HINTS
FOR SUCCESS
•
Make sure your project is designed to communicate meaning about literacy
issues/practices/values, that it demonstrates your ability to reflect
on and make sense of literacy issues.
•
Make sure you have a focused concept for your video and that the focus
is amenable to the affordances of video.
•
Make sure to plan for your video project. Make a realistic schedule
for shooting/collecting the audio, video, and still shots you need.
•
If you are shooting video, scout your location (at the exact time of
your intended recording!) very carefully.
•
Make a list of the sounds/people/activities you need to record in order
to document the event/trend/person/place on which you are focusing.
Collect both A roll and B roll (video), as well as soundmark, signal,
and keynote audio.
•
Make sure you know how to use your recording equipment! Read the documentation!
--always
use the headphones when recording to hear what is being captured.
--make
sure to check the volume (gain)and light levels before starting
--make
sure to have fresh batteries or an DC adaptor (for the camera, mic,
recorder)
•
Schedule more time that you think you need for editing--it always takes
much much longer than the original recording!!
•
Before you edit--draw a diagram of
how you want the video to be structured--what video shots/episodes go
where; where you are going to include soundmark, signal sound, keynote
sounds, silence, narration, music; where you are going to use still
photographs; what you want your title screens and credit screens to
say. Identify when and where you are going to layer these various
components to create a rich texture for your project.
•
Make sure to provide some kind of frame for your project--some reflections
that helps listeners understand what they are looking at, why it is
significant, and what the video is trying to convey. In other words,
the project should do more than simply depict a literacy practice/value/issue/place/
event/genre—it should help readers/viewers reflect on/gain
insight into the subject of the video.
•
Select/edit/winnow! Make sure your video composition is tightly and
effectively composed. Cut everything that doesn't directly contribute
to your intended message.
•
Make sure your video project effectively takes advantage of the specific
affordances(capabilities) of the medium. What can video capture best
(e.g., movement, emotion,facial expression, body language, gesture,
time?). What escapes the affordances of video?
•
SAVE OFTEN, SAVE OFTEN, SAVE OFTEN!!!
•
BACK UP YOUR WORK, BACK UP YOUR WORK, BACK UP YOUR WORK!!! Save various
parts of your work (audio, video, stills) on portable memory devices,
CDs, DVDs—whatever you can have access to and can use.
See
the evaluation sheet below for the criteria on which this assignment
will be graded.