When I read the instructions for our Leap 1 project, I knew right away that I wanted to analyze my favorite YouTuber, Aspyn Ovard. I started watching Aspyn’s videos as a freshman in high school and have remained subscribed since. When I first watched Aspyn’s videos, I was inspired by her makeup tutorials and fashion videos. Once I began immersing myself in the beauty community of YouTube, I quickly realized that there were lots of girls making very similar content to Aspyn’s. Her videos, however, always resonated with me more because Aspyn includes her family, friends, and personal values in her content. Therefore, for the last eight years I have viewed Aspyn as a real person that I admire and not just a YouTuber that’s trying to get likes.

After I watched the tutorial for Screencast-O-Matic, I decided to use iMovie instead because I am very familiar and comfortable with using it. I didn’t want to stress out about learning to use a new platform because I am a perfectionist! A few days ago, Aspyn uploaded a video called “Reacting to Assumptions About Our Parenting” which immediately caught my attention. After watching about ten seconds, I knew this was the video I wanted to focus on for my assignment. Aspyn and her husband, Parker have been together since high school and are very comfortable being themselves on camera. This is something I have always admired about them because they joke around with each other and it’s authentic and loving. Aspyn’s love for the people closest to her is reflected in the hilarious “arguments” she and Parker have, and it reminds me of me and my boyfriend.

Once I had my video of focus picked out, I wrote my script. After reading it out loud a few times, I changed some wording and looked up how to make a screen recording on my laptop. I wanted to use clips from Aspyn’s videos in my screencast to show how she has evolved as a person throughout the last ten years, but I wasn’t sure how to do it. Since screen recording on my Macbook was new territory for me, I was excited when I finally got my first clip recorded without any mistakes. I chose six or seven videos that I thought best showed her growth throughout the past decade and screen recorded some clips.

I also knew I wanted to put music in my screencast so I wasn’t talking the entire time. Music is a big part of my life and I wanted to pick a song that enhanced my video and wasn’t a distraction. When I took a screen recording of Aspyn’s wedding video, the music she used reminded me of an Ed Sheeran song that I couldn’t remember the name of. I looked through my old iTunes library and found the song was called Tenerife Sea. After I listened to it, I realized that this cute little love song I had forgotten about was a perfect fit for my video. I have lots of experience with cutting music, so I edited my clips to match the ups and downs of the song.

My final product is one that I am very proud of. I had fun going through Aspyn’s YouTube videos and selecting clips that I thought best represented her as a person. It was also interesting for me in the sense that I have grown and changed too since I started watching her videos back in high school.