Deciding How to Improve Our Videos

In class today we viewed 21 "first draft" one-minute videos that will be revised and posted as part of our final project (Take a look! They are embedded just below. Two others, not in the playlist, can be viewed via their blog posts for Viri and  for Hailey). We took notes on production and content issues. Then, we discussed how we might improve these. I reminded our class that our goal is to create videos that can be an end in themselves (assuming many people will view the videos but not go on to view the essays they speak about), and so we need to focus on ethos. What do I mean by this?

My LDS Conversion

I wanted to invite people to learn more about my conversion to the LDS church. It is fascinating how your life can change by knowing the true gospel! I highly recommend you to read my personal essay and practice your Spanish skills!

My personal essay

I'm not sure what I think about this project. I feel like I was self promoting by talking about my own experiences but don't know that I could give due justice to interpreting someone else's narrative. I decided for now to introduce my own essay but don't know if it was the best route. Let me know what you think.

Elephant in the Front Yard Teaser Trailer

Here is the teaser trailer for Ryan Parker's essay. I chose to follow pretty close to the format Dr. Burton used in his video. Hopefully I didnt give too much away so you will want to read Ryan's awesome essay.

Checkmate Essay Teaser

I did a video about Darren Torrie's essay titled "Checkmate." I decided to incorporate the Book of Mormon to allow the comparison to be made between the essay and the story of the Sons of Mosiah.

Here it is.

Checkmate's Video Trailer

I chose to do my Teaser Trailer for Darren Torrie's "Checkmate" without incorporating the Book of Mormon.

I chose to focus on the friendship described, and how awesome the essay was on bringing memories to the surface about my own friendships. After about the 100th video, I finally was able to stop laughing at myself, and have my roommate record it, so I couldn't see my face. That's why I started laughing at the first. It took a lot of time to finally get to the point where I could publish a video, but I hope I conveyed the importance of Darren's essay.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEK4iSihs-I&list=UUMJl7Lsv_cFlOgTggKr5NYQ

Just in case that one doesn't work, here is another link:

http://youtu.be/JEK4iSihs-I

Thoughts on Football, Duty, and Battle

With this first attempt at the Personal Essay Video, I decided to experiment with the venue or background of the recording to see if it would add or detract from the purpose of the video. I was hoping that a unique setting would add interest to the purpose of the video, but I am undecided as to whether or not it did that.

Here's the vid:

And here's a link to my personal essay blog post:
Musical Transcendence

Leave a comment about a time that you felt like you were going to war!

Video Teaser Post

           I filmed this brief little video talking a little bit about my essay and talk a bit about what I learned. I had to take a lot of takes because I had a general way of what I wanted to say, but kept messing up. My video probably could be a lot better, but I was just focusing on what I was saying than what the video looked like.

Taking Back the Narrative

Link to video

This video follows option two (introduce your essay without the Book of Mormon element).

The first five attempts I did felt forced and choppy. I was frustrated that the emotion my essay evokes when I read it at a normal pace didn't come across when I was rushing through it for the time frame. To combat this, I decided to just wing it and see what came out. The video felt significantly more real because instead of trying to inflect emotion into words while reading from a script, the feelings came out naturally when I was candid. This helped me decide what to focus on and led to the second "winging it" attempt, which I shared the link to underneath the screenshot.

I believed I could make things go back to how they were with the guy I was dating if I could figure out what I did wrong and fix it. This thought process is common in physically and/or emotionally abusive relationships. While I had very mild problems compared to the countless men and women who face much more serious abuse, my eyes were opened to the pain that comes when someone mistreats you and blames their behavior on you.

My favorite part of the video is the idea of taking back my narrative. I let this relationship define me for too long, and writing about it and working on these videos gives me closure. I don't hear his voice in my head anymore. Maybe that's because all of the pain associated with our relationship isn't throbbing inside me; now it's channeled into an essay that I hope will help someone recognize if they are in a similar situation and realize they can and should get out.

In terms of the assignment, I'm not convinced this option is the best way to do it, but I also didn't think it's a bad way either. I do think making a place for the Book of Mormon would be ideal if we could do it in a natural way that doesn't come off as preachy, though I struggled trying to figure out how to do that myself.

I'm excited to watch the other videos and see how we can learn from each other to create a project that will allow us to share our stories in a literary, meaningful way.