Note: Most of this assignment comes directly from the "Concept in 60" assignment taught at Ohio State University, with some modifications from Molly Scanlon.
Due dates
- Storyboard and purpose/audience due March 27
- Video first draft due April 1
- Final video due April 13
Instructions
Create a 60-second video that illustrates a concept. Your video should meet all of the following requirements:
- Run 60 seconds—no more, no less—including title screen and credits.
- Include original footage. The whole video could be composed of original footage, or just part of it could be footage shot by you. See student samples for ideas.
- Take a critical, reflective, and/or interpretive approach to your subject matter.
- Demonstrate one or two shooting techniques (such as panning, tracking, high- or low-angle shots, different types of framing such as close-up, etc.) and a few editing techniques (such as cut-ins, cutaways, transitions, on-screen text, fast or slow motion, Ken Burns effect, color adjustments, freeze frames, asynchronous sound, etc.)
- Note: you don’t have to use every technique possible in one video! Perhaps pick two or three suited for your purpose. Remember, as White Space says “If you’re a beginner, focus on generating a killer concept.”
- Use some external audio, i.e. include some sound (such as background music, voiceover, etc.) not originating from the actual footage.
- Title it “________ in 60.” There must be a title screen somewhere in your video text. You must also give yourself credit as the video artist/composer somewhere in the video text. You may also need to display credits in your video. The credits should list all sources of any media you did not create yourself.
You must secure permissions for all materials used in your project. Use Creative Commons to find video and audio licensed for use. Creative Commons offers different licenses, so you need to find material licensed for modification. I also list many places to find licensed video and audio on the Resources page.
I encourage you to work in pairs!
Try to use the digital video cameras available in the Comm. equipment lab in the basement of Merion Hall. If that is not possible, you can use your smartphone or iPhone — great tips here for taking good video with iPhone. If you are having trouble getting access to a digital video recorder for this assignment, please let me know and I can help out.
Exporting
Please upload your final video to the COM 202 Group on Vimeo. You will need a Vimeo account. Follow these instructions on Vimeo’s website when you are ready to export your final video. Generally, export your video in HD at an aspect ratio of 16:9 if possible. If you use a lower quality camera, that might not be an option so choose the biggest size and best quality available, but not exceeding Vimeo’s maximum.
Goals
- Demonstrate skills in audio/video recording and editing to create a rhetorically effective story.
- Learn how to talk about videos, how to compose them, and how they are structured in terms of compositional elements.
- Get better at solving problems with technology, experimenting, and figuring out how to accomplish what you want to do.
Choosing a concept
credit to Molly Scanlon for many of these questions…
- Audience + purpose
- What are you passionate about? What interests you? What should people pay attention to? Consider your personal, academic, intellectual, spiritual, and cultural interests and communities.
- Choose a concept that is not too broad, but not so narrow that it has no public audience. How have other film-makers approached issues of organization, cohesion, concision, etc?
- Audience analysis: How do you decide which discourse community to enter? How do you reach them vs. another type of community?
- What is your purpose/intent? Exploration? Persuasion? Awareness? Humor/entertainment?
- How will you use image, sound, and text to achieve this purpose/intent?
Project narrative
As with past projects, please create a project narrative to reflect on and analyze the choices you made during the production process. Discuss what motivated you to choose this topic, what you wanted your audience to take away from the video, your decision to take shots at a certain angle, editing choices you, selection of music, etc. Your project narrative could take one of two forms:
- OPTION 1: You can write a project narrative as usual, in essay form, approximately 500 words.
- OPTION 2: Record a “Director’s Commentary” audio track and lay this over the video. You should minimize or mute the original sound so we can hear your voice. In this case, you would end up with two videos: the actual “concept in 60” video and the director’s commentary video with voiceover.
Examples and inspiration
More student examples are available on Blackboard in the Media Gallery.
- Story in 60 by Charis Medendorp
- Imaginary Friends in 60 by Rebecca Berends
- How to Sell Death in 60 by Ryan Browne (not-so-good iPhone footage… turn your iPhone horizontal if you are using it!)
- Pi in 60 by Ryan Struyk
- Escape in 60 by me (I didn’t export it as HD, which resulted in crappy video quality with lots of pixilation. Don’t be me!)