Inspiration for Senior Capstone

My next step for my senior capstone is to research other videographer’s promotional videos.  I sometimes get strange looks whenever I tell people that I look at other wedding videographer’s work, but I tell people that it is for inspiration, not for stealing.  I never copy exact concepts or videos. 

Moving forward, the video I checked out was a wedding videographer that also does photography.  They are called “Blueberry Fusion”.  There promotional video can be found below:

Now there are aspects that I like from this video and there are some that I do not like.  I do like that the video is very playful but I cannot help but feel that the video becomes cheesy. In addition, it is obvious that it is scripted. I would like to mention that I plan on scripting some parts of my promotional video, but I do not want to use cheesy lines or humor to cover it up. I would like to present myself as a serious company.  Moving on, I do like that Blueberry Fusion demonstrates the difference between professional vendors and family members that some clients may choose instead: one of the biggest mistakes a bride and groom can do.

I learned from Blueberry Fusion’s video that it is important to show your specialty.  What sets you apart from the competition? For Blueberry Fusion, it is the fact that they are both wedding videographers and photographers.  And they demonstrate the advantages to this in their video. Now, I have to figure out what my specialty is…

"Competitive Promotional Strategies"

Before I even start considering how I should put together my project, I want to review my own business and how it stands with my competitors.  Mostly, how I structure my pricing and promotions.  After all, it is a PROMOTIONAL video.  So I checked out Chakravarthi Narasimhan's article: Competitive Promotional Strategies.  Now, most of this article contains lots of mathematical equations and honestly, situations that aren't that relevant to me.  However, the first part of the article contains some very useful and basic information that can help me shape my business plan and create a promotion that is most profitable and effective to get the audience that I am looking for.

Now I generally do offer promotional discounts every year around this time.  It usually involves me raising my prices but still offering the old prices if you reserve your date before the month of May. This usually proves to be effective but I never knew why.  Narasimhan claims that there are three tools for promotions: Advertising, Trade Promotions, and Consumer Promotions.  Overall, Promotional Discounts.  Now, I have discovered that the reason that why my yearly promotional discount is so effective is because it is wise to "fluctuate prices in order to include brand switchers".  There are two reasons why this is effective. First, there aren't generally brand switchers in my business, only new comers who know nothing about anyone else.  So, a price change can make a big difference when selling your self.  And second, it attracts both higher and lower class audiences. It's hard to believe but sometimes a higher price for a wedding vendor is advertising in itself.  Some people are looking for quality rather than a low price and sometimes that turns people off when they see a low price. A soon higher price will suggest that we still have the quality of a reliable business.  Having these constant price changes will attract a much wider range of audiences and will not turn off the higher class that can get me a pay check.


Article: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2352790uid=3739704&uid=2134&uid=4577523657&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&uid=4577523647&purchasetype=article&accessType=none&sid=21101693542557&showMyJstorPss=false&seq=8&showAccess=false

Photo: http://www.webcommunicator.net/images/sitepicts/2010/photos/promotion.jpg

Capstone Introduction

Well it's finally here.  The course that I have been working for since my freshman year: Senior Capstone. But now it is time to ask myself what project I should do to well showcase my abilities.  Also, it should be something that I learn with, a project that I have not experienced before but would still be of use to me after I  graduate. After taking all of these into consideration, I have decided on a perfect project: A promotional video. I have no experience making a promotional video, except maybe a short one in my Advertising & Imagery course.  I would like to get some experience with advertisement and promotional videos since I see in future with a company that constantly makes commercials. Now, I have decided that what better to promote, than myself and my company: Stevenson Productions.  This will require lots of organization and editing as there are hundreds of hours of footage from previous jobs.  I am very excited about this project and I feel like it will be very beneficial to and my future career. Above is a link to just one of the many videos I plan on featuring in my promotional video.

Final Production - Comm 360

On our final project for studio production, we focused on shooting a real production with a real subject and credible talents.  Our group, (group B) chose the subject of the 2012 end of the world prophecies.  For preproduction, we had to make sure we had questions prepared.  My choice of topic was the economical effects prior to the estimated time of the end of the world. As said in my discussion board with my classmates: "I'm not sure if I'm beating a dead horse with the economical subject, but I feel like believers of 2012 will highly affect the county's economy.  A great sample questions would be:

WIll the economy be affected before and/or after the proposed date of the end of the world and how will it be affected?"

Although the idea was not used, we finished the questions and brainstorming and found our talents. We were ready for the big day of filming.

Unfortunately, when that big day came, a power outage occurred on campus. This caused our talents to not show up and questioned whether or not we were actually going to film that day.  After waiting, we found the power to be restored. It was starting to look as if we were actually going to be able to film.  However, none of our talents showed up.  We improvised by replacing them with members of our team. Setup for filming was in progress and then suddenly one of our original talents showed up. Now, we actually have some credibility in our production. I was assigned the position of video switcher.  I listened carefully to the director for switching directions, and although it is not allowed, gave advise of when to switch and camera directions. The only error made was that the microphone on our guest fell of in the middle of the production.

Moving on, I volunteered to edit.  When receiving the footage there was a huge problem with the audio. There was a huge buzz noise the entire time. Also the part when the microphone dropped was very loud. On top of that, it was slightly overtime.  So, the first thing to do was to take the audio into audacity and take a print of the buzzing noise alone and remove the audio throughout the entire file.  This worked very well. I was impressed at our sound guy for making sure each talent had the same audio level.  This was something I noticed no one else had.  Next, I solved both of our last two problems.  We were overtime and the microphone was dropped halfway through. So, I decided to take out the entire phrase where the microphone was dropped (which happened to be irrelevant to the conversation, so no continuity was sacrificed) I managed to edited it to be right on time. I turned in the edited video the next class and we noticed that the format was a very low res format. It was then that I re-edited the entire thing (because I didn't save it) and rendered it again as an AVI file.  Finally the file was done and we rendered it yet again with the Shepherd University bumpers. Our project was done!

Writing Center - Comm 360

When shooting the writing center assignment, the first thing I noticed was that the script required lots of intensive editing.  This means that the production should be looked at very intensively so that the editing process is easier.  There lots of small snipets of video that were going to be used.
The first thing I helped with was troubleshooting. Especially with the reading of the script by the talents.   I had noticed that the angle that the talents were reading from was obvious in the video. So I found a way to hold the board so that way the further the talent got in the script, the the board could roll down so the talent's head stays at the same angle.
I noticed in production that the subject would breathe or take a break after finishing each phrase or snipet. The talent would also have a different inflection with the next phrase which will lead to a lack of continuity in post production and i would limit the choices of who you would pick to say the next phrase. I would also like to note that I worked on lighting for the first time which was pretty fun.

Director with Studio Production - Comm 360

As stated in other blogs, such as Studio Production Positions and Multi-Madness, my all-time favorite studio production position is the director.  I'm sure I have shown this when blogging about Hamilton Hamish. 

I have said that I do not enjoy having control over just a small part of the production process and I like making decisions for myself. The position of director seems to be the only position that has any control.  All other positions mostly rely on directions of the director.  When I was the director I first ensured that everyone was doing their jobs.  You can think of the director as the quality control before the production starts.  He or she should make sure and remind everyone of their jobs to ensure that everything is in working order and no errors will occur while the production is in action (which is to late).  I have made sure to pay special attention to the audio in pre-production. My reasoning for this is that it is hard to find a mistake for audio even while the filming is in progress. In my experience, audio mistakes are not found until post production when it is too late. So, it is better to be prepared when it comes to audio.  I feel like I did a good job of that.  

Moving on, I made sure that both cameras matched as far as exposure and white balance.  Camera #2 was a little dark, but after fixing the exposure (although it was hard to tell on the video switcher monitor) the white balance was fixed and we were ready to go.  However, looking back, I should have done some extra preproduction work.  I should have ensured that the talents knew their jobs and know where to look and to not move or make distractions while filming.  Other than that, I feel like I have done my job for preproduction.

Moving on to the production.  While filming my main focus was to make sure the camera angles were good.  I made sure that each camera (even if we weren't using it) had a good angle. A good angle means that all exposure and white balance is set, no one is cut off from side to side, and most importantly, head room.  Head room is the space from the top of the shot to the top of the subject's head. However, after post production I have realized that we were actually shooting in full screen and it later is turned to widescreen.  So, in the future I want to solve that mistake by giving a little more head room to compensate. Next, I ensured that I could anticipate who will be speaking next so that way I could time the camera movement and video switch correctly. The only reason I knew to do this was by watching other directors make the same mistake.  As far as mistakes, I feel like I did not pay attention to the timing as much as I could have.  The ending was slightly abrupt and interrupted the conversion suddenly.
All in all, I feel like I have a pretty good feel for production now.

Studio Production Positions - COMM 360

One of my biggest fears of my future career is that I will get stuck with a job that requires doing the same miniscule job over and over again.  Like being a sound guy where all I do is mic up talents over and over again.  No... I'd rather do it all.  Operate the camera, direct the camera shots, switch video, and anything and everything.  This is why I have enjoyed my studio production class lately.  We have filmed several different talents (which happen to just be my own classmates) and every time the production ended we all switched positions. So, this way, we all got at least one turn with each job. Never did the same person have the same job over and over. Most of my positions were not supportive but hands on and thankfully they were all behind the camera or in the production room.
I used the cameras and received directions from the director. I had to encounter troubleshooting with complex settings with the other camera operator's camera (some zebra pattern setting that took for ever to fix) then after we figured out the exposure settings and made sure the audio was not being sent to the video switcher, we were ready to shoot. The first thing I noticed when shooting (and found the importance later after I got to be director) was that it was important to listen to directions of the director and to change shots as soon as possible so that the switcher can switch and the shot can be used. Slow camera operators can hurt a production easily.
The next notable position was the video switcher. I was very excited about this position, but I found it was rather boring because all you would do is listen to the director telling you to push a button.
The director was my favorite position. I was able to control everything the way I like it.  The most difficult thing to learn was to anticipate who will be talking next rather than who is talking at the time.  Generally, as a director wants to set up a shot (for example, a close up on the person talking) the director will generally set up the shot to early and by the time the camera operator is done, the shot is lost.  Instead the director should anticipate when someone else will be speaking.
Other positions were floor manager, sound man, lighting director, and much more.  They weren't my favorite positions, but I found that they are very important to the whole production because the director should not have to worry about these jobs or any of the troubleshooting.  I believe this is why many productions have these multiple small jobs.