Reflection on PSA Post-Production

Melba Morales was very instrumental in getting our group together during the first week of this course. She and I worked closely together during the first two weeks helping each other on our projects. We shared our scripts for the purpose of getting constructive feedback. Salvador Huerta begin and Lawrence Anderson joined the group quickly and by the end of Week 2 we were already brainstorming ideas for our PSA on the Google Site that Salvador had created. He posted the template for the project proposal and the shot list and we all began filling in information. We also used Google docs to place files for each other to have access.

I am a planner by nature, so I took it upon myself to initiated Skype meetings, initially to get to know each other on a more personal basis, then to have contact once a week much like our web conferences. W also communicated by email and if needed met up again on Skype during midweek. I feel each team member worked hard to equally share in the work load. Salvador did the video capture and some still shots, I initiated communication, provide still photography, and recorded voice over with Melba. Melba and I used Audacity and sent the files to Lawrence who put it all together using the video editing software on his Mac. Credits and reference citations along with the Creative Commons link were placed at the end of the video. Lawrence then output the PSA to a .mov file. He expressed that it was a bit of a challenge uploading to YouTube. We are pleased with the video, but given more time I think we could refine it even more by deleting one section of the voice over and syncing the voice over more accurately with the clips.

Our Collaborative site is located at https://sites.google.com/site/edldprojectpsa/


CPR - The Act That Saves A Life




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Week 5: It's a Wrap!

Our group worked so well together that we had a good part of our project at its final stage toward the end of week four. This week we had no changes to our script or shot list. It was more about fine tuning our video and adding the credits, references and Creative Commons licensing. During our meeting at the end of week four we discussed what we needed to accomplish for week five. We were in danger of having more than sixty seconds and all agreed that it was imperative that it remain below that time limit. We also discussed what tags we would attach to the video. Lawrence uploaded the video to YouTube on Saturday and sent us a notice via gmail. After viewing the video I found that the credits were wrong and the Creative Commons logo was not at the end of the video where it should be. I emailed everyone and got on Skype to discuss what changes we needed to make. Salvador and Melba were able to attend and Lawrence communicated with us via gmail through his iPhone. Lawrence expressed how he had some issues with the way YouTube was uploading the movie file. In the end the changes were made and our PSA was successfully uploaded to YouTube. The past few weeks demonstrated successful collaboration and production of what I think is a great PSA for amateurs. I feel through this experience I have learned how smoothly a collaborative effort can be achieved. This is something I can take with me in helping students work collaboratively in the classroom as well as working with teachers.

Week 4: PSA Production Group Work

Our team has done remarkably well in collaborating and getting many things done. We feel like we are in a very good place and will have no problem meeting the deadline. This week I worked on revising our script to trim down the message for the sake of time. I performed a search for the sound of a beating heart and uploaded it to our wiki /Google site. I also took some photos around my school for the shot list and uploaded those. Lawrence and I met earlier this week on Skype to discuss the revised script for editing footage. Our group met again Sunday on Skype where we revised our shot list based on the revised script and Lawrence’s editing this week. We ended up deleting some of the video shots that were not necessary. We found that we could still have impact and our message was still very clear. Melba and I recorded the script for narration using Audacity and sent it to Lawrence. Salvador worked with getting the embedded html for placing Creative Commons licensing information. We plan to meet again on Thursday at 7:00 to view the video and see if we need to make anymore changes and for posting our video.

Our Collaborative site is located at https://sites.google.com/site/edldprojectpsa/

Web Conference: September 19th

The web conference I attended yesterday was helpful in clarifying our next steps for producing our group's Public Service Announcement. The question that kept coming up during the hours was centered on having to have at least two narrators in our PSA. I did not attend the last web conference on Friday evening; however I read through the script and was surprised when I learned that we were to have more than one narrator. I had already produced the narration for our video. I immediately emailed our group and informed them of this new insight. We met at our scheduled Skype conference and came up with a solution. Melba would record the same script making sure each statement was on a separate track and Lawrence, our editor, would use his best judgment and decide who would do the opening and closing and who would do the mid part of the narration. Sounded like a great solution. Throughout the rest of the conference I learned that we also needed credits, those involved in making of the PSA, and APA formatted references all at the end of the video. This could pose to be a problem with our 60 second time limit. I made the comment that I have seen movie credits roll by so fast that it was a blur. As long as they were on there that is what matters. I liked Sherrie’s comment “piece of cake... i can roll citations as fast as anyone”.

Week 3: Producing a Public Service Announcement

Our group began forming when Melba Morales posted on the discussion board for parties interested in establishing a group with her. I replied, then soon after Salvador and Lawrence joined. The next event that happened in our group was Salvador establishing the wiki for collaborating on our project. This was a huge step for our beginning! There we were able to brainstorm ideas and volunteer for parts in the production of our PSA. Also, Salvador jumped right in and shot the video. This caused much concern for me as the video was one long take. I posted on the wiki that after completing the week's readings that I was concerned about not having the suggested different types of camera shots. In reference to "Guidelines for Shooting Quality Videos" (part 5) it is suggested to use many short clips of five to ten seconds in duration to be more effective and bring variety to the audience. I suggested that parts of Sal's video could be clipped so that it is in segments. I also suggested that we shoot some more takes such as close up view of just hands on chest using live models demonstrating the pumping action - about 3 to 6 seconds worth. Then another close up of the AED, about 3 seconds worth.

My thought was to also change our focus from CPR training, which would really require longer footage, to the promotion of faculty and staff attending CPR training. I know at my school not too many are trained and each year our nurse offers the session without much attendance. A script suddenly came to me in the shower that morning getting ready for work. I have my best ideas in the shower! I always keep a pen and paper in my dressing area so that when I come out of the shower I can quickly write down my ideas. I posted the script on the wiki and notified my team members by email to take a look and give feedback.
I spent some time looking at other PSAs on CPR and the better ones did not have a lot of script. "Less is more" is what I am always telling my desktop publishing students. I found a good example of a video that uses lots of short takes and different angles and posted it on the wiki on the Video Collection link that Sal had made.

I got an overwhelming response from the team and we were off and running. Salvador, Lawrence and I met that Saturday on Skype. We came up with the outline and the shot list. We discussed photos that we could shoot to add to the video and also narration as well as text slides. It was a very productive meeting with everyone knowing exactly what to do to accomplish our goals.

Week 2: Tutorial on Adobe Premiere Elements

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Evaluating Video Editing Software

After reviewing both Premiere Elements and Windows Live Movie Maker, and using a fee video clip to experiment using the programs, I chose to use Premier to edit the video clip. I really thought I would choose Movie Maker because it is a very basic program for novice users. I believed it would be easier to use even though I am familiar with Adobe products. (I have used Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign, previously PageMaker, since the early 90s.) I found the opposite to be true for me. I suppose because I am familiar with Adobe's interface it made it easier, although I still found it a challenge to figure out. I watched YouTube tutorials on both. The Adobe Premiere Elements tutorial video and Microsoft Live Movie Maker tutorial on YouTube were both excellent videos for getting started with the basic features. The main feature I found that made me lean towards Premiere Elements was the fact that it was more versatile. In my title frame I wanted to change the color of only part of the text. In Movie Maker it changed the entire text on that frame. I also wanted part of the text larger. When I selected only the part I wanted to increase in size it changed all of the text. It gave me little control over text attributes - that would not do at all! Also, I could not get Movie Maker to show the separate clips of my video; it appeared that the entire video segment was one clip. When I imported the video into Premiere the timeline showed where the clips ended and another began in order to edit for special effects and transitions. “When you’re trimming frames from a clip, the monitor window displays both the clip that you’re editing and the clip directly before or after. This allows you to more easily create frame-accurate edits and see exactly how two clips will look together.” The last big difference between the two are the number of formats the software was capable of exporting. Premiere is able to export in a number of file formats – Adobe Flash, MPEG, AVI WMV, QuickTime, Image files and Audio files. However, Movie Maker only allowed the choice of WMV (Windows Media Video). Both also allowed to share online directly to YouTube, whereas only Movie Maker allowed you to also share on Facebook. Premiere was the right choice for me to be able to have more control and ease of use as well as a professional package that would enable me to do more complex editing. If I were to choose for using in the classroom it would have to be Movie Maker as this is what is loaded on our computers in my district.

Reference:
Siegchrist, G. (n.d.). Video editing software review – adobe premiere elements 3.0. About.com Guide. Retrieved from http://desktopvideo.about.com/od/desktopediting/fr/adbelements.htm