For my video story, I decided to create a welcome video targeted towards new members of the MHBA (association).

Background on the MHBA:

The Manitoba Home Builders’ Association is a non-profit trade association providing members and the general public information about the housing industry in the Province of Manitoba. The association is comprised of companies such as home builders, land developers, renovators, manufacturers, suppliers amongst other companies who contribute to the housing industry.

Purpose of the Video Story:

The purpose of the video story is to welcome new members to the association and advise them of their membership benefits. This video can be embedded or attached to a welcome email that the association sends to new members. The video details member benefits such as receiving the latest industry information, networking opportunities and education and training opportunities. The end of the video encourages the new member to attend upcoming networking events, as well as to reach out to association representatives if they have any questions or would like to learn more about their benefits. For the purposes of this assignment, I have used a made-up web address and phone number.   

Recording and Editing Process:

For this video, I decided to be a little bit more creative and make an animated video as opposed to a real-life recording. With the current situation surrounding COVID-19, I am currently under strict quarantine and cannot capture real-life videos outside of my home for the project. I thought about just recording myself in my home, but I figured that the images would not nearly be as effective or interesting to the viewer. Creating animations for my video would allow me to be as creative as I want and create different locations as I required for my video.

Before the animation process, I first drafted the voiceover script for my video. The script was then recorded on my Phone’s Voice Memo App. After recording my voiceover script, I then started to envision the shots that would coincide with the voiceover and created a shot list.

After the finalizing my script and identifying the shots I needed, it was then time to create my animated scenes. I currently subscribe to a program called “Animaker” and was able to create my animated shots through there. While creating my animations, I ensured to follow video best practices such as the 3×3 method and 10 second rule, in addition to the rule of thirds in order to capture a well composed shot. You will see that I also used my own personal photographs of a golf tournament and gala event along with the animations. After creating my shots in Animaker, I uploaded the recordings on to Adobe Premiere to do the rest of my editing.

Before starting the editing process, I created a video storyboard in order to get organized with all the content I’ve produced. My storyboard can be found HERE.

I first started editing the voiceover recording and ensured that the script was within the allowable timeframe of the project. Using the razor tool, I edited out any “uhms” and “ahs” for a cleaner voiceover. I also ensured that I spaced out the narration appropriately so that it sounded like one cohesive conversation. I also used the audio editing tool to reduce my volume to 4.1 Db as the original recording was a tad bit too loud for my liking.  After editing the audio for my video, it was then time to edit the animated shots. Using the “mark in” and “mark out” tools, I was able to choose my scenes and cut them to the appropriate length in order to piece together the shots as per my storyboard. Lastly, I needed to find a background music to set the tone of my video. Using a creative commons site, Freesound.org, I was able to find an upbeat loop called “Free Music Background Loop 001” by Skaling_97. Since the music was not long enough in length, I placed the songs back-to-back for a continuous loop until the end of my video. I reduced the volume to -25.6 Db so that the music did not interrupt the voiceover of the video. For the intro, I used the audio transitions tool > Crossfade > constant power at the beginning of the music so that it gradually become louder for the intro. I also placed a video effect > dissolve > cross dissolve at the very beginning of the scene. At the end of the video, I placed the same effects, this time to fade the music out and to fade to black to end the video.

Peer Review of the Draft:

I received some great feedback from my group on how to better enhance the quality of my video. Below were some suggestions I received…

• One feedback received was the addition of new scene clips in the video. Such as the creation of an animated golf scene and gala event, as opposed to still images of the actual event. I will think about this option, as I feel that by including actual photographs in the video, it brings a sense of reality for the viewer. I do feel that I need an additional scene of “members mingling” in animated form, so I will create it and add it to the video.
• Another comment I received was pertaining to the mouth movements in my animations. I will continue to work on timing of the mouth movements or perhaps look at the option of not including mouth movements in some scenes if it looks too distracting.

Final Version:

I created a new “members mingling” animated scene and added that to the members event portion prior to the real-life photograph stills in the video. I decided that by keeping the photographs in the video, it brings a sense of reality for the viewer. Another revision that I did was tighten up the text effects to the narration. I simply timed it better so that it coincided with the voice-over in order to not be a distraction to the viewer. One of the comments received from my group was the mouth movements in the animations. I tried my best to ensure that the movements went along with the voice-over as well. For the parts that did not work so well, I decided to opt out of the mouth movements for those scenes. Lastly, at the end of the video, I flipped the cellphone scene with the “contact us” scene so that the contact us scene was at the end and had more screen time for the viewer to take in the information.  

I think that overall, the final version was a success! Having a welcome member video is a great way to engage with new members in any association, and turning it into an animation is a fun and creative way to relay your message to your target audience.