As I have advanced through the year so far I have been working on lots of video projects. I have been doing lots of videos in every PLP class but especially maker. In maker I have done recreation videos, funny videos, lots of assignments for preproduction and most recently a live action video covering an event of my choice.
In this live action video I had to make a video under two minute capturing any event. The event could be a dinner part or a soccer game but I chose to do mine on the Parkgate skatepark Because I go there a lot and I felt it would be interesting to capture in video. For this project I had to do lots of planning beforehand because it was a live event so you couldn’t go back and attempt to re-record it. My first step after deciding what I wanted to film was to layout what would happen during the day and decide what I wanted video of. Everyone in my class had to have an interview, a time lapse, a slow motion clip and a freeze frame. I then proceeded to make a checklist in notes so I could double check during the filming process I had wanted I needed.
Once my plans were laid out I went to the skate park on a Saturday morning to get to work. Because I planned well beforehand the filming itself was pretty easy. I chose my locations, my angles and some extra shots on location but everything else was done. One challenge of recording at the skatepark was the audio. It’s always very loud at the skatepark so for my interview in particular I had to try several times. Another challenge is to get video of myself. Obviously at a skatepark one of the most common things is people doing tricks and getting trick lines on their boards. The problem there wasn’t the actual filming it was landing my tricks. Some of them were hard and it seems like it took me a long time to get basic clips.
Compared to our other video challenges and video assignments this was very unique and presented new challenges that I hadn’t faced yet. The first challenge was not being able to storyboard the live event. The reason you can’t storyboard or at least in my case is because there is a certain level of unpredictability. I got around this by doing lots of other planning in place of the story board. Another challenge that presented itself with this project was the importance of getting video right the first time. Especially in the skatepark if you don’t get the video then there’s no garuntee you’ll have another chance. I got over this challenge by being prepared and always ready to film, otherwise I would’ve missed some very important clips.
In reflection, I think that this project taught us a lot about different aspects of live video and taught us a lot of video skills that we will always have and be able to use in the future. A few things I would do differently next time though is get a better idea of what exact angles I want in my video before I was on location. I would also come up with more questions beforehand for my interview so I would have more video to choose from for the interview part. I would also get more B-roll just so I would have more editing freedom. Other than that thought I feel like this was a great project and I am proud of the video I created for it!