Final Video

Warning: I have an iPhone 6 and that is all I have to record, so the very poor video quality can not be fixed.

For my video, I decided to make it about my passion for art and how doing art is helping me through quarantine. My website topic is things that I am passionate about, so this video idea fit in well. My website topic also was sort of about social issues that I cared about, so I tried to fit this video in with the quarantine and how hobbies help with mental health.

I first recorded the ‘interviews’ with myself in order to get a good framework of where to start for B-Roll and the interviews with my parents. I then collected some of my artwork and recorded B-roll of those. I then interviewed my parents. When editing, I started with making subclips of important things that either me or my parents said in their interviews and switching all of the clips until they were in an order that made sense. I then started getting familiar with my B-roll and making subclips of the B-roll that made sense with the interview content. I layered the B-roll over the interview clips in order and tried to leave spaces that were appropriate between the B-roll clips and the interview clips. I then looked up royalty free music and picked one that I thought suited the tone of the video well and layered that under the video and lowered the volume so it did not drown out what was being said in the interviews.

I somehow managed to accidentally delete my draft video, so I had to reedit the video completely. This honestly made hitting the time limits a lot easier, because I was able to add videos in a different order from the beginning in order to add the extra time I needed to the video. I also made sure that I made the music quiet enough alongside the interview audio so that it was not too distracting from the story I was trying to tell. I also added more B-roll to the new interview audio I added so that the video was more interesting and the B-roll helped convey my story more efficiently.

Video Draft

https://vimeo.com/408250255

For some reason, wordpress would not allow me to embed my video. Also, warning: I have an iPhone 6 and that is all I have to record, so the very poor video quality can not be fixed.

For my video, I decided to make it about my passion for art and how doing art is helping me through quarantine. My website topic is things that I am passionate about, so this video idea fit in well. My website topic also was sort of about social issues that I cared about, so I tried to fit this video in with the quarantine and how hobbies help with mental health.

I first recorded the ‘interviews’ with myself in order to get a good framework of where to start for B-Roll and the interviews with my parents. I then collected some of my artwork and recorded B-roll of those. I then interviewed my parents. When editing, I started with making subclips of important things that either me or my parents said in their interviews and switching all of the clips until they were in an order that made sense. I then started getting familiar with my B-roll and making subclips of the B-roll that made sense with the interview content. I layered the B-roll over the interview clips in order and tried to leave spaces that were appropriate between the B-roll clips and the interview clips. I then looked up royalty free music and picked one that I thought suited the tone of the video well and layered that under the video and lowered the volume so it did not drown out what was being said in the interviews.

I think that my video can be improved by making the ending less abrupt and maybe choosing a different song for the background music. I also think that some of the audio of the interviews can be fixed and made to sound more even and smooth.

Storyboard

Storyboard

Video	Audio
Begins with clips from news broadcasts about the coronavirus death tolls/ stay at home order from Trump	Music begins
Interviewee(s) talk about how the coronavirus has affected them/their families	Music continues
I talk about the the importance of staying busy and staying at home	Music continues
Interviewee(s) talk about mental health during isolation	Music continues
Interviewee(s) talk about what they’re doing to stay busy: B-roll of shots of what they’re talking about	Music continues
I talk about how staying at home could save people’s lives	Music continues
End with some more positive news clips about COVID-19	Music fades out

Premiere Tutorials

Final Audio Story

I struggled to think of a solid idea for my audio story, especially with being stuck at home, but I decided in the midst of a lot of economic struggles, talking about college tuition and how its expensive nature causes it to be close to impossible for middle and lower class students to pay for it without taking out loans. I chose to interview my brother, because he is one of the hardest working people I know, and has worked very hard to make it up to a supervisor position at UPS and pay for his tuition on his own. He did have to take out loans, however, and is still trying to pay them back, and probably will be for awhile. I believe in the opportunity of schooling for everyone and believe in, at the least, public university’s tuition to be cheaper to open up more opportunities for people to attend college, and am hoping this audio story reflects that.

I interviewed my brother in my parent’s bedroom because it would have the least echo and noise pollution. I also recorded the interview questions separately and the parts where I interjected on what my brother was saying. While editing the audio, I first cut out all of the silent parts of every recording, and the parts of me actually asking the questions directly to my brother out of the raw audio, and I rearranged them all together. I also decreased the volume on all of my brother’s recordings because he has a loud voice and was a little too close to the microphone.

Based on my audio critiques, I tried to find all of the moments in which the audio ‘popped’, when my brother got too close to the microphone, and edit those parts of the audio out. I was not quite sure how to go about doing this, so I used the cut tool to take all of the popping sounds and then muted those clips so those parts would be silent and would not create a choppy effect with the audio. I also added an introduction to the story instead of beginning with my brother’s introduction, so that it would come off as more of a news story. I added the outro for the same effect. Although originally I wanted to add background music, I decided not to after listening to a number of royalty free music, because I decided they were all too intense, and would ruin the effect of the story.

Draft Audio Story

I struggled to think of a solid idea for my audio story, especially with being stuck at home, but I decided in the midst of a lot of economic struggles, talking about college tuition and how its expensive nature causes it to be close to impossible for middle and lower class students to pay for it without taking out loans. I chose to interview my brother, because he is one of the hardest working people I know, and has worked very hard to make it up to a supervisor position at UPS and pay for his tuition on his own. He did have to take out loans, however, and is still trying to pay them back, and probably will be for awhile. I believe in the opportunity of schooling for everyone and believe in, at the least, public university’s tuition to be cheaper to open up more opportunities for people to attend college, and am hoping this audio story reflects that.

I interviewed my brother in my parent’s bedroom because it would have the least echo and noise pollution. I also recorded the interview questions separately and the parts where I interjected on what my brother was saying. While editing the audio, I first cut out all of the silent parts of every recording, and the parts of me actually asking the questions directly to my brother out of the raw audio, and I rearranged them all together. I also decreased the volume on all of my brother’s recordings because he has a loud voice and was a little too close to the microphone.

I hope to add some sort of music or background noise to the audio, and also add more interjections of me talking, but I am not sure of what direction to go in for either.

Raw Audio Footage

Audition Tutorials

Final Logo

I struggled to think of design ideas for my logo. My original sketch was a peace sign with my name on it, because I thought it encompassed my blog topic, but that seemed too simple and I didn’t think it was a good fit. So, I decided on a circle encompassing two people holding hands, because I thought it better fit my blog topic.

I first, I made two circles using the ellipsis tool. The outside one I made a larger size and black, and the inner one was white, and made sure that they were an equidistant apart. I then used a picture of two people holding hands and traced it inside of the white inner circle using the pencil tool. I then used the paintbrush tool and drew my name in cursive freehand because I thought it looked better than with a font. I overlapped the type with the circle to make it look more interesting and bold. 

Then, after I got critiqued by my peers I decided there was a lot I needed to change about my logo. So, I used the peer critiques and made the circle smaller, and changed the location of the font so that it was not overlapping with the circle. Already I thought my logo looked better than it had before. Then, I decided that the black color was being used too much and the original hot pink color was too vibrant and harsh, so I changed the circle to a light pink color and changed the font to that same color. I thought this lighter color made it a lot more pleasing to the eye.

I then also decided, based on my self critique, that I needed to clean up the outline of the hands a lot. I deleted a lot of the smaller details of the outline, such as smaller lines, and straightened out all of the lines using the option key on my laptop with the pencil tool. I knew I needed to make the image a lot cleaner and simpler, so I deleted and redid a lot of the lines so they looked better. Also, since I freehanded my name on the image, I decided I wanted to try to redraw it to make it look neater, so I kept redrawing my name until I got a result that I was satisfied with.

The photo credits for the picture that I outlined: Photo by Albert Rafael from Pexels

Draft Logo

I struggled to think of design ideas for my logo. My original sketch was a peace sign with my name on it, because I thought it encompassed my blog topic, but that seemed too simple and I didn’t think it was a good fit. So, I decided on a circle encompassing two people holding hands, because I thought it better fit my blog topic.

First, I made two circles using the ellipsis tool. The outside one I made a larger size and black, and the inner one was white, and made sure that they were an equidistant apart. I then used a picture of two people holding hands and traced it inside of the white inner circle using the pencil tool. I then used the paintbrush tool and drew my name in cursive freehand because I thought it looked better than with a font. I overlapped the type with the circle to make it look more interesting and bold. 

The photo credits for the picture that I outlined: Photo by Albert Rafael from Pexels