In the last four weeks, I got lots done. First of all, I did a ton of mountain biking and skiing and from that, got a ton of footage. Over spring break I only made two videos but I now have footage for a few more soon. The first video that I made was a ski video, I hadn’t done one in a while so I decided it was a good idea and I also decided to try using background music. I took some footage I got of a double-black ski run I did where it was nearly minus 40. I also spent some time browsing YouTube for a non-copyrighted song that I could use for the background music. I was looking for a song that had a good beat and flow to it and eventually, I came across a channel that makes background music for other people to use and chose one of the songs they had.
Here’s the ski video: https://youtu.be/qqIjbvLN99E
As I said, this was my first time using music in the background of the video. I have based a video off of the music plenty of times but never tried putting music behind a video. I was happy with the result, it made the video more engaging and the music fits well into the video. The only thing I wasn’t happy with was that I got the camera angle too low but it was still worth making the video. It was frustrating because a lot of my footage from spring break was too low because it is hard to check but I’ll start checking more often now. One more thing I tried doing was an intro to the video as well as lowering the volume of the music when I’m talking which took a while to figure out but I got it. When I showed the video to my mentor she said that she liked the intro to the video and that the music was very good. The one thing that she said was that it went on for a little too long because it was interesting for the first couple of minutes but then not much changed. A few ways I could fix that would have been more camera angles, switch up the music, or make the video shorter.
The next video I did was a mountain biking video. I went to Burke with my friend, and I filmed him again on a few of the trails. I didn’t get as much footage as I was hoping from that day, but I still wanted to make something. I decided that this time I would base the video around a song, so I chose Song 2 by Blur because it isn’t too much to ruin the riding, but it was fast enough to keep it interesting. I wanted t try something new in the video, so I put the same video from two different angles right after one another a few times. I also cut out half the song and put in the ending which went well and watching it back I can’t find where I cut it which I’m really happy about considering it was my second time.
Here’s the biking video:https://youtu.be/4JDzmxagUc8
So far this is definitely my best video, it’s a little short but I had no more videos to use. One thing that I got was a few people commented “thanks for this” instead of just “nice video bro” and that felt great. My mentor also really liked the video, she said I nailed it and that I’m definitely on the right track. Even my friend who was in it said that it was way better than any of my other ones. I asked my mentor if she noticed where I cut the song and she didn’t. I also asked her what she thought about putting the same videos in different angles and she said that she didn’t even notice them which is great. The only issue that she brought up was that there were two longer clips at the end that got a little boring because they were similar. Looking at YouTube Analytics you can see the average view duration which was 45 seconds which is exactly where the two long clips started. Next time we go out I’ll try and go earlier so that we have more time to film so that I can make the video more entertaining.
In my meeting, I asked about colour grading which would be helpful if I need to use a clip from another day to make it fit in. She wasn’t sure how to do it on the software that I use so she sent me a few videos to watch. She also said that the software I use has one of the best colour grading systems which is neat, especially considering it’s free. I also asked about making a voice-over which is something that I’ve wanted to try from the start of this project. The main things she said were important were; intro, good mic, and an outro at the end and she explained how I could do all of them for the video I want to do. In the coming two weeks I’m going to try making a voice-over with some footage I got from Thornhill last weekend.
The other thing that we talked about in the meeting was the final project. First of all, we changed the 4 videos that I was going to do to 3 and decided that they didn’t have to be three minutes each. Before this project, I thought that time was everything but I quickly learned that it wasn’t. My original idea for the final test was that my mentor would give me a bunch of clips and I would have to make a video out of them. She suggested that I do a documentary instead of that, at first I was confused because it didn’t seem to fit with what I’d been working on. She explained that I could start with an interview then go into some riding where I can use background music and do a voice-over. The video will be between three and five minutes and I’ll start working on it after our next meeting until the end of the project. Between now and the next meeting I’ll work on the final of my three videos then in the meeting we’ll discuss more about the documentary.
Concepts:
- Colour Grading – A way to change the colours in a clip to make it look more desirable. Use; make a clip fit into a film shot with different lighting.
- Voice-over – A way of making a video more engaging by speaking over the original audio. Use; describing what I’m doing in the video and walk them through what is happening as it goes on.
- Background Music – A way of making a video more engaging by playing music over the clips. Use; while riding or skiing I can put music in the background to make the video flow better, feel faster or slower and keep it interesting.
Alternatives:
The most recent alternative my mentor gave me was when she gave me the idea of doing a documentary for my final project. I think that most other mentors would have just gone with the plan and given me some clips to work with however she suggested that I try a documentary and then thoroughly explained how to do it and next session she’ll talk more about it. Thinking about it now, this option is much better because I get to apply every single thing that I’ve learned into one video which should be very challenging but also very fun. I also really like how sometimes she’ll offer to teach me more things even if I just ask about one thing. For example, a while ago I asked how to speed up a small section of a video to make the riding seem faster but not noticeable. She showed me how to do that then also asked if I wanted to learn the same for slow motion and of course, I wanted to. I think that another mentor would have also taught me the same thing as it was pretty similar and it kind of makes sense to teach them both at the same time At first I was just doing video editing but she has also offered to teach me other things like filming, and audio work, which is great. I think that with another mentor if I said that I was doing video editing they’d probably just teach me how to edit videos. My mentor has offered to teach me how to film which she wasn’t too experienced with so she had to put in a lot of extra work.
Learning Centre:
For my learning centre, I am going to be doing a website. I’m thinking of doing it very similar to my eminent learning centre with a few pictures at the top that have some information about my project under them. Under the pictures, I will put four or five notable videos and a description about them and I will show my progress from my first video to the last. I will also answer the questions from the Learning Contract and talk about meeting my goals from the contract. I think that for the interactive part it will just be the videos that I made unless I can come up with something else closer to the presentation.