POLITICS!

MAKING THE VIDEO

For our group video, composed of each person's self-portrait video, our theme was POLITICS! Which was great, because I'm really interested in politics and all things political. NOT. 
When meeting with my group for the first few times, we thought to incorporate a quote, "Money, Power, Respect" with our videos. Aisha would base her individual video on money. Matt on power, and me on respect. We thought Money Power & Respect were all words that represented politics. But I was struggling with relating respect to politics. Or anything really, because POLITICS! is something I've never understood that well. I'll admit it. (Ironically enough, I actually had purchased a "Politics for Dummies" book in August to get me all ready for the election.)
I talked to my group and decided that I was going to take a different approach on my individual video. The individual video is supposed to represent us and our topic.. so I thought, what better way than to just show how damn confused I am. 
Thinking of ideas and making the video was much more easier this time around because I knew what I wanted to show. I wanted to show what I think politics is. I wanted to show me looking for answers to things I care about most involving politics- ex.) Why is college tuition so expensive?
I taped myself looking up things on Google, Twitter and watching The Presidential Debates. This is how I obtain my information regularly. Twitter is everything and my main source for any news.
I chose the song, "Good People" by Jack Johnson. The chorus of the song is "Where'd all the good people go?" and he talks about how it seems that there are no good people left anymore. I chose this song because I feel like politics has gotten so twisted, and I have a hard time understanding it because I have a hard time trusting anyone, especially politicians. 
Since I wanted to show myself being confused, we thought of a good idea for our group video (for transitions, opening and closing of the final project). Matt and Aisha were shown trying to "teach" me what politics is. Matt tried showing me politics was about power and Aisha tried showing me it was about money. It worked out perfectly and I thought it was a clever idea.
It's hard to make a self-portrait video that has a theme to it, that you can't make obvious. I hope an outsider would be able to recognize that my video was related to politics.  Overall, despite any worries I had in the beginning, my video and my group members' videos turned out great and really reflected the topic of POLITICS! 

STRUGGLES ENCOUNTERED

It's not a real project if I don't face any struggles. When shooting my video, I had a pretty old tripod and it was hard to tape myself because the camera wasn't always sturdy. It would have been easier if I had someone tape it for me, but I am a control freak. I would have rather asked someone to pretend to be me, and have me tape it, than let someone else tape it. I didn't want anyone to mess anything up. It ended up turning out perfectly fine in the end.

When it came time to edit my footage, it was easy. I've used iMovie a few times before, so I am used to its features. Once I got into it, I didn't want to stop. Not only a control freak, I am a perfectionist. I will edit things over and over and over again to make sure it's just the way I want it. It was hard trying to get the video down to 1:20. I had to take some stuff out, and try to make certain clips shorter, but I also wanted certain lyrics from the background music to align up perfectly with some of my clips. That part took a long time.

Exporting my video never happened. My laptop wouldn't allow it. I'm not sure why, but this was frustrating. Luckily, my group  member came up with the idea to play the video, go into QuickTime and record a Screen Recording. Which basically just records whatever you're doing on your laptop. 

After finally exporting my video, it was ready to be put together with the group's footage. The 3 of us has recorded footage together for transitions/opening/closing in the video. We then had to combine it all, but we had to do it as a group. It was hard to choose what went in the video and how to edit it, and who edited what. Matt taped most of the footage, and him and I edited it into the video. Aisha added the music, which would seem easy but she had to stop the music when our individual videos came on and start again in the transitions and at the end. 

WHY USE VIDEO AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL INSTEAD OF WRITING AND PHOTOGRAPHS?

Videos are a great communication tool because you can incorporate audio and visual elements. You can have someone talking in the background, or you can have a video with music in the background and text added onto it. Videos are more likely to hold someone's attention. When you goto certain websites, for example- your local news station- sometimes they have a story written with a video right above it about same story. Most people would choose to watch the video to see the video clips, while at the same time listening to someone read the story to them. Photographs are a good communication tool when used with writing- either a caption to explain the picture or the picture as a supporting element of a writing piece. Videos are a whole other ballpark when compared to writing and photographs, there are just a lot more options that come with it.

TO UPLOAD TO YOUTUBE OR VIMEO?

Though both great video hosting websites, to upload our video online, I will choose to use Vimeo. Vimeo seems to have a more professional platform, good for school projects like this. Outside of school, this isn't a video I am trying to get a lot of "hits" on. If it was, I would upload to both sites- especially YouTube since it has a lot more traffic than Vimeo does. Vimeo also seems to have a better viewing quality than YouTube. 

In conclusion, I am proud of the work me and my group did for our final project. I'm happy that I decided to change the way I made my individual video because it made me feel more at ease. Sometimes you gotta go with your gut instincts!