Response to Week 8/9 (Video Project)

Week 8/9 reflection

So over the past couple of weeks I’ve been producing the video project that will be my culminating experience for this class. I’ve decided to produce a video blog in response to a ocntroversial video blog that was posted by a Youtube Celebrity, chastising the practice of the Women’s March and the longevity of its message.

I filmed my rough cut last week, and I wanted to try a new method where i filmed the “skeleton” of the video by just standing in front of a camera and reading off the script first. We read in “Writer/Designer”, in the section on how to produce videos that don’t suck, that when screenplays are written the first thing that actors do is to do a reading of the script. I wanted to do the same, but in front of a camera, because I’ve never filmed myself before.

I borrowed some equipment from Jones Media Center and booked the Innovation center for the filming. I set up a Canon Vixia camera on a tripod and attached a microphone onto it for audio clarity, and began filming right away. I had my laptop at eye level and it acted as a transponder.

The dry run/filming was immensely helpful, because I got to realize certain tics I have when I am talking which may be distracting for the viewer. The biggest lesson I learned was not to move my hands as much and to keep them firmly planted on my legs, because it gets difficult to edit certain bits out if my body is not in a stationery position. Another habit that I have is I keep touching my hair and not only is it distracting, but it makes it difficult to cut and edit because there would be clips where I’d speak, touch my hair immediately after, and the clip I was going to add on after is one where my hands are on the chair and not on my head. The disconnect there was not pleasing to the eye. I was also wearing a black shirt on a black background, which was not aesthetically pleasing either. I also realized that the laptop was in fact not at eye level and it was obvious that I was reading off of a screen on the slight left.

I’m planning to film my final project in a completely different way. I thought that the innovation center would provide a more professional look to my video, but it ended up looking more like a newscast than a casual video blog, which is the genre that I am producing my video in. For the final cut, I am going to be filming in my room most likely in natural light against a white background and have the script printed out in flash cards which I can then place right above the lens, and individually replace them for different parts of the video.

The readings were interesting because I had done them before, but not immediately before the shooting process. I read the part that talks about storyboarding and the importance of having every scene planned out, even if it is just in brief words, and took the advice by creating a cut-by-cut script that I followed exactly. I could clearly tell that the readings were immensely helpful because having each cut planned out and having each line written helped in the recording process. However, one thing that I would do different next time would be creating flash cards instead, so that I can know when exactly to cut the video. Having a long script in front of me made it difficult to know when to end recording, so I ended up just recording an extended 15-minute video where I kept on talking and cut later, instead of having snippets that I could piece together.

The topic of location and casting I did not pay much attention to, to my disadvantage. It was a dry run so it did not matter as much, but I was wearing a black shirt on a black background and the lighting was much too harsh. As stated above, amongst the changes I will make, the most important one will be on location and lighting.

Response to “How to Make Videos” and “Preparing Public Service Announcements”

Response to How to make Videos, selection from part 2 and PSA

For my final project, I’m going to be producing a Video Blog (or a “Vlog”) of myself discussing the issue. I think this will be the best way to cap off this course because I don’t think a PSA would work best for my issue. In the reading we had to complete about preparing PSAs, it states that PSAs work best on issues where there are either specific announcements to make, have a clear and easy-to-understand issue or are requesting a very specific action. The Women’s March fit none of these bills, so I decided to go with a video blog.

For example, in the Huffington Post collection of PSAs we had to watch, I was particularly impacted by the friends don’t let friends drunk drive PSA of the two cups crashing into each other and the glass breaking, with the friend’s hand being the only thing that stops the last glass from breaking. This PSA works because the message is simple: “don’t drink and drive”, and there is a clear call to action: “if you see your friends drinking, don’t let them drive”. There is a clear audience. However, for the Women’s March, there is no way a PSA can be produced when the March itself seems confused about its aims and causes.

This was the video that inspired me to do a video blog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96AiJPl4ElY. I would say that it is not one of those channels that I would readily click on if I was browsing youtube on my own, but after i watched it, I thought the host was actually quite brilliant and had a lot of important things to say, and the execution of the vlog was also good.

One of the reasons I think the vlog was successful was because it seemed as though the host had the video scripted out from beginning to the end. The “How to Make Videos” reading talks about this in the section on how important it is to have your videos scripted. The difference between quality vlogs and just talking-head rant videos are that the hosts have a script, or at least a guideline on what they will be saying throughout the video.

Several parts of the “How to Make Videos” reading was important in scripting my Vlog because it reaffirmed a couple of points where I may have erred in producing my podcast. The reading states that often producers, in an effort of sounding balanced, often make the mistake of sounding extremely long-winded. In my podcast, one of the biggest lessons I learned in the editing process was that editing would have been a whole lot easier if I had not tried to pad the questions I was asking Megan. The Vlog that I referenced above does a really good job of discussing the issue without sounding too crass. It pushes the envelope without breaking the envelope.

I am currently in the scripting process of my Vlog but I am unsure yet whether or not the Vlog will be of just me or an exchange between me and a friend discussing the topic of the Women’s March. All I know is that the exchange will have to be heavily scripted if it is going to be just me, but if it is the exchange, I think I’m going to have to go against the reading to allow a little more freedom in the filming process. I am personally a big fan of “Buzzfeed Unsolved”, and the conversational style of the show. I think I’d like for an opportunity to be able to produce this, and I think it would serve better to put some legs below the story.

A PSA would be easy to produce but for such a controversial issue as the Women’s March where so many people have opinions about how effective it was, creating another short “PSA” where all it does is a call for action, will actually detract from the cause than add to it.