My final project was definitely a learning experience for me. I decided to challenge myself and do a video. I want to get better at video so I took this as a chance to learn more and push myself to produce something good. I learned a lot from this project.
The most important thing I learned was that I don’t have to use everything I shoot. I have such a hard time letting go of footage or audio. I think everything I gathered is important since I gathered it, which isn’t true at all. My first draft was a mash up of everything I filmed or recorded all put together, with no specific focused vision. I thought by putting it all together with all my footage and audio, which at points was really random, I must have something good because it is all that I have. After my meeting with Professor Joyce I saw my work through a new set of eyes, thank goodness.
Professor Joyce taught me to take my best footage and audio and go from there, don’t hold on to everything. She taught me to make is specific, clear and easy to understand. I remember while sitting in her office reviewing my work thinking how I even turned in my first draft in the first place because it was all over the place and was very confusing.
Professor Joyce reminded me to make video simple and to the point. I think since I am still working on my video skills, with this project initially I thought what makes a good video is a lot of footage and a lot of things to look at and hoping the viewer understands my work like I do. I over did it because I thought that’s what would make my video great, but I learned through the revision process that video already tell so much in the footage alone, it’s your job to keep it simple and structure it in a way that gets a clear message across to your viewers.
From now on with video I will lay it out just like I do with written stories. What is the angle, best quotes go to the top, and let go of anything that doesn’t contribute to the story’s main focus. This lesson will help me construct better videos in the future. Especially since videos should never be too long for today’s viewers it’s important you have one focus and make them very specific and clear.
MagDurn 