Working Draft

Reflection

The primary ideas and intentions that guide this multimodal project are connecting intimately, being informative, and building trust with viewers. While brainstorming over the various genres, mediums, and assignments completed throughout class this semester, these intentions were the prime reason for selecting a vlog genre. After comparing and contrasting all mediums and genres, I have discovered that I thoroughly enjoy creating and editing videos. In addition, I have always had a love for public speaking; therefore, vlogging naturally appealed to me. Some of the key rhetorical choices I made was selecting a genre that would allow me the flexibility to be personally relatable and persuasive. For instance, I am filming within my home which invites viewers into my personal space and creates a sense of intimacy between myself and them.

Furthermore, the topic is not broad and has been niched down to be narrow and specific to the core problems of my intended audience. Whom are the working class ranging from blue-collar to executives and aspiring entrepreneurs. To meet and exceed the audience’s needs, I first identified the problems both they and I faced while working. This allows me to provide information and create content that is valuable and interesting to them; I believe this in return will build trust and engagement. Additionally, I plan to incorporate a variety of key communicative modes into my personal story recording for the final draft. These modes will convince the audience feel like I am speaking directly to them through my setting, body language, gestures, and eye-to-camera contact. The content will address relevant matters that directly impact the needs and interests of the target viewers. For instance, initially discuss the ‘why‘ of the problem challenge and brainstorm the ‘how can we‘ towards the solution towards the outro. The context will be conversational yet informative because the purpose is to craft content that is beneficial to the audience. The Great Resignation is a sensitive matter, and therefore web-based communication technologies such as YouTube was an essential tool. This platform provides opportunities for social contact. This is the main reason for selecting a vlog genre because it supports the end goal which is to be connective.

Social media also help shape my element decision to choose a video medium because of the numerous platforms available that can extend my target reach for a video upload. The dissemination choice of how I wanted to share this project was instantly YouTube. This popular platform can facilitate and support the conversational context. Which offers the opportunity for common ground and social contact to occur. Whilst, reaching the primary and secondary audiences.

The key design choices were made based off design principles and research skills gained throughout this semester. One of the video editing software options I learned about was the Adobe Premiere application. This software application offers a variety of pro-quality transition features. These enhancements allows me access to features that can emphasize what I desire viewers to pay attention to. For example, there is a Pan Zoom feature that will help demand and direct viewers’ attention to dominant differentiating elements. Thus, highlighting a variety of contrast elements. These transition add-ons, graphics, and hues are all opposite but consistent throughout the video. Furthermore, a hierarchy is formed from a contrast of text sizes. Also organization is established through arrangement and repetition. Which produces a creative video flow backed by a narrative voiceover that is directive. In addition, the software’s audio volume and ‘duck’ features support the narrative alignment for viewers to remain engaged as they navigate. Proper timing with the incorporation of a dissolve transition helps establish relationships between graphics, texts, and video, creating proximity. Speaking of timing, this was the most significant challenge thus far during the design thinking process.

However, I was able to gather helpful information through repeated testing, revising, and revisiting different stages of the design process. Most importantly, with the feedback from my professor(viewer) I know what to do differently moving forward into the final draft. For instance, one lesson I learned was that my timing needs to be extended and shortened in specific video clips. A great amount of time has been revising my working draft. In attempts to figure out the allotted time required for voiceover in each section. Secondly, my voiceover is not loud enough and must be redone. Thirdly, through viewer feedback I learned of different ways to give recognition to the sources that were a part of the analysis for my topic. For example, captions during the video or credits at the end can act as a works cited. Lastly, going forward into the final draft there are still several revisions to be made to this working draft.