Posts – Page 7 – All about Rangelands!

Post #6 Final video story

Like all the other assignments in this class, learning a new program challenged me. Premier was not easy to use in the beginning. However, after working with it for a half hour and watching the tutorials, it became much more intuitive than some other applications like Photoshop.

I want to begin with my inspiration and pre-editing process. As can be assumed by the name of this blog (Rangeland Learning), I am very passionate about the health of the rangelands in the Western U.S. I earned my bachelor’s degree in rangeland ecology, and I grew up in Boise, which is smack dab in the middle of a rangeland ecosystem. For my job, I work with the BLM as a fuels technician with the Boise district. Almost every acre of land we manage would be classified as rangelands. What I love most about my job is that I get to help take care of the environment I love most. That’s why I decided to film my video while at work! The day I filmed my video clips, we set out to take “photo points” of a fuel break management area called Castle Creek. The goal of photo points is to track vegetation changes within our management areas relating to fire risk and fuel loading. While numerical data is compelling, nothing beats a nice visual comparison.

Once I had all of my clips gathered from my day at work, I put them all into Premier and began the technical editing portion of the video. To start this section, I would like to link the videos I used to help me create my first draft

After gathering the essential elements I wanted to add to my videos, I put them together. I started by organizing the video clips into their folder and naming each clip for organization. This allowed me to place each clip into the sequence I desired quickly. I relied heavily on the Premier tutorial video included in the assignment post. After placing the clips into the order I wanted, I trimmed each one to the correct length to avoid any extra film that did not contribute to my whole video. After cutting each video, I placed transitions throughout my clips to make the switch between scenes smoother and more visually appealing. I learned how to add text to slides from a YouTube video. This allowed me to give some quick context to help the viewer better understand my video. After giving text to each video, I added a music track to make it all more uniform and appealing. The music was from the Ascona soundtrack we used in the previous assignment. After assembling my draft, I watched a YouTube video and learned how to export it to YouTube.

Going into the final draft, there is much room for improvement. I have given myself an excellent base, but I can refine it a lot more. One thing I plan on adding in my final draft is some sort of voice-over intro. I would also like to refine my text and experiment with some transitions that are not just defaults. Overall, I enjoyed this project and look forward to my final draft. Below is the link to my first draft video!

Changes for final draft

After reading all of the suggestions from my classmates and watching some of their videos it was pretty clear to me what I could do increase the quality of my project. The main feedback I received was that I should add some sort of VoiceOver to the video instead of just using music and text. I had avoided this route at first because it seemed like it would be too challenging. However I found that it was extremely simple and was actually just like adding a music track. The most challenging part was getting the timing and wording right for what I was saying as it corresponded with the video. In addition to the voice over someone had mentioned adding more detail about what exactly we were doing. Obviously the VoiceOver achieves this but I also upgraded some of the text I put over the original video to compliment the new VoiceOver. The Voiceover and text changes were the major differences in the draft and final video. I did go in and change the volume levels on the music to allow for the VoiceOver to be heard but also still have some nice background music for the viewers enjoyment.

In general I found that I gave myself a good base for making my final draft. I probably only had 45 minutes to an hour worth of work to do from my first to second draft. This project was challenging but I also felt that I learned the most from doing this one. I also feel strongly that this program is something that I am likely to use again in both my personal and professional life. Being able to create informative videos with ease makes communicating complicated natural resource videos with the public much easier than with just an infographic or photos.

Here is the link to my final video