In the meantime, I’m taking two small steps to continue my progress: editing and feedback.
Editing:
Our video shouldn’t exceed 90 seconds. As it stands, I’m hovering around 82 seconds, still without any footage of me talking to the camera. Therefore, I’m in the process of identifying segments that are superfluous or too lengthy, and pairing them down. I’ll also need to revisit my script for the part where I’m talking; my goal is to edit this part by half and still retain my central message.
Feedback:
Today I showed my video-in-progress to few friends who work in screenwriting, web development, and advertising. (Kind of a feedback dream team!) I wanted to get an outsider’s take on my project. Without giving them any background on my work, I asked them to view my video cold and answer a few questions:
Q: What is this about?
A: Lofty ideas, but reality getting in the way. It looks like there’s some connection between CCSS and PBL, but it seems that it’s not working.
My thoughts: Good! My target audience, teachers, will have some sort of context for this already, so if “outsiders” are getting the gist, then I’m on the right track.
Q: What do you want to more know about?
A: A clarification of what PBL and CCSS are, and what those statistics at the end mean.
My thoughts: My target audience will know what PBL and CCSS are, so not a worry. I don’t know if I can take up time explaining the statistics- will have to think about that one.
Q: What do you expect to see next?
A: A recommendation or a solution; a resolution.
My thoughts: YES! That’s what I was going for. Where the existing video ends, I want to film myself explaining the very basics of what I’ve learned. The challenge will be doing that in a concise way.
Working with iMovie
Because I began my rough cut before our last class, I already discussed some techniques and workarounds I discovered with iMovie. One thing I did was begin my work using a trailer template. Then I exported the trailers to video, and imported the video into a new movie project. This allowed me to cut out parts of the trailer I didn’t need, as well as splice different trailers together. I also got a lot of leverage from taking screenshots of rubrics and webpages, and then using the iPad’s markup feature to zoom in on certain visuals. I then let iMovie give the Ken Burns treatment to my new-and-improved “photos”.