New Media Struggles
A 5-tip video on video production.
My time as a student of New Media is not over, by any means, but my time as a collegiate student is near an end. Studying new media is adaptive, intriguing, and at times, very difficult. One of the most difficult aspects of the major is production.
Whether it be a commercial, fiction film, or documentary, there will be some newfound difficulties that will arise unexpectadly.With that in mind, I am putting together a “5-tips for success in mp4 production” video to help new students avoid the same mistakes that I made.
Consider it a baton.
Look, you can listen, take notes, and participate in lecture, but sometimes the real-life complications of video/film production can become too difficult. This leads me to my first point.
Don’t Overstress
Over-stressing can cause you to lose sight of your original idea — given that you actually have one, but that will be discussed in Tip 2. Do not try to make your production a class act of filmmaking creative genious on the first go-around. You are a college student. You have multiple courses and assignments, and most importantly, you don’t have the financial means to produce a 1.5 million dollar film. You can’t always make things perfect, but you can pay attention in class and do what you can — balanced lighting, audio, and visuals.
Tip 2
Do not procrastinate on coming up with an idea. With an essay, or even a presentation on a life event you may be able to come up with something clever at the last minute, but with video production — you cannot. There are too many requirements — time, actors, scripts, shot lists, lights, a working camera… there are too many external factors at play to expect everything to fall in to place without planning ahead of time. So PLAN!
Show up early to set-up/check equipment functions. Have an idea in mind, and have a working shot list and/or script to roll with.
Tip 3
Always have a plan B….C…D…E…
You get the point, but you always need to have several back-up plans because I guarantee you, within atleast one of your projects you will have to completely change your direction.
Either your interviewee will change their direction, not show up, get sick, have no babysitter, etc. Or your lead actor will turn out to have a terrible memory and can’t remember a single line. Sometimes, maybe you won’t be able to shoot in a location that you had planned, or maybe the is another event taking place there and you can’t get clear audio without interference. So, please, have a back-up plan.
Tip 4
Use your resources wisely. For example, if you have a DSLR for a production class, use it for your digital storytelling class as well. This will up your production amongst others and also give you more repetition, even if not required for the assignment.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you are short on resources, reach out to your professors and fellow classmates for assistance. Remember, everyone is looking for an opportunity to participate, if they aren’t, then they shoudn’t be worth worrying about for this major. Even if they had some severe life occurrence, they would atleast show some sort of dissatisfaction.
Tip 5
Make connections. Listen to your colleagues. Find out what they are doing to enter the field of New Media after graduation. Unless the field is severely depleted, do not try to join the same field. This tip is flexible because it completely depends on the user. For me, high competition = less chance of making it. I don’t want to just create new content — I want to create new channels/modes for content to travel. Think outside of the box when thinking of a post-graduate direction.
After all, these are bits we are working with, not atoms.
This is my written explanation for the video to come out shortly. Stay tuned and wait for an update on my youtube page. Or, check out my work at vignetteprod.com.
