which turned out to be a great idea and Bryce managed to improve the set up and filming process to incorporate new angles previously not captured in the past video. We sure hope that this trend of improvement continues, so that it may develop into a wonderful finished product. This week we are not doing any sort of action. Bryce is currently editing the videos and Spencer is finding recipes to work. Spencer is planning on going to the beach so we might start recording tomorrow. If we cannot record it tomorrow then Spencer will probably have to record him cooking at the beach or Bryce will use separate footage to edit. If we don’t record on Monday (tomorrow as of writing this) Then Cayden will probably not be included this week. If he is not included then we will let him make what he wants the following week.
Bryce is currently working on his edits for the cake video. Bryce spent the bulk of the first of the week learning how to edit on the premiere which helped him get a feel for the program. For when Spencer is gone, Spencer might have to record himself cooking solo or Bryce will footage of the extra stuff from the first week such as the hide and seek stuff to make a sort of trailer video. He plans on researching more ways to edit. The first video will be pretty short and we plan on continuing with the shorter videos. While researching recipes, Spencer has found 2 different ones he is interested in. The first one is Baked Alaska, an ice cream-based dessert topped with an egg-based meringue. The second recipe is an improvement on the chocolate cake recipe that was made in last week's episode. I was thinking about making a German Chocolate cake recipe that incorporates last week's chocolate sponge cake recipe with an icing or coconut-based filling in between. Either one will be fairly easy to do which will be useful at the beach and will be of course, very tasty to the others as well. I can’t wait to see what happens! |
CategoriesSpencer Melton and Bryce EllisSophomores at Davie County High School Archives
May 2022
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