For this project, we made a newscast and got to choose which part we wanted to create. I decided to make a commercial, which is a 30-60 second video that promotes or brings awareness to something. For my commercial, I entered the TeenDrive365 Video Challenge. This competition challenges high school student to make a commercial to help put an end to distracted driving. I decided to do this topic because I wanted to be challenged and have the opportunity to compete against people from different places. I also feel that by doing this commercial, I had to challenge myself to be able to think outside the box and to work with others outside of the class.

After I decided that I wanted to choose to make a commercial as my concentration, I had to figure out what I wanted to show in my video. I knew that I wanted my video to be about soccer players leaving practice, one of them distracting the driver, and causing the accident. I had to contact players from my team to see if they could be a part of my video. Then I had to schedule filming days that worked around everyone’s schedule. I filmed on multiple different days because I would go back and reshoot scenes or film new scenes. After I finally had all of my footage, I went through several different options for my transition, found music, and put everything together. I got feedback from my team members, made changes, and submitted the video to the competition. Some challenges that I faced were working with the cinematic camera, filming over multiple days, and finding the perfect transition. The cinematic camera is different then the normal cameras that we use, especially since it does not zoom. I had to figure out how to position the camera to make sure that everything fit in the frame properly. Filming on different days made my videos look different, but I did my best to make all of them look the same. The transition was one of the hardest parts of this video. I wanted a transition that would make sence and fit the situation. I looked at several different types of transitions and found one that worked best. Overall, I really like how my video came out. I think that the message is clear. My shots were creative and had an effect on the mood. The one thing that I did not like as much were the shots that we had to refilm because they did not match the previous shots.

One thing that I learned by doing this concentration is that it is really hard to make a commercial. To fit  message in just 30-60 seconds takes a lot of work. Everything has to be perfect or the point of the video will not come across. Another thing that I learned is that it is really hard to work with friends. They tend to joke around a lot and not take everything seriously, so it takes longer to film. I would choose this concentration again because I liked how I could promote something while still being able to use my creativity. There were not many restrictions on what I could and could not do.