Video Project

My experience making this movie was very overwhelming. My group including myself has never used iMovie before. We were pretty much the amateur group. It was a little intimidating looking around at all of the other groups and seeing that there were people in their groups who had previous experience with iMovie.  What we lacked in experience we made up in positivity. We did not dwell on this but we used it to our advantage in a way. We knew that when it came to making the actual movie it was going to be somewhat tricky but we made sure our clips were fantastic, and that there were more than enough clips to play around with when it was time to edit.  When we were making our final project we had a lot of clips to use we ended up not using all of them because there was so much. Also another way we excelled was by planning our project down to an exact timing. Before anyone shot any film we gave each other time tables. For example each group member had to have 1:20 worth of usable clips. We set up a date, time and place to film transitions that needed group participation. Organization was our upper hand and the open availability for the group to meet on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s also helped.

Although our lack of experience was seen as a struggle it was not a main struggle that held us back. One struggle that I think served as a blocker for even better work was communication. There was not a lack of communication but there was a lack of understanding and contact. I will first speak on the lack of contact within the group. We all decided to use Facebook as our main communication outside of class. This seemed like a wonderful idea at the time. Especially since we all use Facebook and it is more likely that I will respond to a Facebook message faster than a phone call or text. This way turned out to be a not so efficient way of communicating. I did not realize that not everyone has their Facebook messages sent directly to their phone so they actually did not have quick access to Facebook messages at all times.

Another struggle we had was that we did not understand each other’s ideas. We chose a somewhat complex idea for our movie. When other groups would be moving along we would still be mapping out our movie. It was extremely frustrating because we did not understand each other. When we finally did understand another person’s idea after 30 minutes of explaining we would shoot down the idea or find ways to alter it to our liking and then spend another 30 minutes explaining what we meant.  It was just a big time consumer. I think that we excelled even with these struggles. We did better than I imagined even with our lack of knowledge of iMovie.

I do not knock down any other way of communicating because it all boils down to personal preference. I typically like to communicate through writing. Communicating through writing has its pro’s and con’s. In writing you have to imagine what the author wants you to see. If the author is good at what he/she does and describes in detail you may be able to imagine and get the big picture. Using video to communicate is a great way to communicate. I like how you can visually see what the person wants you to see. Granted not all videos are eye pleasing or self-explanatory but the image is in your face and there might even be text or dialogue to help guide you in understanding. When looking at photographs as a way of communication the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This phrase is photography’s downfall as well as its strength. It is a strength because there can be many things that a photograph communicates. This serves as a downfall because a picture can say anything but, what if the photographer wants one thing to be communicated? I think it all comes down to having an understanding the context of what is being communicated.

Our movie topic was time. When you think of time you automatically think about clocks. When we thought about time we thought about the time or the lack of we have in a day as college students and workers. The direction we went with the movie is to show how we spent our days and how we spent our nights. We broke day and night up into specific times/events and we all took 2 time slots. I showed what I did mid-afternoon and what I did at night. I normally run errands during the day and participate in campus activities. At night I work at Abercrombie and Fitch as an Impact Team member. In my day video it was me filming homecoming activities on campus, studying for various classes and running errands. My night video showed me doing what I do at work. There were clips of me folding a bunch of clothes and taking clothes off of hangers and me clocking out of work. Vincent and Samantha had different parts of the day and showed different things. I am extremely pleased with our video especially since we were creative in depicting time.  You never really know how you spend all of your time until you have to record it. I always complain about time and my self-portrait really helped me sort out how I spend my time.

There are distinctive differences between Vimeo and YouTube. I prefer to watch movies on YouTube but Vimeo is easier to deal with when posting videos. YouTube is cracking down on copyright laws. Since I use music in my video that is copyrighted YouTube will allow my video to stay up but so long. Vimeo is underrated in my opinion. I did not know Vimeo even existed before this project. It seems very user friendly.