I began the process by breaking down the questions I needed to answer, and by reflecting on the videos I had watched from David Dobrik’s vlog, noting some of the questions I could already answer and figuring out where I had the biggest gaps in my knowledge. Dobrik is quite popular, so he’s been written about in the media a fair amount.. By immersing myself in a range of articles and videos, saving links and quotes, I gained a greater understanding of Dobrik as an artist. With that knowledge in mind, I went through a number of Dobrik’s videos to select one that seemed “typical,” with a large number of the features and qualities that I thought were most important. I watched it a couple of times through and then went back and wrote down specifics about each of the bits -- how long they were, what they were about, what aspects of David’s vlog they could illustrate.
I started collecting a range of images to illustrate Dobrik’s career, both from his own social media posts and from media coverage, and I had to download the video itself so I could extract the clips I wanted to use. I knew that I also needed to capture the sound of laughter from his vlog; I wanted to start the screencast with just the sound of the laughter, without any images or text, but I wasn’t sure yet how to accomplish that.
By now, I had collected a mass of text, links, images, and video I’d assembled and I still wasn’t sure exactly how I’d put it all together. Originally, I thought about using Keynote because I know it has some good features for animating images and weaving in multimedia. However, I am much less familiar with Keynote than I am with Google Slides. I ultimately decided that in a project with a lot of moving parts, that using presentation software that I am more experienced with would be a place to save a little time. I did a little testing with the audio to figure out how I could marry embedded audio with my own voiceover. One solution in Screencast-o-matic seemed to require upgrading to a premium service. I tested a little with Quicktime and the sound quality seemed adequate. I thought about embedding my own voice in separate recordings on each slide but I decided that I wanted my voice to be able to carry through slide transitions to give it better flow.
One of the most time consuming aspects of the project was figuring out to wrangle all the media of different formats into one package and editing the video clips down. To get the audio of the three-second laugh for the opening, I had to find a program to use for downloading the vlog post from YouTube. Then I opened the file up in QuickTime and was able to extract an audio-only file. From there I chopped out three laughs I wanted to use. Then I opened them up in GarageBand (a program I’m not very familiar with) and figured out how to layer the laughs so they overlapped slightly and then duplicated that to extend it slightly. Finally I needed to convert the file to mp3 and put it into Google Drive so I could add it as a sound file to the Google Slides presentation and figure out how to make the button invisible to the viewer.
This was just one little piece of the whole process, but it is a good illustration of how an initial vision, took me on a path through several steps with a few different programs and a lot of problem solving, which was sometimes frustrating but ultimately satisfying. It did remind me of how it can take a VERY long time to produce and edit a small piece of multimedia. Editing text in a word processed paper is much easier!
I shared a draft of my screencast with Barb and got some helpful feedback from her, as well as a boost that someone else thought I was on the right track. When I saw hers I realized we had a similar setup and order, which we arrived at separately, so that also made me feel like I may have made some valid choices. With some final tweaks and rehearsals, I was ready to make my final recording, although it took several attempts to get it down in one take!
Alexander, Julia. “David Dobrik Helped Redefine YouTube Four Years Ago, and People Are Celebrating.” The Verge, The Verge, 30 July 2019. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.
“David Dobrik YouTube Channel Analytics and Report - NoxInfluencer.” NoxInfluencer. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.
Dobrik, David. “Telling Dad What to Say On Hidden Camera!!” YouTube, 16 July 2019. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.
“Everything David Dobrik Does in a Day.” YouTube, Uploaded by Vanity Fair, 29 Jan. 2020. Accessed 25 Feb. 2020.
Patton, Rebecca. “Who Is David Dobrik? The Teen Choice Awards Host Is Part Of A Sprawling YouTube Crew.” Bustle, Bustle Digital Group, 11 Aug. 2019. Accessed 4 Mar. 2020.
“YouTube Star David Dobrik’s Talk Show Debut.” YouTube, Uploaded by Strahan Sara and Keke, 27 June 2019.