My main point (explained)
In my video I attempted to argue that YouTube is a great platform to assist in diminishing the digital divide. I showed this through the explanation of what YouTube looks like as a platform in the past and today. I also touched on how different people and ages may use YouTube. I supported these statements with research and some academically sourced statistics. Lastly I also conducted some primary research in the form of two interviews. Which I think allowed me to create a stronger argument as my ideas were supported by what I discovered through my interviews.
Strategies I Used
There were a variety of things I needed to consider in the making of this video. These included planning, framing, shot composition, audio, editing, source material and music.
The planning process of my video was lengthy. This was because I wanted a creative way to produce this video. Finally I thought of the idea of focusing on YouTube and using podcast style interviews to gain stronger evidence for my argument.
Framing and shot composition were important in a few aspects of my video. These include the introduction, interviews and my conclusion. I use the rule of thirds to position myself in frame and also both people in the interviews. This allowing the viewers to easily remain focused. In terms of shot composition, I thought mainly about the interviews. I chose to place the microphone on the small coffee table for two reasons. First being to improve audio quality and the second to fill up the shot a bit. As the shot would have looked very blank and empty if nothing was on the table.
Audio quality was something I tried to maintain throughout the videos. I decided to use my phone mic to record both my intro and outro as I was quite close to my phone and the quality wasn’t lost too much. For the explanation of my argument I used a Rode Podcaster as this is the best quality audio recording available at this point in time. In the video you can easily hear the difference in this microphone compared to the others. Although for the interview I needed a better microphone than the one on my iPhone because my phone was placed further away to record the video portion of the interview. I chose to use another standing mic I have because this audio quality should have been better, but something I didn’t consider was the sensitivity of the mic on the tripod. So in the recording you are able to hear some kind of tapping sounds from the tripod moving.
Editing for this video was slightly more complex than usual mainly due to the fact I had recorded audio separately to video for the interviews. So I needed to find a way to sync them up when editing. The strategy I used to ensure that both audio and video were in sync was during recording I clapped at the beginning a few times. This is so that when I edited I would be able to sync up the sound of the clap with my hands in the video. This ensuring the rest of the video and audio would be synchronised. Other decisions I made while editing were some fade transitions to allow a flowing transition between scenes throughout the video.
Lastly my use of source material and music were strategically chosen. I decided to overlay creative commons licensed time-lapses (that I found on Flickr) whilst I explained my argument. This was to reflect the speed of change we see in the ‘YouTube Scene’ as well as generally in the digital media age we are living in. For music I decided to use it mainly throughout the drier parts of the video (my explanation of argument, titles for interviews) this would create the feel of the video moving faster and not dragging along. I chose to use music produced by No-Copyright-Sounds (NCS). As their music is free to use and it has a modern feel.
Challenges I Faced
There were a few challenges I faced during the creation of this video. The first being what to use as overlay material when explaining my argument and the question ‘What is the digital divide’. I overcame this through my use of Flickr, I found a very nice time-lapse shot in Brisbane. This worked very well as it shows our world as it is today and the fast pace of the video complements the speed of growth of YouTube and digital media today.
Another challenge I faced was transferring the videos from my iPhone to my PC. This was a problem due to the format of the video being incompatible with my editing software. Although I was able to overcome this by using MovieMaker to render the clips (converting them to a different format) allowing me then to use them in my more complex software (Davinci Resolve).
References
Harmer, B. (2010). YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture20102Jean Burgess and Joshua Green. YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press 2009. 172 pp., ISBN: 9780745644790 Soft cover Digital Media and Society Series. Online Information Review, [online] 34(2), retrieved 25 Sep. 2019, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/lib/deakin/reader.action?docID=5502950.
Lewis, C. (2019). YouTube Captures Aussie Audiences’ Time and Attention—Here’s Why. [online] Think with Google, retrieved 25 Sep. 2019, https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/intl/en-aunz/advertising-channels/video/youtube-captures-aussie-audiences-time-and-attentionheres-why/.
Flickr
Night Lights by Oguz Baki (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Brisbane Timelapse by Sam Petherbridge (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Music
Elektronomia – Sky High [NCS Release] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9d8vYrVFQ
digitalmedia.music.blog 