Video Production

An Ice Bear

I used polar bears as the subject for my educational video. My kids are into a cartoon called We Bare Bears that features group of brother bears comprised of a grizzly, panda and polar bear. The polar bear is referred to as "Ice Bear" on the show and he's a favorite in my house. I tried to tailor the video to a younger audience, hoping that my kids who are nine and five might learn some interesting facts about real life polar bears.

Media

I have access to a lot of stock footage, so I mixed a combination of high res still images with lots of live footage showing the bear in it's natural environment.

Effects

I kept my effects really simple. I prefer the Ken Burns effect over some of the more elaborate zoom effects. There are three instances throughout the video where I include a slow Ken Burns effect to satisfy this requirement.

Integrated Transition Effects

When transitioning between certain media, I chose a simple cross dissolve effect, which fades one piece of media out while fading the other in. The following image shows the bubbles from the introduction transitioning out of view, while the polar bear footage is fading in at the same time.

Cross dissolve example
A cross dissolve between two videos

The other integrated effect I used is not as much a transition effect as a timing effect applied to transitions. In certain cases, I move items on/off the screen manually to transition from one media to another. Any time things are moving/animating, I pay attention to how they first start moving and how they finish moving. Typically, without extra attention, the start and stop of movement can appear very mechanical and in some cases abrupt and unnatural. Animation software includes the ability to adjust the timing functions of how things move, allowing a developer to create movement that is linear, or that eases into it's last frame, or eases out of it's first frame (among other options).

Easing defines how an animation changes speed over the course of the action. In the real world, objects tend to accelerate and decelerate as they move. I used combinations of easing to adjust how my animations begin and end.

Ease-Out

Ease-Out animations work best for fading and animating objects into view.

ease-out animation example
Ease-Out animations example

Ease-In

Ease-In animations are best suited for objects exiting the screen or fading out of view.

ease-in animation example
Ease-In animations example

Ease-In-Out

Ease-In-Out is best for depicting movement from place to place on screen. This type of easing draws attention and should be used for bigger movements.

ease-in-out animation example
Ease-In-Out animations example

Other Video Effects

I built some manual animations into the video, and along with applying easing functions to those animations, I manually added a couple additional effects. The first is a motion blur, which gives the moving media a blurry appearance to simulate motion.

motion blur
Motion blur effect

Notice in the image above how the polar bears in the snow have a horizontal blur applied, similar to what you experience while moving quickly in your car or on a train.

I also added a bounce effect to my custom animations, to help simulate gravity and momentum more accurately. When the fun background image falls down from the top before the credits roll, I make sure that the image hits the bottom of the screen, and then bounces up slightly before finally landing flat along the bottom of the stage again. It's not easy to spot initially, but it's not meant to be obvious. The goal is for the drop to feel real and include a sense of natural physics we're used to experiencing in real life.

Integrated Screen Captions

I struggled a bit with this requirement, especially after reading the Mayer, Moreno article assigned this week. I have one caption that works well and that I was excited to include. Towards the end of the video, I explain a few physical features of polar bears, including the fact that their tongues are blue. I was able to find a video where a polar bears sticks out his tongue several times, and I included a freeze frame where I was able to caption and point out the blue tongue.

A polar bear sticking out its blue tongue
Polar bears have blue tongues!

I froze the frame here, and made sure to incorporate the caption when the narration has a natural pause. This allows the viewer to focus totally on the still image and the caption, which according to research, should improve the viewer's ability to focus primarily on the image and the caption without distraction or the need to absorb audio at the same time. I think this pause and caption work well in the natural flow of the video. It feels playful, helpful and natural.

I looked for another instance where I could add another caption. I tested implementing a similar caption with a still during a portion of the video focused on how polar bears swim, but it felt forced and unnatural to add the caption. The flow of the video felt disrupted and it seemed out of place, so I removed it.

Instead, I added a text heading near the beginning of the video, introducing the polar bear.

introduction heading
Introducing the mighty polar bear

I'm not sure if this technically counts as an integrated caption, but I didn't want to force another caption in somewhere if it wasn't going to enhance the overall experience.

Formal Title & Credits

Both are included.

Integrated Background Music & Narration

I used a fun tune for the background music, which I was sure to fade down throughout the majority of the video. The readings this week make mention of background music increasing incidental processing which could be a problem, and I considered removing the track completely. I kept in in because I think it adds a fun aspect that would help keep my target audience (my kids) engaged while not being distracting enough to contribute to any cognitive overload. I also kept in in to make sure I satisfied this requirement.

I scripted and narrated everything myself, which was more challenging than expected. I completed about four full takes and then split the audio into small files based on my script. I normalized all of the audio and used some reduction filters to remove a small amount of echo I got while recording in my office.

Overall I'm pleased with the final outcome. I had more data and information to include related to polar bear global populations and the effects of global warming on their environment and migration patterns, but the two minute time restriction required me to cut a lot of info out and I focused on the features and traits of the animal because I thought it would be more interesting to my target audience. I think the content is segmented well and paced appropriately.

Software

I am most comfortable with the Adobe suite for video/audio/image editing and animating. I used all of the following apps during the development process:

References