Our college task required us to create a short film montage, no less than 45 seconds and no more than 2 minutes, based on a poem, using adobe editing software.
After some mind mapping, I came up with some topics that would interest me to showcase this work.
From the five optionally picked in the mind mapping exercise, I narrowed it down to two: Van-life and the older generation. Van life had an advantage as I had plenty of self-shot footage from our travels around Ireland in our van.
However, earlier in the year, I bumped into an 80-year-old Donegal man swimming in random piers and beaches all around Ireland to raise money for mental health. This led to a significant interest in older Ireland and their stories, so I decided to take this route instead.
So, my first challenge was to find a poem that could tell a story and I could support with images and footage. After a couple of days exploring the internet and books and asking friends and family, I narrowed it down to one. I felt it showcased life experiences, and the message at the end was relevant and heartwarming. This particular poem was sourced from the internet.
Next up on the task list was to record my audio for the poem. I have never done voice-over before, so this was a bit daunting. I sourced a RODE universal vlogging kit for mobile phones with a mic, so I was ready to go once I had this assembled. I tried to put myself in the same shoes as the person who wrote the poem and pressed record. If I was doing this again, I think an older voice would have been more impactful, but I'm happy with the outcome for an amateur. This file is exported as an.mp4, and I unlinked the file to use the audio in my timeline.
I set up an Adobe Premier Pro project and added the voice-over audio to my timeline. Now I needed to find music. I used the site www.envato.com. I have a paid subscription to this site, so I don't have to worry about copyright unless I am using it for commercial use. I was looking for something slow (maybe an autistic guitar or piano). I searched a few options and tried them out on the timeline until I was happy with the one I picked, and after some little editing, the length of the music also suited the length of the poem.
Now for the storyboard
Using a storyboard to break done the sections helped me during this process. I wrote the voice-over (poem) on the right-hand side, and on the left, I added some suggested visuals that I would brainstorm to find a suitable one. I wanted to use stock footage (also from www.envato.com) to help me tell the story. Throughout this stage, I could see the story coming alive. I enjoyed the creative process of brainstorming.
After brainstorming, I created a montage. I was coming closer to the editing process. This was a very important stage as it helped me think about the overall look, feel, and messaging. After considering a b/w option, my final decision was to use colour.
I explored text and researched visuals for my mood board. I took time to carefully plan how I would like the story to be told. I chose the text because, visually, it appealed to me, it was simple, and it felt unique to the poem.
Concerning the colour palette, I toyed between rich and vibrant and black and white. I decided to source rich and vibrant video clips. I didn't go for any particular palette but just a variation of shots (from wide, wide and closeup) that complimented each other on a timeline.
Now I was ready to start the editing process. I enjoyed laying down the stock footage for the timeline.
Once I was happy with the assembly of my timeline, I was ready to export as an.mp4. I hope you enjoy it.
Eimear
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