Blog #4 A Day in Live Theatre

When I first started planning the video, I divided it into five main sections to tell the story of how a typical day in Giese, the theater building at the University of Mount Union, would be.  First people enter the building, and the space they are working in. In the morning/afternoon there is a dance class, usually before or after people will practice their dance either individually or in their small groups.  Then there is either rehearsal or people will go to either theatre to practice lines or blocking for an upcoming production.  Then later in the evening techs will program and adjust lights for a production or event.  Finally, people will shut lights off, and the building will go dark. A big help for all this was having access to the theater building.  This allowed me to create that real story to put the viewer in the prospective that they are just a fly on the wall watching what is happening throughout the day.

In my video, there were a lot of cuts to show the passage of time and the change in the different clips. Two of my most significant transitions were L-Cuts which were the transitions from Grace walking into Grace tapping and then the transition from her getting the scene set to starting her lines.  I used L-cuts here to try and ease the viewer into those changes and prepare them for what was going to happen.  Using these cuts allowed the video to flow with a less choppy feel.  I also used simple cuts and fades to transition between the other parts of the video, the simple cuts helped create a smooth transition from one part to the next.  Meanwhile, the fades allowed me to show a significant progression of time, as well as a change in what was happening such as the change from her acting to programming lights.  Finally, the fade at the end helps signify the end of the day and brings the video to a nice close.

During the filming process, I really tried to focus on the shot composition techniques we learned before. I took different video shots of different angles to determine which would look best in the viewer's mind.  In all of the shots, I made sure that Grace had enough headroom and her lead space/looking room made it appear as if she was dancing, acting, and teaching an actual production.  Finally, I added 2 still photos, one of Giese to create a nice transition of the video and another of Grace in an actual production to display as she was talking about her theater career and all of these aspects together made the video come to life.

One of the limitations I quickly learned from working with video is making sure that what I am trying to showcase can be seen by the viewer.  There were lots of times when I had to rerecord a section or edit a section of the video because it was either too hard to see what was going on or it did not showcase what I was intending to.  That being said, having the storyboard plan done beforehand I did not feel like I was wasting Grace’s time as I was able to flow from one part to the next with little downtime.  This surprised me as I was able to get all of my filming done in about an hour and quickly start on editing.  When I was editing one of the significant challenges, I faced was first learning the program.  I have never used iMovie before, and it took me a little bit to become comfortable with the program.  Also, I think it was harder to create a shorter video as I had to really spend time editing my project down to encompass only the best elements of my project.  Just like the audio project it took me a while to make sure all of the fade and transitions line up where I want them too so that they can smoothly flow from one part to the next without a choppy or amateur feeling.

Overall, I was shocked with the amount I learned from this project.  Having just completed the audio project I wanted almost to continue that with the same subject.  As I continue to think about my idea for my final project, I think it will be either a video or audio project on something related to theater.  For me, the theater is a big part of my life, and I find a lot of enjoyment with projects that are centered around something I care about.  The more I can do to share the theater with others to expand what people know about it the better.