Hi there! So this post is long overdue but I’m going to update you all on what I’ve been up to in my individual study. Within this course, I am creating an introductory video for the Domain of One’s Own program that will be shown to the incoming freshman at orientation this summer.
There’s a lot of planning involved with making a video of this scale that I wasn’t expecting. But that’s okay, I was expecting a challenge for my capstone so I was ready for it.
In the first couple of weeks, I wanted to focus on the background of what Domain of One’s Own really is. It took me a little while to get the hang of things, I had to rewrite the paper a couple of time but I’m really happy with how it is right now. If you’d like you can go read that over here. The project is really all about developing your own identity on the web and a chance to have your own space on the web that you can do whatever you’d like. So that’s what I tried to convey in the paper itself. In my first draft, I was totally off track of where I wanted to go so I needed to do another revision to get things on the right track. Writing this paper really helped me start to figure out where I want to go with the video.
After writing the paper, I started to create the interview questions. I want to tell as many stories as I can through the interviews so I’m going to interview a wide range of people. To date, I’ve completed 5 interviews and there was at least one major thing wrong with them.
I kicked off the interviews with one of my co-workers, Callie, and that interview was a total flop. She was out of focus the entire time and I really didn’t like the lighting. She was such a trooper though and agreed to be interviewed again.
Then it was spring break so I took a little break to gather my thoughts and examine how I can do better to give the video a consistent look. I’m so grateful for my advisor for the course, Martha, and Jesse from DTLT. They have been so helpful in putting me on the right track as far as filming tips and lending equipment. Jesse is a great videographer and gave me great feedback on camera setup, angles, and lighting. Martha has been training me on the advanced media production studio and gives general help and support in moving things along.
On Monday, I continued the interviews, re-doing the interview with Callie and I interviewed another tutor, Elaina, and they both went very well. I was also surprised by two alumni who came to visit and had the chance to interview both Kutoof and Claire as well. I thought I was totally on the right track, everything looked great, lighting was on point, I was really starting to have a conversation with all of the interviewees, and all of their answers were awesome.
That’s where things went bad. First, when I was interviewing Kutoof, she was the last one I interviewed, the camera told me the memory card was full…. So I went to transfer all of the files to my computer to free up space. One of the interviews started playing after I imported it and the worst thing happened…. THERE WAS NO SOUND!!!!! The microphone I rented had been left on, so the battery died…. I got no sound for any of the interviews, none at all. So even though the footage looked great, I can’t use it at all because there is no sound (photos down below). Major lessoned learned, I will make sure the microphone works before I start the interview.
So I’m completely starting over again, I’m re-doing the interviews in the very near future. I’m going to set up interview times with other students and faculty to contiue on the interview path for right now.
I’m also working on a treatment for how I want my video to look. I’m just starting that so I will keep you guys posted on that! Stay tuned!
