Progress

I must say, in my first video I have made a lot of progress today. I am still a long ways from a final edit, but here’s what has happened so far.

1) I chose a battle! Finally! I’m starting with the Battle of Hastings in 1066. There are numerous reasons that I decided on this one, but my number one reason was that this one is fairly straight forward, and I figured as it happened in a rather short amount of time (excluding context) it would be easier to portray with my limited skills as of yet.

2)I have my props- you can catch a glimpse with my former post.

3) I did some filming! I took what I thought was a good amount of clips for this upcoming video, and then decided if I was going to do this right I would download the 30 day free trial of Final Cut Pro X to go with my mac. As soon as I started editing I found that I had way too few of clips, and will need to do a substantial amount more filming. I have so much more respect for youtubers right now.

4) (Mentioned above…) I downloaded Final Cut Pro X! So in addition to figuring out my research and battle, I am trying to figure out a fairly high tech program. But it is pretty fun unless I get stuck on minor adjustments.

5) Found out that I need to do voice overs via Garageband- luckily I already have this installed. I could also record it with my camera and put it in as an audio clip, but I think Garageband will work better in this project.

6)More research! In addition to understanding a basic grasp of this battle, I found that I will have to do a lot more research to fully portray this event in the humorous method which I am hoping to attain.

7)…Still need to write a proper script. So far I have been filming what I know can be incorporated, but until I get all of my research done and a script written, not much else can happen.

A few things that had to be addressed as I got these things done or am in the process of doing them:

1) Location. As of now my characters are going in a fairly large lightbox that my dad and I created from a few lamps, plastic tablecloths and a bit of scrap wood. It turned out really well, but I think as I  go along I am going to have to come up with some more original location ideas.

2) Fiddly- my props include little green army men, and to get those guys to stand up straight on various materials is incredibly difficult.

3) Scripting- as mentioned above, I am having a really hard time coming up with how best to describe these battles in relation to my videos- I had thought that I wanted it to be a voice over, but as I was editing I was also thinking of having it text based with sound effects, in addition to some voice overs.

4) History with action figures- I love telling my story with representations of characters with kids toys, but relating back to location, something has to be done about how I portray where things happened…for example the battle of Hastings hinges on the fact that there was a hill involved…creating a dilemma of how best to film this.

5) Fingers- do I show the characters moving with my hands, or painstakingly move them a bit at a time and cut out all hand appearances in post-edits?

I’ll keep you posted! As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

More Ideas for Big Project

Today was a self appointed snow day, as I commute into school from Mount Forest and so was not able to get in due to extreme winds and squalls. I decided that I should probably get going on my Big Project a bit more today, and come up with a few more details since my last post.

Picking a battle- This proved much more difficult than I first imagined, as I thought I would just pull one out of thin air and begin. Not so. Addressing the question of what I want the audience to take away from these videos, or what I want to teach, I have reached two conclusions that will lead me in drastically different realms, and so I am hoping to leave the decision up to you readers out there.

1. General Summation. In this instance I would be describing the overall happenings of a big event…again, not sure how big. For instance, each war is made up of various different battles that form how the wars turned out. Should I be focusing on the general war, and summarizing it’s outcomes, and then describe each battle in future videos, or do it the other way around? How much background information should be given on the main characters/countries? In this case I would be appealing to students who want an easier understanding than reading wikipedia, with facts stated in a very down-to-earth manner- “So and so beat the crap out of so and so on this date leading to this…”

2. Nit-Picky- This would enhance the detail, and do short summations of one particular character/country and their influence within one of the battles that makes up the war. That way it is only one piece of information to absorb, but together forms a greater understanding of the big event.

3. Best of both worlds…I could have mostly general summations but once a month do a “Character Questionnaire” enhancing details on formerly described battles.

There are pros and cons to all of the choices, and as I want to get started I have to make up my mind. Any suggestions for a first video to help me out?

Thanks!

Big Project- Musings 2

As I have continued plotting my youtube channel I have been putting a lot of thought into the format these historical moments will take within my videos. I watched a few drunk history  videos for inspiration, and figured that would take much more budget than I could afford, not to mention I lack contact with famous actors. In addition, I want to create something fairly unique, so I considered just talking to the camera and describing events with jump cuts in various apparel similar to Danisnotonfire in his channel, among thousands of other vloggers. I am also considering drawing stick figure drawings illustrating the events with voice overs describing them similar to Vihart with her math explanations. All of these ideas are running through my mind with various pros and cons presenting themselves and preventing me actually getting started. Therefore I have decided to make a battle plan of my own to complete in the next week.

1. Pick a historical moment. As my title is still “Battle Bites” for the moment, I think I will start with a major topic of war, also relating to my current online course “War and Society.”

2. Write a script of how best to describe an event in a humorous and commanding way within a very short time.

3. Decide on a method of presentation. Perhaps try all of the methods described above and see which is easiest or most appealing to edit, create and write. It also has to appeal to a certain type of audience, so that will have to be judged through peer support.

4. Post a video.

I do not expect anything from my videos in terms of views, at least not for a long while. From the youtubers I follow, it has taken 2-5 years to gain a decent following. Therefore this is something completely for my own enjoyment as well as for this project in class. I look forward to input from my peers,professor, as well as a possible collaboration with Vanessa.

I will keep you posted with my results!

Big Project Musings

In the class that this blog is describing and exploring, we students are to create some kind of “big project” that utilizes digital tools and relates to our disciplines. During the first class when we were hearing of some ideas that could become our big projects my mind immediately went to forming a Youtube channel. I have wanted to create one for a long while now, but never known what content to make, as I don’t play music and therefore can never be quite as awesome as Lindsey Stirling and Tyler Ward and I don’t have the connections or equipment to do work as incredible as Devin Graham…so I was stumped. 

Along came this class and the opportunity to do anything I want relating to my major in history. Thinking along the lines of this great web series modernizing the classic novel Pride and Prejudice, I want to create some kind of content relating to history, but still fun and requiring very little start up cost or excessive collaboration. My thought was to start creating videos describing various historical events in 30-120 seconds in terms easily understood and (hopefully) humorous. My ambition is that in addition to turning to Wikipedia, students can look up my videos to summarize a historical event accurately and succinctly to hold the interest of viewers for the entire video.

This idea would require a low start up cost, minimal amount of equipment of which I already own (Camera, tripod, lighting, video editing software) and is able to be done individually unless anyone would want in to help with writing, filming or event suggestions. My thoughts for the title of this channel are fluctuating, but a preliminary name is “Battle Bites”…short, simple summaries that are easily understood yet still informative and comedic. Any suggestions?