blog #5 - what i did in producing my video

In making my video, I put a lot of thought and effort into the final project. I found it easiest to write my narrative first as it gave me an idea of what kind of images and music I would want to use in my final video. Don't think that this was the easy part though. I went through more than four drafts of my narrative before I was satisfied with the one I used, although I still think it could have used some improvement. I did not explicitly mention Gee in my narration, but I tried to give an idea of how much an affinity group can help when you are learning a new task. In this case, I used my parents as members of my affinity group who helped me in learning. Because my audience was a future class of students, I felt this was rather appropriate. I also tried to use his idea of the amplification of input principle when I talk about starting small and experiencing success in my efforts. I also wanted my narrative to give a story of a struggle in learning. I thought this would be beneficial to my audience of future students because I want them to know that it is ok if you don't understand something immediately.

Next, I decided I would find music to put in with my video. I decided that I wanted to use a few different songs and found the song "Live and Learn" by the Cardigans to be a good song to use in my introduction because it is talking about learning and that was exactly what I did in my project. I do think that I let this play on for too long, but when I realized that it was too late because I had already compressed it into an mp3 file with my narration and ending credit music. Through my narration I wanted to use an instrumental version of a song. I tried many different songs with my narration at first and realized it was hard to understand what I was saying when the music had lyrics and I was talking. At the end, I just picked the introduction to one of my favorite songs, "Is it Any Wonder" by Keane, and used it for my credits.

My last task was the visual part of my video. I decided only to use pictures because I had tried to find video to accompany my project, but I could not find anything that I wanted to use. Then I decided to use a lot of pictures of food since my project was about learning how to cook. I also used some visuals that were cartoon-like because I wanted to be able to present it to a future class of students and thought this would be something that would appeal to them. Overall, I wish I was able to take more pictures myself and possibly find a video or two, or make them, but I had issues at my house with our kitchen light being broken, so that was not possible.

I am satisfied with my final product, but I can see where I could make improvements if I decide to revise it.