A photo from a community dodgeball game that I helped record and promote
Media has become an integral part of just about every community.
Whether it be to promote an event, record a moment, or create entertainment, media is used virtually everywhere. I love to help make that media.
Community service is a very significant piece of my life. Growing up, I volunteered to serve in many different communities. I've served in all sorts of ways, such as packaging food, helping people with physical labor, hosting local community events, and even travelling to other countries to serve communities abroad. To me, community service is not just a great way to help maintain a healthy community; it is a way to develop new relationships with people through mutual hard work. Working together as a team to improve everyone's situation is one of the strongest ways to grow closer to others.
Possibly my favorite form of community service is in media design. There is something about recording a silly promotional video with a team or capturing the essence of a moment with a camera that truly captivates me. I've created videos for my local communities and photographed events, and I always enjoy the work. Creating graphic media for the people around me is ultimately what sparked my passion for media design.
Black Lake Bible Camp Promotional Video
One of my favorite projects to work on was a promotional video for a summer camp that my church was hosting. Not only did I get the chance to help plan, record and direct this project, I also got to work with a group of younger volunteers to make a silly idea come to life. We chose to recreate a video style that was familiar to our audience, specifically the "stereotype" videos seen on the Dude Perfect YouTube channel.
As a co-director, camera man and editor, I had a important role bringing this piece of media to life. I helped plan the scenes that were be shot, as well as how to use the resources provided to us. I also collected and compiled the raw footage at the end of our shooting sessions and created transitions and effects from scratch. The video was made to mimic a type of Dude Perfect's videos, and I think that the final product came out quite well given the resources I had to work with.
One of my biggest takeaways from this project was learning how to work with a given set of resources. Sometimes, you don't have all the premium products to work with, but you can still make do with what you have and make a good finished product!
"Moment" Movie Trailer Project
Cinematic trailer videos are always fun to work on, and this one was no different. For a community video competition, I helped one team create a short movie clip that we titled "Moment". Our video placed first thanks to careful planning, multiple rounds of editing, and very dedicated acting!
My main role in this project was to be an editor. I assisted in editing the project and created introductions for the video. Working with another editor, we searched for audio and interesting ways to string our raw footage together. It took us a while, but we were quite pleased with the final results!
I personally learned about trusting my team in this project. I was not part of directing this short film, and was unable to be present at some of the recording sessions. As a result, I had to trust the team's plan and judgement and make sure that my work was done to the best of my ability. In the end, our parts all came together very well!
Youth Night Recap Video
My church's community is very active in reaching out to the local youth and hosting fun and healthy events, and I have the chance to serve as a photographer at these events. Our church frequently hosts games, get-togethers, and messages, most of which I attend and record.
As the photographer and videographer for these events, I do my best to capture as many moments as I can. Getting to do this work has shown me how much I enjoy it, and has helped improved my camerawork. One of my earlier applications of my recording was a recap video of the season. The video was planned, recorded and edited entirely alone. I got to take all sorts of unique shots for this project!
Being one of my first solo projects, this video taught me a lot about editing and recording. I learned that I need to be prepared by getting more raw content than I think I'll need. In hindsight, I also would have made more changes to my recording settings when filming or photographing. Knowing these, I am able to make better content, but even so, I enjoyed working on this project because I had a vision for it that I could execute. I even got the chance to show it at one of the events, and everyone loved it!
Summer Camp Daily Recap Videos
Every year, my church hosts a summer camp for youth to enjoy nature, games, community and growth together. Ever since I graduated from high school, I have made serving the youth of my community an important piece of my life, and I especially look forward to these summer camps every year. They often become one of the highlights of my year!
As I have become more and more involved in my community, I have eagerly taken on more tasks with my church's media and communications team as a volunteer. Having had the chance to help with a promotional video for the youth summer camp last year, I was excited to be given an even bigger role the following year. My job was to record as much of the youth camp as I could and make daily recap videos. It was certainly difficult and very busy work making a recap video every day alone, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting the chance to make these videos!
Being a one-man video team certainly gave me plenty of experience in making videos, and I'm quite proud of my work! In making my four recap videos, I got to practice changing camera settings quickly and spotting prime recording opportunities around the camp. Sifting through all my raw footage was certainly a task, but it taught me how to sort quicker and sync my clips with my chosen audio.
