Introduction:

This video is a short (1m30s) personal introduction and a discussion of which element of WOVEN I expect to struggle most with in this course. I expect to struggle with visual communication more than the other forms, which will manifest in several places but will probably have the most significant effects on videos or the blog design. This video also includes how I plan to develop my skills with this modality (I plan to focus on design and aesthetics of presentation).

First-Week Video

First-Week Video Script

Goals

Through this assignment, I familiarized myself with the WOVEN elements and set a goal for self-improvement throughout the course. I also worked on video production and presentation, to practice some of these elements. I expect to target this in assignments throughout the course. I also better understand the value of targeting multiple types of communication for rhetoric and in different works. This assignment was also directed towards the course material, and I better understand the assignments that we will be doing throughout the course (like the reading journal or final video project) because I will probably want to put extra effort into using the visual and design aspect of my content effectively. The reading journal, especially, will benefit from extra design work.

Purpose/Prompt

This video includes a short introduction to me, including my name, "major," and hometown and the theme of this course (health as a social construct) and the teacher (Dr. Markley). The First-Week Video asks about a potential struggle with WOVEN based on previous experience with trying to communicate in the medium. In addition to previous experience with the medium, the assignment asked me to develop a goal and a way to reach that goal based on that previous experience. I did this by talking about a focus on revision and the specific component of graphic design, but I didn't match these with previous experience. I could have talked about better, simpler presentations I've made on topics I've known more about, where I can tell most of the story and the graphics were improved through a couple of rounds of revision, based on the content.

Audience

The audience is faculty members and other first-year students who are familiar with WOVEN, this assignment, and the objectives of the course in general, like rhetoric. Because of this familiarity with the objective, I explicitly connected the visual mode to my difficulty with speaking briefly, but I tried not to overexplain the mode or visual design. However, I did give my personal experience of how the need for brevity and dense language collide. PowerPoints and posters are my most common interactions with the visual mode, and my audience should be familiar with both. However, I barely included one anecdotal example under the time constraints, possibly because I explained too abstractly: I could have talked about a revision or the impact of a poor design and better shown my point about brevity and still had time to talk about the digital reading journal.

Design for Medium

Because this is a video, I focused on engagement. For content, I wrote out a script that I would read, rehearse, and edit down into. I used a high-jumpcut vlog style to make the video seem more energetic, and I tried to keep my voice upbeat because my voice is the primary content in this style. I chose not to use another production style like a time-lapse or slideshow because I think my image and a direct explanation of my ideas is important and best delivered talking straight to the camera. I included music (the instrumental of White Town's Your Woman) because I think that it better covers up breaks in talking and maintains a central element throughout the video. I did try to keep it quiet relative to me talking because the music itself is unimportant.

Revision

Another type of video may have fit my argument better, but given the style I chose, the video could have been improved on the script and on the presentation. The script could have been much more personal by extending the anecdote and possibly including a visual representation for the product I created. I also probably should have chosen music not under copyright, and possibly faded it out at the beginning and in at the end. For the final product, cutting away to an image might have made it more engaging. The way I filmed it could also be improved: I held the camera, so it shook a bit, and I read the script for part of the video. If I had mostly memorized the script and propped up the camera to get a single shot between cuts and to stabilize it, the video would probably feel higher quality.