This course has been a wild ride but alas, all good things must come to an end. Its really easy to see this class as a culmination of the four main projects we submitted, and its tough trying to decide a favorite. If I have to choose, the Adobe Premiere unit and project was probably my favorite.

I feel like I learned a lot from the readings for this section, and love the entire process of editing videos. I had a great time learning the software, and it all seemed relatively easy to understand, or at least to figure out. Editing videos to tell a story is one of the most effective ways to grab your audience’s attention. It combines your visual and auditory senses to understand what’s happening instead of just using one or the other like with audio stories or photographs.

This course has introduced me to several new skills that will surely come into play in the future. Aside from the surface level introduction to programs I’ll probably be working with farther down the line, I also learned about the design process from start to finish. We learned countless principles regarding what a good design is, and ways to improve our designs. Additionally, we learned how to handle and utilize constructive criticism from our peers, along with how to provide constructive criticism to others.

My future coursework involves a whole bunch of communication courses that will teach me valuable skills I can use in my desired field of work. I’m majoring in Strategic Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations, and hope to work as a PR representative after graduation. Skills surrounding constructive criticism will definitely come into play, and knowing the design process could help with organizing PR campaigns.

I feel like I learned all the skills I was expecting to learn in this course! I feel really satisfied with everything we covered.

The only substantial outside source that I used for this class was Musopen, which was recommended in this class as a reliable source for free to use music in our content. I found this to be an awesome resource and can definitely see myself going back here for future projects and recommend all my friends to use it too.

I’m really happy I took this course! Initially, I was a bit nervous. This was mostly due to the fact that I don’t have a single artistic bone in my body, and the word “design” sounded intimidating. After a few weeks I became comfortable with the course and adjusted to the schedule of each unit nicely. Really well organized course, and I learned a lot from it.

GO COUGS!

For both the rough draft and final version of this project, I decided to create a short and informational “day in the life” video. My reason for choosing this approach is that it gives me the opportunity to both educate people about what PCOS is, and explain some of the daily struggles women with PCOS face, myself included. Instead of researching any design ideas, I feel like a lot of my influence came from background knowledge I gained by watching vlog-style videos on YouTube through the years. I also integrated a small time lapse clip in my video that reminded me a lot of what you would see during a “draw my life” video as well. I knew to film myself speaking from multiple different angles after we learned about the 3 by 3 rule in filming and editing, which turned out to be really helpful advice.

For this project I first had to come up with my idea for the direction it would head. This was a relatively easy and seemingly obvious choice to make, and landed on a “day in the life” idea pretty quickly. After creating a storyboard, I got to work and slowly collected my video and audio clips to be used. After all my video was filmed and narration was gathered, I got to work on Adobe Premier Pro. Most of the video consisted mainly of just trimming and pasting both video and audio clips into the order I had envisioned, and I felt pretty happy with my initial end product.

When it came time to revise my draft, the changes seem to be both minimal and small, but they are there. After hearing feedback from my peers, it seemed they liked my rough draft just as much as I did, and had few suggestions for improvement. One peer suggested I lower the volume level of the audio clip in my outro, since it seemed much louder than the rest of the video. I definitely agreed with this suggestion and made that my top priority.

I did run into an issue when trying to edit my rough draft. You see, I made a big oopsie. Since I edit on public computers, I always send myself my work so I can redownload it and make any necessary adjustments. In this case, I had only sent myself the exports and therefore Adobe Premiere didn’t have all the files used and couldn’t reload my rough draft. This led me to completely start over from scratch, but I definitely like the end result better.

For adjustments, I first reconstructed the video exactly how I had made it before, but chose to leave out both the video and narration about showering because I felt it was just sitting awkwardly in the middle of the video. Next, I lowered the volume in the final clip so it would be even with the rest of the track. I also made sure to fade the background music to a lower volume once my narration started, and had it fade out during the end credits as well. I also added a cross dissolve effect between my establishing shots and introduction to create a smoother transition. Finally, I added some text graphics to the portion where I explain PCOS, so the viewer can see what I’m talking about as I say it.

Overall, I’m really happy with how my final video came out! I actually really enjoy the process of editing videos and can surely see myself doing this sort of thing again in the future.

Music Citation: https://musopen.org/music/43257-cobarde/

Background music used throughout the video was found on Musopen.org, a website that provides royalty free music that is free to use under the creative commons license.

I used Cobarde, an Argentinian tango by Antonio de Bassi, recorded in the early 20th century.

For this project, I decided to take the route of a “day in the life” video, showing each aspect of my day that is consistently affected by having PCOS. Since I actually live with PCOS, I figured this would be a good approach and I’d be able to collect my audio and video clips with ease. This idea relates to my course topic more than clearly, since it explains the basics of PCOS and provides some perspective on what it’s like to live with it.

I integrated a lot of narration into my video, as it allowed me to explain each aspect while also showing it visually to the viewers. Initially, I had plans for an interview-esque approach, but ended up with more of a vlog-style video since I was the one doing the recording. This also allowed me to set the video up exactly how I want. One of my favorite elements of the video is the time-lapse explaining how PCOS affects one in ten women. Originally, I planned to have a video of ten girls standing in a line with one stepping forward to represent this statistic visually, but I didn’t give myself enough time to make that happen. My friend suggested I do a time lapse and draw out the visuals, so I gave it a try and liked the outcome much better than I would have expected.

My video starts out with an establishing shot of the Stephenson complex, which is where the rest of the filming was done (aside from a last minute outro, you weren’t kidding about making a list of the shots you need). I used a cross dissolve video effect to transition to my next video scene, which is one of three clips where I just talk and explain both PCOS itself and the intent of my video. Following these clips is the “1 in 10” timelapse, and a short montage of video clips with narration come after. Each video clip is accompanied by audio that explains the current scene, with the intent of covering the many symptoms that come with PCOS as well as how I manage them. The video ends with a very rushed outro before the screen dips to black and rolls the credits. Throughout the video there is free to remix music being played in the background, which I found on Musopen, just to add more depth to the video as a whole.

All video clips were recorded on my iPhone XR using the camera app, and one was recorded using the timelapse feature on the app. Each audio clip that was separate from video was recorded using my voice memos app, also on my phone. After recording all of the elements I needed, I sent myself the audio files and downloaded the videos through my iCloud account. This made it really easy to transfer the clips, which was helpful in the long run and saved lots of time.

I had a few issues while editing my video, but manged to eventually get past them. My biggest struggle was definitely managing the volume on each audio component, since some were recorded and played back louder than others. Two google searches and some fiddling around later, and my volume turned out much more even than how it had started. The audio obviously isn’t perfectly balanced and normalized since I’m still trying to learn the basics of this software, but I’m much more happy with how the final video came out.

Citation: https://musopen.org/music/43257-cobarde/

Background music used throughout the video was found on Musopen.org, a website that provides royalty free music that is free to use under the creative commons license.

I used Cobarde, an Argentinian tango by Antonio de Bassi, recorded in the early 20th century.

Storyboard for upcoming video rough draft:

0:00-0:05	Establishing shot of Stephenson East Tower, people walking to/from class in front of building. Title appears on screen.	Free to use orchestra music playing in the background to add more depth to the initial shot
0:05-0:25	shot of interview actor taken following the rule of thirds, with multiple different angles to add layers	Narration explaining what PCOS is and what the video aims to accomplish
0:25-0:35	Shot of 10 women (if possible) with one stepping forward from the crowd	Overlayed audio of narrator explaining more about PCOS, especially that it affects one in ten women
0:35-0:40	Back to interview actor, this time from a new angle	Narration explaining that PCOS comes with side effects, preparing for reduced speed montage
0:40-0:50	Birth control pills being placed in a hand, followed by actor swallowing the pill	Narration explaining why additional estrogen is necessary to balance hormone levels
0:50-0:55	Interview actor holding razor up by their face, new angle showing them shaving their face	Narration explaining that PCOS causes excess body hair, especially on the face. Ambient sounds of running shower/shaving
0:55-1:05	Video of interview actor making a cup of coffee	Narration explaining that PCOS causes exhaustion and can be battled by caffeine, ambient sounds of coffee being brewed
1:05-1:15	Interview actor putting on facemask after pointing out acne spots	Narration explaining how PCOS can cause excess acne and can be remedied with proper skincare
1:15-1:30	Interview actor sitting in a different position, shown from several angles. Fade to black and roll credits	Narration reviewing what was learned about PCOS throughout the video, thank the audience for watching

Two clips of raw footage for upcoming rough draft:

Here are my two completed tutorials for Premiere, along with the raw collected footage for the first tutorial.