PSA Blog

 

Concept
For this project, every group had to come up with a concept for their public service announcement. My group had a hard time initially coming up with a concept, but we ended up choosing a concept that would relate to healthy eating and nutrition. Our final concept idea was to focus on healthy eating in school lunches and we decided to have our video show several students and teachers displaying healthy alternatives to high calorie lunch options.

Process
The first step in the pre-production process was assigning production roles. Anna was director, Lily was production designer, Ryan G. was costume designer, I was cinematographer, and Ryan B. was editor. After we had production roles, we began story boarding our concept. Our story boards had constant editing and we changed lots of ideas as we went through the process. After we had an idea of who we wanted to act in each scene, we casted a variety of people to show different students, teachers, and coaches participating in healthy eating. After we had our video all planned out, we developed a production schedule and figured out the best days to film. Filming took around 3 days and happened during the school day. After filming was all done, I began arranging the clips in Adobe Premier and began editing the actual video.

My Role
In the production of this video we began by assigning specific production roles that changed slightly during production. For this video I mainly worked as producer and focused on planning out filming days, making sure all props were on set, and making sure the shots were consistent with the pattern of the video. During the production process my group learned how each student was able to incorporate their own skills into the filming days and that even though we were assigned specific roles, we were still able to help each other out along the way.

Technical Skills
Through the production of this video I learned several technical skills. For the title screen introduction of the video I really wanted to have text appear after the apple rolled off of the screen. I knew a member in my group, Ryan, was able to do this but I wanted to be able to learn the skill for myself. For this video I watched several video tutorials to teach me how to use Adobe After Effects. Since film and photography is the future field I want to pursuit, I knew I would need to learn how to use this piece of software eventually. After working on the animation several times I was able to get a title screen that I was happy with. Technically through this video I have also learned how to be a more precise editor and pay more close attention to details in shot transitions.

Professional Skills
Working on this video also helped me develop several professional skills. For this video we worked with a larger group of students than we usually do and I had to learn how to collaborate with several different students I haven't worked with before. For this video I also took on a lot of leadership in organizing filming days and letting our group know when we needed certain props. My group also learned the importance of communication through this video. For one day of filming we were supposed to have a certain prop but we didn't know who had been told to bring it. After this mistake happened, we were able to move on and be more successful in communication by having a more organized approach to filming days.

Lessons Learned
If I was to do this video again, I would want to be more hands on with the camera work. Ryan took lead most days on filming. If I had to opportunity to shoot again I would want to get a better shot of the gymnast and work closer with lighting and better framing.

For this video there are also several things I would want to keep the same. I really enjoyed creating the animation title screen and I would definitely want to continue doing my own animations for videos now on. I also really enjoyed working with my specific group and I believe we had a lot of good ideas.

After filming this video there are several experiences I can take on to my next project. This video taught me the importance of communication and I know that's a skill I can get better at in future videos. I also learned a lot about animation and how to use Adobe Premier that I can use to make the editing of my videos a lot more professional.

Conclusion
In conclusion, I really enjoyed creating this public service announcement and working with a different group of students to make it possible. Although my group experienced challenges along the way, I believe we were able to move forward and create an end product that reflected our best work. I am very happy with the way the video turned out and I look forward to creating more entertainment style videos throughout the semester.