The Production Process

During the spring, I continued conducting research for Professor Adam Howard and the Global Elite research project.  Early in the semester, Adam and I organized a meeting to discuss the different opportunities available in the research project.  Since Adam Howard is the basketball team’s liaison on campus and many of the individuals who conduct research for this project are members of the basketball team, Adam and I both felt that it was important to recognize the huge role the basketball team plays in this research project.  As a result, this semester I produced a video that presents the symbiotic relationship between Adam Howard and the basketball team.  In addition, this video not only demonstrates the impact that members of the basketball team have on this project, but also the influence this research experience has on these student athletes.

The process of creating an interview-based video was not as easy as it sounds.  The first step in creating this video was generating interview questions.  I had three different set’s of questions for different qualifying members of the basketball team.  One set of questions was for individuals who were not yet a part of the research team, but were interested.  Another set of questions was for individuals who were a part of the research team for at least one semester.  The last set of interview questions was for Professor Adam Howard.  Coming up with upwards of 40 questions total was challenging but thrilling.  The next step in creating this video was borrowing the camera equipment from the college.  I borrowed a video camera, chargers, tripod, headphones, microphone, and sound cords.  While in possession of the camera gear, I had to schedule interviews with the members of the basketball team.  I created a google docx and listed all my available times and had my teammates fill in what days/times worked for them as well.  The final step in creating this video was learning how to upload the footage to my computer and use iMovie. This was probably one of the most enjoyable portions of creating the video.  I got to use special effects on the footage and watch bloopers of my teammates.

Although the creation of this video was a great experience, it was a huge challenge.  First of all, all the individuals who were in this video have very busy schedules with school and sports.  It was hard to find time to add this in there schedules.  Once we finally figured out the interview times, we decided where we would shoot the footage.  If it was a nice day outside, we would do the interview either on miller lawn or near the chapel.  If it was raining or too cold outside, we would carry out the interview somewhere in miller library or near the education seminar room.  When doing the interviews I faced many obstacles.  The lighting in some of the rooms in miller library was not evenly distributed. This created a weird glare in some of the footage.  In addition, if it was too sunny outside it sometimes effected the camera footage and also caused the interviewees to squint.  As a result, I sometimes had to redo footage and change the location of the interview.  Other factors, such as the time of day, also had an effect in where the interviews were shot.  The biggest challenge was preventing background noise in the footage.  When interviewing individuals outside, both the sound of nature and students walking by caused there to be a lot of extra noise.  I tried preventing this background noise with using a close up mic, but this still didn’t do much.  In addition, I tried using effects in iMovie to decrease the extent of background noise, but this also didn’t work that well.  It caused the voices of the interviewees to become very squeaky.  I had to adjust the right balance of background noise prevention in iMovie to make it sound as good as possible.  I also faced some problems when putting the video together in iMovie.  If a single clip of film was to long, I had to use this specific software to slice it up into sections.  My iMovie also took up a lot of storage on my computer which prevented me from uploading all the footage in one trial.  Due to the lack of storage on my computer, I had to take my computer to the IT department on campus to help me manage my computers storage.  This allowed me to finish uploading my footage.  Finally, this was my first time using iMovie so it took a lot of trial and error before I understood how to use iMovie correctly.

Overall, I was very pleased with the final result of the video.  It is well organized with a nice flow to it.  The creation of this video ultimately provided me with experience on how to make a video.  The video also provided me with an understanding of what my teammates have taken away from there research experiences.  This ultimately allowed me to compare and contrast both my research experience and my relationship with Professor Adam Howard with my teammates views, all through the power of a lens.