Off-Script Behind the Scenes
Summary
As someone who is passionate about people and promoting growth and authenticity, I have spent the last few months researching and conducting interviews with women in their
30s, 40s, and 50s to educate and empower women to move beyond self-limiting beliefs to live their fullest lives. This topic hits close to home as someone in her 40s making a career pivot after a long and successful run as a public high school educator. People have always made sense of the world and themselves by telling stories. Stories are powerful tools to both educate and connect.
When we can go “off-script” and live consciously, recognizing our self-limiting beliefs, we can reframe and alter those beliefs to live more fully.
My Role- Concept ideation, Researcher, Interviewer, Videographer, Editor, Motion graphics creator, Copy Editor, Project Designer
Technology used- Adobe After Effects, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premier Pro, Ceros
Timeline- February- May 2022
Process & Artifacts
Throughout the process I created numerous artifacts to keep me on track for the tight deadlines and to further develop the overall design of the project. Before diving into content creation, I chose my target audience, conducted user research, created personas to guide my decisions, and read literature on mindset, decision making, and women's issues.
Pre-Production Phase
Before starting interviews, I had to create interview questions. I met with one of Elon’s psychology professors to discuss my topic and talk through possible questions that may get at the information I was seeking. I ended up with 6 questions that I asked each interviewee. Also during this pre-production time, I developed a mood board to help define the aesthetic and visual identity of the project. I explored colors, typography, music, quotes, and images which ultimately assisted in decision making.
Production Phase
The production phase took place between the end of February and April. During this time, I conducted 9 interviews, 6 were in person and 3 over Zoom. For the in person interviews, I set up 2 cameras at different angles for filming, and used wireless lav mics to record audio into the camera.
During this phase I also gathered some B-roll footage, listened to and chose royalty free background music, and gathered pictures, bios, and links from the interviewees. As each interview was complete, I transcribed the video and began to organize information by theme. I have transcription for each interviewee as well as started a running document where I would make notes on commonalities, favorite quotes, and other information I wanted to be sure to include in the final product. This document would be completed in the start of the post production phase.
Post-Production Phase
A big part of my work happened during post-production. First, I finished transcribing all interviews and organizing transcriptions and thoughts. I highlighted quotes, searched for common themes, and made notes of things I wanted to be sure to include. I split up clips by interview question. Then the editing began. Not only did I have to select and cut together sections of footage but had to adjust color and audio as well. I also created motion graphics, animation and line drawings to add to the footage to accentuate important moments and make the videos more interesting. I ended up creating multiple versions of the videos before getting to the final cuts. The revision process was guided by feedback and personal constraints I placed on myself. I came up with titles for each of the final videos and made a title screen to open each clip. I decided to house my project in Ceros. As I started to put all of my content in Ceros, I had to add animations and interactions.
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