Week 5: Emotional Communication

It’s finally time to start diving into the heaviest of the Adobe software that we’ll be using in this class: Premiere Pro. This is professional-grade video editing software. Want some examples of users or media that was edited with it? Sure!

  • Peter McKinnon and his wildly popular YouTube channel
  • Joe Penhall (creator) - Mindhunter series (Netflix)
  • Bing Liu (director) - Minding the Gap documentary (Hulu)
  • David Fincher (director) - Gone Girl (20th Century FOX)
  • Vashi Nedomansky (editor) - Deadpool (20th Century FOX)

Now, again, are you expected to be a professional with this incredibly powerful tool? Of course not. Regardless, after going through the training linked below, you’ll absolutely be proficient and perhaps even comfortable! Why is this important? Learning through video is–if you haven’t heard it enough times by now–an incredibly effective means of conveying information. Why not leverage that?

An important distinction here between video editing and video broadcasting/streaming platforms: you’ve used OBS already and that’s really intended to be a video streaming platform. Premiere Pro, on the other hand, is not made for this at all. For Premiere Pro, you’ll come into the project with everything you think you need (emphasis on think you need) at the start, edit everything together the way you want it, and then export it to be hosted on various platforms and in various media. This is very different from something like Avid’s MediaCentral, the kind of software that can run a professional news studio (though they can work together; they’re just different animals). Professional platforms like this can cost thousands upon thousands of dollars and take entire teams to work. Point being: you use the tool appropriate for the job.

Learning Objectives

  • Explore the power of the voice for storytelling
  • Explore ways to transform content in presentations for more meaningful connections with audiences
  • Identify and discuss 5 stages of storytelling.
  • Explore the process of organizing, writing, and revising a story.
  • Explore style guidelines, and scripts pertaining to TV and radio.
  • Identify key conditions for e-learning design.
  • Explore the process of making digital stories.
  • Distinguish between hypermedia and multimedia
  • Analyze the compilation of various media format and actions for boosting presentation design results
  • Practice compiling multiple media with a video editor for telling a digital story
  • Explore various tools instrumental in capturing audio

Consumables

Each week there will be a number of items for you to consume, be it reading, watching, listening, or a combination thereof. Note that some of these are local pages and some are links outside the site!

  • Read: Chapters 1-5 in Adobe Premiere Pro CC Classroom in a Book
  • Watch: Fake News (Part 1)
    • “Fake news is more than a social media menace—it’s threatening critical thinking skills needed to develop information literacy. Combined with the impulse to share exciting, shocking and alarming stories, fake news is shaping—and distorting—perceptions, especially in younger demographics. In this video, viewers learn what drives fake news, how to spot it and how to de-bunk it. They’ll see how to distinguish between bias and accuracy, and opinion from fact. Vignettes that mimic online feeds and searches show how to detect completely false stories, slanted information, pure propaganda and misused data.”
  • Watch: What It’s Like to Read Lips
    • “Production company Little Moving Pictures' _Can You Read My Lips? _is an immersive short about lip-reading, based on the essay “Seeing at the Speed of Sound” by Rachel Kolb, who narrates and stars in the piece.”
  • Read: Mayer’s 12 Principles of Multimedia Learning are a Powerful Design Resource
    • “One interesting thing about these principles is their applicability over the long haul. While education’s growing use of technology as an instructional aid calls for the use of guiding constructs like these more than ever, these fundamental principles were published back 2001 and it’s a safe bet that they will remain relevant for decades to come.”
  • Watch: Clues to a Great Story (19 minutes)
    • “Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (“Toy Story,” “WALL-E”) shares what he knows about storytelling – starting at the end and working back to the beginning.”
    • (NB: there is one instance of language that is considered “graphic”. Skip this if that is of concern to you.)
  • Watch: How the worst moments in our lives make us who we are (20 minutes)
    • “Writer Andrew Solomon has spent his career telling stories of the hardships of others. Now he turns inward, bringing us into a childhood of adversity, while also spinning tales of the courageous people he’s met in the years since. In a moving, heartfelt and at times downright funny talk, Solomon gives a powerful call to action to forge meaning from our biggest struggles.”
  • Watch: The People - The West (84 minutes; aim for watching first half)
    • “Experience the rich cultural diversity of Native American tribes and the impact that early white explorers had on their lives. In this program, viewers will learn about the mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi culture and the successful Pueblo revolt against their Spanish conquerors. First-person accounts bring to life the adventures of early explorers, from Cabeza de Vaca, the first white man to enter the West, to the Lewis and Clark expedition. Part of the series The West: A Film by Stephen Ives. Distributed by PBS Distribution.”
    • Throughout, pay special attention to how the viewpoint/storyteller changes and when, to the sound editing and how it complements/upholds/supports the visual aspects, those visual aspects themselves, transitions between scenes and especially speakers, and the lighting design. Everything that goes into this should be considered. Nothing is left to chance!
    • This is part 1 of a 9-part documentary. You’re welcome to continue watching the rest if you like!
  • The Ken Burns Effect
    • There is a lot to be said about Ken Burns and his particular flavor of digital storytelling. One of the most famous of those is so well know it’s actually named for him: the Ken Burns Effect. You’ll see this everywhere from slideshows to screensavers to television to movies. Peruse the following resources to get familiar with it. Pay attention to how the scenes/images are lit, how the audio interplays with the effect, when they begin and stop, just how much movement takes place.
    • About Digital Storytelling
    • The Ken Burns Effect
    • The National Parks: America’s Best Idea

Adobe Training

These will make or break your ability to complete assignments going forward! These are also just the beginning; a foundational skill set, more or less. I encourage you to always jump on YouTube (just as an example) to search for specific instructions for the particular thing you want to accomplish. One of the beneficial aspects of the Adobe software’s design is the multiple methods of accomplishing the same thing, so often times it’s a matter of finding the method that works best with your workflow/nature.

Assignments

Your assignments for this week are as follows:

  1. Make sure you have gone through all the suggested Adobe training content!
  2. Submit Mini-Project 2: Digital Story to the D2L dropbox by the due date.
This course is adapted from ETCV 301: Interpreting and Presenting Digitally, developed for the University of Arizona by Dr. Stephen Arnold.