Video Techniques

So far, this has been the most challenging assignment for me in this course, as I used my phone, which is older, to do the shooting video clips. I do not own a tablet and had planned on using a school iPad. I discovered after I had shot a few of my clips that the current district managed security settings do not allow video or pictures to be taken off the iPad, which seems to me to defeat the purpose of having them as a sharing tool. I think they are set up this way so that students cannot shoot random video or pictures and share it quickly. Oh well, live and learn! Thus, the video quality is limited by the age and camera on my phone and I ended up shooting in my kitchen where I get the most natural light. I do not have children or animals at home, so I used some flowers, a ceramic frog, a teddy bear, and a dinosaur puppet as subjects in my very simple video clips. 

To edit this video, I used iMovie. I found it easy to use with the green screen after watching a helpful tutorial on Youtube. The green screen I used is in our Learning Commons' Creation Station. It's a green curtain pulled across one wall. Students and teachers can book time to use it with the teacher librarian, which is what I did. I had fun playing with some of the settings and included some green screen clips at the beginning and end of my video.

One personal challenge that I faced in this assignment as well as the audio editing assignment is that I do not really like the sound of my voice or being on camera. I had to record the media arts part of the video a few times before I was satisfied and I am still painfully aware of all the "ums."

I like the idea of making videos with students, but was very aware as I was making this video how time consuming and detail-oriented the process is. I might opt to presenting creating a video as an option rather than a requirement in an assignment, as I could see the full class being limited by the technology capabilities at school and home. Those with their own mobile phones would have an easier time with such an assignment than those without.

References:

Bastian, Karl, "How to Do Green Screen on a Mac with iMovie," Youtube, 12 May 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg8Pei08WOE, Accessed 24 May 2022.

Ludlow, David, “How to Shoot Better Video on your iPad or iPhone,” Expert Reviews, 7 July 2014. https://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tablets/8055/how-to-shoot-better-video-on-your-ipad-and-iphone, Accessed 24 May 2022.