A video animation on Creativity by Joe DeLeone and Brandon Ginnetti
For our video project, Brandon and I chose to focus on the topic of creativity. Early on in the process of working on this project, we wanted to discuss media content creation, but after narrowing down specific topics we've learned from the textbook and coursework we decided to talk about creativity. We felt creativity would be a fun topic to dive into and share how everyone is creative in their own way.
Once we came to our topic decision we then started preparing notes. Brandon looked through the textbook Create to Learn to find information that covered creativity, particularly Chapter 2. We compiled these notes into a word document so we could further break down the important anecdotes.
My role was then to come with good real-life examples that were relevant to creativity. I felt using an example could help hit home with the audience and draw their attention to things they recognized. It felt appropriate to discuss how creative content creators, celebrities, and media outlets have been in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of the rarity of this situation, it leads to some really unique alternatives thanks to modern technology.
I searched for articles to find examples and found ones relating to musical artists, actors, show hosts, sports leagues, and more.
When we finished gathering information, we then organized it into a script we could read off of for a voiceover of the video. Brandon and I wrote out scripts for the different information we researched. After this was complete, Brandon recorded into the voice memos on his phone and I recorded into Adobe Audition on my computer. I then combined the clips and cleaned up the audio quality to semi-professional standards.
The final phase was next, which was making the video. I chose to use Powtoon because at the start it appeared to be the easiest to use. Because we were not in the same location and could not collaborate remotely, I offered to edit the video. Content production is very easy for me, so from an efficiency standpoint, it made the most sense. While I was editing the video, Brandon pulled and downloaded clips for me to use as examples.
Powtoon was noticeably easy to use, at first. There were clean templates and elements I could use. And it even offered to let me use premium features for a period of time. The functionality was dumbed down compared to other video editing and animation software, but I was content with the resources it offered. I organized clips and slides with various background information and images to support it.
What frustrated me about Powtoon however, was the fact it decided to tell me right as I was close to finishing I could only make a 3-minute video. This was an enormous pain because my audio was 3:40. This led me to use my own creativity to finish it.
What I had to then do was export my video to YouTube, download it, and bring it into Adobe Premiere Pro to finish it. If I did not have the ability to use my own video editing software, solving this problem could have been much worse.
Our ability to collaborate I felt was very smooth. I already new Brandon from playing football with him and training with him early on in the semester for our Pro Day. Because of that, it was easy to communicate and know what his strengths and weaknesses were. He was willing to let me to lead the direction of various parts, as well as offer really good insight for the project.
Overall this project was fun getting explore creativity. We got to focus on what we learned previously in Chapter 2. Going back and re-evaluating that information helped me further digest the concepts. Also, getting to use my own creativity to provide examples made the process fun. I got to experiment with animations and find my own outside sources of content for examples.