Last week when I chose to do the video assignments rather than the project, I created a list of some assignments to do over the next two weeks. One of them was the 60 second day assignment where you film clips throughout the day to show what you’ve been up to.
I decided to do this assignment on the one day this week that I actually was doing something other than sitting at home – getting my graduation pictures taken!
Now let me just give some background info… my sister has been living with me for 2 weeks now and she was my photographer. We stayed away from people and used sanitizer. Also, my pictures were finished being taken an hour before the stay-at-home mandate for Virginia was ordered. We followed all the rules.
The hardest part about this assignment was remembering to record things. It was particularly hard to record when I was taking my pictures because I didn’t have any free hands. I did manage to get a few campus shots though.
As for the editing, I went straight to iMovie on my phone after all of the issues I had last week. I played around with the transitions and then exported it to my computer. Once the video was on my computer, I put it in my video editing software and added the title card.
I decided not to add any background music to this because I think the audio is not only good, but important. When I was listening to it, there are some sounds that you know right away before you even see the video. I think that leaving this audio gave it more of a natural and realistic feel.
The only issue I ran into this time was that my audio wouldn’t play for the first two times. I had to remove the clip, put it back in, and then not watch it in the editing software and go right to exporting it. That’s the only way I could get it to play.
Check it out and let me know what you think! And also, just as a disclaimer, I am 21 and will be 22 in about a month
For my second video assignment, I decided on doing the 60 Second Day video assignment (4 stars). I thought this would be a little fun to show what my typical day in quarantine looks like. As a super introvert, I personally am thriving, but how about those of you who are extroverts?
Because I forgot every now and then to take a video or because I didn’t want to retake something that’s repetitive, I did copy-paste some clips. In the end, I found it a little comical, especially since this ended up showing just how easily my laptop dies. I had a lot of fun doing it, and I hope that it gave some insight into how my usual day in quarantine is like. It’s no different than a typical day when I’m at home for breaks and vacation since I’m such a homebody.
For my first video assignment, I chose to do the “60 Second Day” prompt. This was filmed on Saturday, June 15th!
I’m going to be completely honest, this week hasn’t been the greatest. I felt like I had little to zero energy. The first half of the week, I didn’t even leave the house… I mostly stayed in my room and was on the computer. But I was either working on my blog or just watching YouTube videos. I guess it was just that kind of the week.
So when I had a somewhat productive day on Saturday, I had to film this video. I agreed to do a Zumba class in the morning with my sister. It was my first time going and I know that I’m not the most coordinated person. But to my surprise, I liked it more than I thought I would. Then I filmed the rest of my day!
How I made this video:
After transferring all the video clips I made throughout the day to my computer, I went to iMovie and started a Movie project.
Immediately, I picked the Simple theme on iMovie and named my video project.
After that, I imported all of my video clips and put them in the right order.
I moved on to creating the opening title at the beginning of the video as well as an ending title.
In between some of the clips, I added some transitions.
I slowed down one of the clips, using Speed – Slow 50%.
After watching the video all the way through, making sure the transitions and everything are fine, I went to Audio – Jingles to select a song for my background music. I chose to use a jingle called Peach Cobbler.
Once the background music is set up, I saved the video project and uploaded it to YouTube!
For my first video assignment this week I chose the prompt 60 Second Day- A Video Narrative. This assignment is worth four stars. For this prompt, we had to try to tell a story about your day in just 60 seconds using one-second clips of video. My sixty seconds of a supposed to be sixteen-hour day of me traveling from the West Coast to East Coast. I ended up traveling for twenty-two hours from the minute I arrived at the airport to depart for my arrival home. My summer away from Virginia has been extremely relaxing but when it comes to traveling back home I was exhausted. This video narrates my journey whilst making time for class.
To create this video I used Adobe Spark, an online editor for photos and videos. I used clips of videos and photos then added them onto slides. I love this online editor because you can give your videos different themes and add in icons. Adobe Spark also gives you the opportunity to use free music from their catalog or to upload your own. The video saves as an mp4 file and would not upload to the blog properly. To fix this I simply uploaded my video onto my youtube page.
For my next assignment, I chose the 60 second day video narrative. This was really difficult because I do not do much on a daily basis. I kind of just sit and do nothing all day, but luckily my brother is graduating high school tomorrow so I had a little bit more content.
I went around filming a few seconds of what my day consisted of. I then went into my movie editor and started putting all of the clips together.
After I had all of my clips compiled I chose which music to add to it in order to keep the video a bit up beat. At the end I was really proud of my end result.
Looking back, if I were to change something it would be live a more exciting life. Watching this back I wish that I had more content to actually be excited to film.
The goal was to film one day in 60 seconds, but I didn’t realize how challenging it would be! Maybe it’s because my day was pretty relaxed, and maybe it was because I forgot to whip my camera out for some moments, but I only got about 35-40 clips.
To present events as a narrative, I started with my daily routine and ended with my nightly. At the start of the video, I made sure to include a shot of me opening the curtains in the morning, and I made the final shot one of me turning the light off. Everything in between consisted of me driving to places, buying food, going to class and practice, etc. Each time I took a video on my iPhone, I trimmed it down to 1 second and saved that as a new clip. At the end of the day, I imported all of my 1 second clips into Windows Movie Maker and added credits and music. Despite not making it to 60 seconds, I really love how it turned out and I’d like to continue making these kinds of videos.
For this assignment, I was instructed to tell a story about my day in just 60 seconds using one-second clips of video. BUT, since I’m a pretty boring person and found it impossible to capture 60 different moments of my day – I modified the assignment to better fit my daily routine. Instead of doing 60 seconds, I only did 40 seconds. Below is my finished product and the step I took to create it:
I honestly had a hard time doing this assignment. It was very difficult for me to 1) remember to record enough moments in my daily life and then 2) do enough interesting things (i.e. don’t just watch Netflix all day, haha). That is why I had to modify the assignment to fit my lazy lifestyle, but all of that pushed aside – I really enjoyed this assignment overall. It was really cool to see how my day went and actually be able to capture/appreciate what happened today. My steps are below:
After I finished all of the recordings for my video, I imported them to imovie, and placed them in order for which they occurred.
Next, I found a song that fit my day. I decided to use “Something Just Like This” by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay
Finally, I added all of the final touches (i.e. the titles, removing the background noise from my videos, etc.).
My days are pretty peaceful; the one I’ve filmed for this assignment is no exception. I chose to do the ’60 Second Day’ assignment because I like watching vlogs sometimes, and I thought it would be fun to try my hand at my own vlog-type video. Compressing everything down into 60 seconds was difficult, but I managed somehow. I like the aesthetic of writing out the title and ending credits scenes instead of using a video editor to do them, so the video starts and ends with my own really mess handwriting. It feels more personal like that, which I thought worked because this is me filming my own day. I think the most challenging part of this video was figuring out how to indicate movement and also time passing. When I went to the movies, I didn’t want to be at my house and then suddenly at the theater. So I filmed clips of me closing my laptop and a few of me in the car, as well as progress clips of me getting stuff for cereal out of the pantry and fridge. These sort of transitional clips are what made it so difficult to make the video only 60 seconds (leaving out the credits). However, I think that was also the most interesting part of making the video. I wanted the viewer to be able to clearly follow along with what was happening. I think the video could have been improved if I’d had a better camera; unfortunately, all I’ve got is my phone.
To put all of my clips together, I used the iMovie app on my phone. The picture below shows what the main video editing screen for iMovie looks like. Right off the bat, I’d like to point out the little question mark icon ( ) in the top right corner. Clicking on that will give you helpful hints as to how to make your movie great.
The theme that I chose for my movie was called ‘Simple’, and I felt it fitting for the kind of average day vibe I was going for. If you want to look through the themes available, you can click on the little gear icon ( ) at the bottom right.
As you can see, there’s a lot of themes to choose from. There’s also a few other options, like video filters. I chose not to use a video filter, wanting to keep my film neat and straightforward, but I did tap the option for the video to fade in from black. That done, I started to add in my clips. By tapping the film reel and music note icon ( ) you bring up the screen below on the left. Tapping ‘All’ should get you to the screen on the right.
Notice at the bottom of the screen that you have three options: Video, Photos, and Audio. Right now we’re just working with Video, but I’ll get to the Audio tab later.
To insert your clips, you simply tap them on the screen and click the downwards arrow icon ( ). This places them into your film, and you edit them from there. The next step I took after adding all of my clips was the adjust the audio. To avoid copyright infringement, since this video was going on Youtube, I used the music provided by iMovie itself. To adjust audio, tap the audio tab on the bottom right.
As you can see, you have a lot of options regarding what audio to place in your video. I knew I wanted to keep it simple, and make it more like a miniature vlog, so I just went to the theme music section. From there, you can tap each title to listen to a preview. Just like when adding clips, to add music to your video, just tap the downwards arrow icon.
The theme music I ended up choosing was ‘Travel’, because I felt that it fit the mood I was going for. Music selected, I went back to the main video editing screen to take out the audio from my voice clips so that the music could be clearly heard. To edit audio within the clips, tap on the clips and then on the speaker icon ( ). From there, you can raise and lower the dial as needed. The only clip I left the volume on for was at the end, where I turn off the lamp. I liked the finality of the sound and felt that it closed out the video well when combined with the light shutting off.
By tapping the icon in between each clip ( ) you can edit the transitions between them, but I decided I liked the default transitions the best. From there, I decided that my video was done! I saved it and posted it on Youtube from my phone. There were a few iMovie features I didn’t try out making this particular video, but I’m planning on checking them out later.
For my second assignment, I did a 4 1/2 star assignment called 60 Second Day – A Video Narrative. The assignment was to show your day in 60 seconds, using one-second clips.
My week has been rather hectic, and for some reason, I decided to try and do this assignment during my busiest day and I thought I would be able to get a lot of footage. I was, in fact, wrong. I was so busy that day, I could only film during down time moment. My phone also died half way through which put a damper on the filming.
I shot as much as I could though and I am proud of what came of it. I filmed a few shots, and I trimmed it and put it together on final cut pro (thank god I still have that 30 day trail. #8moredays).
The last assignment I did was called 60 second day and is worth four and half stars. The directions for this assignment are that you have to take one sec videos throughout your day in order to create a 60 second video. This assignment was a lot more challenging then I thought it would be because it became real easy to forget to take out my phone and record my day. I got so bad about forgetting to record that I forgot to show that I had lunch. I did learn that I walk a lot around campus during the day after re watching the video. I think my favorite 1 second clip in the video is the clip with the yellow leaved tree, as it looks so beautiful with the sun shinning off of it.I think this assignment was fun and interesting. It was fun because I got to see what my life is kind of like during the day. It was interesting because people did give me questioning looks whenever I stopped to take a clip. I recommend this assignment to anyone who is intrigued to find out what their day is like, just don’t forget to record at certain times like i did
I slowed down one of the clips, using Speed – Slow 50%.
