Sounds Easier Than You Think

iMovie is almost like being in a completely different world when it comes to editing videos. Someone using it might think, “how hard could this be?” But it is a different ballgame than an individual might be expecting. iMovie definitely gave the students stress, aggravation and a run for their money.

            One of the main struggles when filming the individual parts was making sure that the individual clip had enough footage in front of the camera and behind the clip. This made it a little bit more challenging because some things had to be shot twice from two different angles or more than once due to if anything was interfering in the background or the angle not being enough. Shots had to be taken multiple times or after putting it all together with the group, there was a time when shots had to be redone or needed to add something more so they needed to be recorded all over again. It felt like a process but it really was not as bad as everyone was anticipating it to be. Who doesn’t dread group projects when students end up doing so many? This project was not as time consuming as thought but also trusting the group members to get the things done they are supposed to makes all the difference.

            When it came to editing, the biggest struggle was not being able to do the things that sounded easy in each person’s head to do. For example, if someone wanted to just trim their video and not their whole clip, there was no easy way that was discovered to just simply cut a clip. The clip needed to continue to be added and cropped down to where it was wanted every time. iMovie gets updates done on it all the time, but sometimes they seem to make things more difficult for its users. Also, making sure all the clips smoothed nicely together was another issue with editing because the requirement wanted two filters, music and transitions so it was a goal to make sure those worked together as well. No one can control how iMovie is created or updated, but it should not make anyone very nervous to use it to the point where they are unsure if the movie they have bene working on is going to be erased or not. Also, once each group was putting all the videos together, it was really nice that each group member took turns editing the video as a whole and contributing ideas.

            Using video as a form of communication instead of a writing piece or photographs gives the viewer a different perspective on what is being presented in front of them. It also gives the viewer a different feeling than writing and photographs could. When a person is watching a video, they are able to react a way they are watching actually move right in front of their eyes. For example, in a video clip, the way the performance given by the actor or the actress can make the viewers feel a certain type of way. If the actor is crying, if they give a good performance, the audience could be crying with them. A person reading or looking at pictures may not always have that same effect as a video can. An individual can feel emotion through a photograph or writing, but when someone is physically feeling pain right in front of their eyes it just seems more like the audience can relate or feels it all.

            Once the group came up with all different diverse ideas, it seems as though it changed everyone’s perspective of the video because beforehand it seemed as though everyone was dreading it and thought it was going to be really hard. It was actually the complete opposite. Once every person in the group stayed on top of what they were supposed to do, it made it so much easier for everyone to get things done. Also, it seemed as though when the group got the theme, it was thought that portraying that theme was going to be harder than the group anticipated. All of the videos each group member put together to flow nicely with one another’s ended up making the overall product even better. It also changed their way of thinking because they did not think how differently each person could portray that topic in different ways. But that was the point. The point was for each group member to have different ideas and then putting them all together to make sure the ideas did not clash and made sense leading up to the final product.

            The self-portrait experience was not as hard as each individual was expecting it to be. It did not end up taking up as much time as assumed and as long as each person planned out or knew what they wanted to do in each clip, it made the recording process go by so much faster. Although some shots had to be recorded a few times, having the general idea of what order each thing was going to be recorded in made it easier. Having the idea of what was going to be recorded and how it was going to be recorded made all the difference. Staying organized to record it helped make the recordings get done sooner.

            Unfortunately, Vine was shut down so the project has not been able to be posted on there. We had a couple misfortunes happen as well for the reasoning behind not being able to post them on social media. There was a snowstorm that occurred for about 48 hours which caused classes to lose time and not have enough time to learn how to upload them. There may be an opportunity to get to upload them, but other than that this topic cannot be commented on too much.

            This project was one of the more fun and different projects I have experienced because it was not like a normal research project that required a 35 pages of typed information. It was a different type of project where the goal is to make sure the audience understands the topic and agreeing that each theme flows together really well with the individual videos.