Above is a completed video covering the annual Alumni Weekend for Ithaca College. Phoebe and I decided to go with an artistic approach, and with it being solely one minute long, we chose to make it more of an arts based profile rather than a 360 coverage of the weekend.
Let's talk obstacles. First of all- where were the people!!! I was envisioning these beautiful establishing shots flooded with people rejoicing about their old college, but unfortunately it was kind of dead. Specifically in the Handwerker, our subject was one of the only alums willing to talk to us. We did well with what we had though, making it into a profile. Secondly, the time restraint. Our character was so bubbly and fun, we actually got her talking about how she met her husband at IC in the 90s. I thought it would be SO CUTE to make a feature piece about couples that met at IC, but I think to do that properly, to capture substantial passion and emotion of several couples, it would have to be longer. Or, even if we were covering Alumni Weekend with this same profile video, I would have loved to include her talking about her husband for a little bit. However, I think Phoebe and I tackled the one minute really well by turning it into a streamlined profile. We didn't try to crush a bunch of events into the time frame, instead we made a really beautiful and naturally flowing video. Our initial plan was to go to the Handwerker and talk to some people, then combine multiple interviews. With the lack of people we simplified that concept, but I am nowhere near unhappy with the final result.
Other than that, I thought it was really successful. We didn't use iMovie because we're both confident in our Premier skills, and although iMovie is praised for its convenience, in this situation Premier was overall the easiest option. Our phones worked well instead of big cameras, although some quality was sacrificed. I really liked our character to, it turns out she's from a neighboring town as me, and we developed a charming back and forth. Phoebe was a doll to work with as well, we bounced plenty of ideas off one another to put forth a really collaborative effort.
I think we stepped the quality up with the voiceover in the beginning paired with the sped up tour of the gallery. It was a captivating approach to an establishing shot. I also thought adding the title cards with building information was a good way to keep things interesting. I like doing little things like those to videos I take part in, not only to keep my own interest in the art of editing, but also just to make a better video.