The Medium Shot - A How-To Tutorial

If I'm honest, I'm surprised I managed to make a finished How-To video and one that I am actually satisfied with as well. I filmed and shot several different photos / videos for my project so that in post-production I had options on how to produce my video. 

Before  filming, I felt confident - I knew exactly what I needed to shoot along with where, when and why. I liked the content I was planning to shoot and I had some great ideas on how to construct my how-to video. All of this fell apart when I actually got round to filming. My head was in the clouds when I was planning and I wasn't being very realistic so when it was filming day I was stumped, realising I couldn't shoot what I wanted. I was forced to improvise which I didn't like at first but now I am quite satisfied with the end results. 

I believe that the shot examples went very well! They were clear and perfect examples of different angles and they all really fit the video well. I also believe that the editing went very well - this was not the case at first but I eventually got the hang of it and managed to complete a good looking video. 

Something I didn't think went very well was the voiceovers. I recorded two voiceovers - one of me explaining through the different angles and another of my friend doing the intro and outro. My friend's voiceover was a little crackly however this is due to us not using the correct equipment because I didn't originally plan on using that piece of audio. My voiceover was worse however because you can only hear it out of the left ear when wearing headphones (and no, it's not just my headphones, it's all headphones). Although the voiceover is clear and still somewhat satisfactory, I believe it could definitely be improved. 

For my video, I decided to simply use photo examples of camera angles instead of footage. I did this because I had captured some really nice examples of different shots and I struggled to find models willing to pose for any videos. This thankfully wasn't too much of an issue because I am satisfied with how my video turned out when simply using photos but next time I would definitely plan on using videos too. 

I've learnt a lot from this project. The entire experience felt like one big life lesson mixed with several mini lessons. I learnt not only new skills but new life lessons on what to do / not to do when doing a project. One of the skills I have learnt is editing on Adobe Premiere Pro; at first I struggled to use the software because it looks quite complicated but I quickly picked up on it and even assisted my peers in using it for their own how-to videos. One of the life lessons I have learnt from this project is to always have a (or a few) contingency plan(s); this is helpful as in production things can easily go wrong and so you'll be prepared to keep moving forward with the project. I can apply all of this to my future projects as I can better prepare myself and won't have to watch so many YouTube tutorials on how to edit. 

Next time, there is a lot I would do differently - for starters I would focus on my work before other people's. Although I managed to stay up-to-date with all the work, I found myself putting other people's needs before mine and coming to their aid whenever they called. This put me at a slight disadvantage especially in my production stage as I would fall behind in shooting and not for a valid reason. To change all of this, I would focus on my own work and needs before anyone else's.