For this project, the Advanced Television Broadcasting class was tasked with making commercials for the Arc of St. Charles. We were to make a thirty second commercial about each of the five enterprises, a one minute commercial about each enterprise, and an overall informational commercial about the Arc and the services that they provide. My group was assigned the overall informational commercial. First, we had to visit each enterprise separately to understand and get a feel for each place. Next, we came up with some of the things that we wanted to include in our video. We knew we wanted each enterprise in it and we also included the transportation services the Arc provides and the home-care service. A lot of the time, we were collecting footage from each group assigned to the enterprises to include in our PSA. Once we had the voiceover lined out as a template, we began to match up clips of videos with what the voiceover was saying. It took many edits and revisions to get the video where it is now and we are still making changes.

As a whole, I think our project turned out really nice. I loved how we got to visit and interview individuals. We were even able to visit the apartment of an individual and her caretaker. What I did not like about the project was how long it was and how much information we had to fit into one video, but we had to include the information that our clients wanted. I definitely learned the time management is key to making a great video.

This project was a new experience compared to the others that we did previously because these commercials were made for actual outside clients and they would air on television as opposed to staying within the public schools. It was an invigorating feeling working for a client because it pushed us to make our video the best it could be, to make ourselves and our client happy. My group worked very well together because we each had our strengths and weaknesses and we each knew what each others’ jobs were for the video, which made it easy to go to certain people if a problem arose. I edited the video together and I feel that my involvement was the most important in the project. However, I did not work alone. I had all of my team members by my side, giving me feedback and working with me.

At the beginning of the project, I though that our PSA could only be two minutes. That was a guideline set by our client, but I did not realize that it was a minimum that they wanted and not a maximum. That opened doors for us because we could now include more interviews and footage of individuals to really capture the spirit of the Arc. I feel like I cannot really compare our video to the others’ videos because they all had a set enterprise to work on and inform people about while our was really to capture the Arc and make it known by encompassing all of the enterprises and other provided services. The feedback given from other groups and our teacher helped because it pointed things out that I did not think were a problem or just did not notice like a graphic being misspelled or a clip being too long. I could tell the other groups listened to my feedback on one of their videos because they changed their voiceover to what I suggested.

If I could do this project again, I don’t believe I would change much besides the fact allowing my team members to be more involved in the editing process, which is difficult when it is done on my laptop. For next year, I think that the communication between our client and us could be better. A lot of the time when we contacted them to ask questions and to send script outlines, they did not answer. If I could come back and speak to future students on this project, I would tell them to enjoy being able to go outside of the classroom and get hands on experience in this workforce because a lot of people do not get this opportunity. Also, do not procrastinate.