Assignment 3: Video

LIT Promo from Clodagh Guerin on Vimeo.

Assignment 3: Director Final Report

For assignment 3, our assignment is based on a promotional video for Limerick Institute of Technology.

The main purpose of this video is attract potential students at both a national and an international level; to increase awareness of Limerick Institute of Technology especially in terms of the diversity of courses and for the diverse of social platforms such as, Twitter, Facebook and the official LIT website.

This assignment also attracts a target audience:

• Potential students, who are socially aware with people who engaged with digital media platforms.

• Director- Shannon

• Producer- Clodagh

• Camera Operator/Sound Director-Lorraine

The first thing our group did was sit down as a group and discuss our new roles. For the last assignment it was duty to be the Director.

The roles are as follows:

As I am director, I will be working close with both other people to ensure that the aims of the assignment are met. The assignment includes a scripted dialogue. This dialogue will be recorded by our producer Clodagh.

As a group we have decided we will begin recording footage on Wednesday 23rd. The equipment we recorded was a camera and a SD card. Clodagh supplied her camera and SD card to record the footage.

To begin, we sat down as a group and viewed videos of Limerick Institute of Technology and promotional video's of the college. Each of us made a list of video's we thought would be most relevant for the assignment. Then we cut down the list to the video's we actually would use. That evening I dowloaded the video's from Youtube and Vimeo and began to trim the video's to the various shots we would use. I then made a shot list of what sequence I thought was most suitable for the clips. 

The next stage was capturing our own footage. We decided we would record within the gym and the canteen. Unfortunately, this footage did not come out well as we recored during the afternoon and not many students were around the campus. As a group, we thought it was a good idea to schedule shooting. Instead, we recorded on the college's 'Christmas Day'.  This was a good day to get footage as the college had many people around the campus. On this day, Lorraine also shot footage of the Science Departments labs and the woodwork labs.

The next step was editing. This did not go to plan as the footage Lorraine recording was far too big and caused the computer to crash. As we had a lot of assignments and exams underway, the group thought it was best to leave this assignment till the end of the exams. 

On Friday last, we began editing and set out the footage that we had taken and also the videos we had chosen to use. Again, there was problem with the footage as it was too large so we were unable to bring the shots of the LIT Christmas Day into the video. 

Editing went underway using Premier Pro but again we ran into more problems as a result of corrupted filed for the SD card. As it was late in the day we organised to meet up on Monday to continue editing. In the meantime, the script was recording and background music was chosen.
The script recorded:

“LIT is among the most vibrant and connected institutions in Ireland. When you look around our 5 campuses, you will see an astonishing diversity of programmes and people exploring new ideas, pursuing new knowledge, creating new art, and filling our workshops, studios and labs with the vibrancy that comes from being an institution that is committed to discovery and creativity.

As a student in LIT, you will find yourself at the heart of this vibrancy and activity. We are a community of learning, rooted in our ethos of learning together and bringing theory and practice together.

LIT graduates have been successful in every field of endeavour, from business to the sciences, technology, public service, engineering, hospitality and tourism, fashion and the arts.

Be part of that heritage, create your own success.

Your journey could start here”

As Monday approached, we worked on the plan from above. Within the time today, we finally had the opportunity to transfer the footage from Clodaghs SD card to Lorraines external hard drive. From this, we were able to transfer the footage to the correct folder.

Fortunate for us, the footage worked and we finally could add our own footage to the video. Clodagh had a great idea to add words to the end of the video. The words 'Be part of that heritage, create your own success, your journey starts here' appears on the video. This was created using animation using a software called After Effects and imported it into Premier Pro. The last step with the video was to ensure that the voiceover fitted well with the animations. 

This went extremely well and we were finally able to render out the video. Even though overall it took us approximately 3 weeks to get the video complete, we really enjoyed the experience of working as a group to complete the project.  I really enjoyed being director and being able to give input into how the video went. 

The overall idea of the video was to promote Limerick Institute of Technology. I believe our video does that. It demonstrates the campus life, the facilities, events that take place and footage of each department to make new and potential students aware of what it's like to be an LIT student.