The Current State of Video

The worldwide pandemic hasn’t died yet, and neither have our assignments or projects. Classes are still alive and well, but are now hosted on an online setting. We are all being told to stay in our homes if possible, and only leave for essential purposes, like to pick up groceries, or if you are considered an essential worker. Unfortunately, this means that those of us involved in non-essential work are in a bit of a pickle. We shouldn’t be going out or being around people, but we still have assignments to complete and projects to finish.

What this means for me a video producer and editor, is that I have lost access to a lot of resources that would normally be used for video. Some notable resources are actors/actresses, locations, people, and events. What this means to me is that any video that is being produced right now is going to be under a very specific set of restrictions. People are being forced to think outside the box and produce good content under this new situation.

I realized that most of my projects for school aren’t possible anymore just because there is a lack of important resources and assets mentioned above that are needed to make them happen. I realized that if I want to produce anything worthwhile under these conditions, I’m going to have to get even more creative.

This creativity is coming through in a few ways. For my digital modalities class I have the option to create pretty much whatever I want, and I decided on a short film. This short film was initially going to be a very dialogue heavy short film that revolved around three characters with the majority of the shooting just being around two of those three characters. Now that I have lost access to any decent actors I decided to do a short film based around me, my dad, and my partner, with the majority of the short film being a car/motorcycle chase.

For my product design class I shifted my project from being something that is 3D printed to a small video series that will be aimed at children just starting to get into basic math like division, multiplication, percentages, and so on. The series will utilize sports to help teach math in a way that hopefully captures their attention a little bit better than the “conventional” way of teaching.

Finally, for my thesis class, I will be shifting the video portion of my project from going out and trying to sell to small businesses to producing a five-part video series about this pandemic’s impact on small businesses and small business owners. The series aims to bring to light the unknown importance of small businesses in America, and solve the question of “what now?” Where do small business owners go from here? Do they have predictions for the future, and what are they doing to be prepared for the months to come?

While these are just my examples of how I am shifting, it is more interesting to see how everyone else is shifting. My favorite change in the media that we regularly see is watching a commercial, video, show, etc. and it’s just a person in their home or apartment sitting in front of their camera and doing whatever it is they’re doing. This is an example of a lack of creativity being shown by content creators but there is some good uses of a lack of resources out there. It is an interesting time for video, and I am very curious to see where it goes.