For our final project in COM 561, we’re creating video stories in Adobe Premiere for the brands we’ve made. I’m continuing my work using the brand I created called Serenity Park. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that Serenity Park is a peaceful, natural escape for people to enjoy, with various activities and landscapes. In thinking about how to approach video stories for the park, I remembered some videos I recently saw on social media with the caption “life without trending audio,” where beautiful natural scenes accompany their native sounds without music overlayed. I enjoy this simple yet effective promotion, which works well for places like Serenity Park. So, I decided to film beautiful shots of panoramic views, waterfalls, local wildlife, etc., and use the sounds native to the video itself or, if there were any audio issues, to find some audio close to the natural sounds captured while filming. This week was definitely not a good week for filming, considering the bomb cyclone that came through western Washington. So, I couldn’t return to the parks where I had initially shot the photography for Serenity Park. Thankfully, I thought ahead when I was shooting the photography and had also captured some videos. I also I filmed some footage at a park close by after the storm had passed and the sun came out briefly.

After getting the footage, I worked on my storyboarding for how the video would flow and what text I would use across the scenes. Thinking through the beginning, pacing, and ending, I thought it would be fun to mock up a little “reminder” notification message at the start of the video so the video story would act as a little break from the business of life, whether watching on your phone or TV. After selecting which shots would best suit the video’s natural, peaceful style, I listened to the audio associated with the shots and deleted the audio that picked up bystanders, had irregular noises coming through, or just didn’t work well. For these shots, I searched on freesound.org for audio that would match the scenes. I found some lovely audio pieces for the few scenes that needed them. While searching through the audio clips, I finished the video with an evening ambiance audio clip that might lull the viewer into a peaceful state as the logo and tagline came on the screen, reinforcing the brand’s message. I think it made for a nice effect at the end.

After roughly putting the shots and audio together, I imported the PNG file of the Serenity Park logo I made in Adobe Illustrator a few weeks back. To do this, I crafted a pop-up dialogue box graphic in Adobe Illustrator and imported the PNG file to Adobe Premiere. I also created a black matte within the sequence for the logo and tagline to appear on at the end of the video. Once I had all my elements imported and arranged, I watched the clips several times over, trimming the scenes and audio with the razor and cropping tool where needed. I used the text tool and the Effects Control panel to add text and then adjust the text’s scale, position, color, and font. I adjusted the volume using the volume bar and the color of clips using the Lumetri Color correction tools and other tools like brightness and contrast. I used cross-dissolve transitions to keep a peaceful, smooth flow to the video, applying these to the music, footage, graphics, and text.

After finalizing my Facebook video, I used the mark out tool to ensure it was precisely 1:30 in length before exporting it. I then watched the video on my laptop’s video player to confirm it came out as expected. Once satisfied, I uploaded it to my YouTube channel. Then, I set up new sequences within the same project to create versions for Instagram and broadcast. I copied and pasted the video, audio, text, and graphics from the Facebook sequence into these new sequences. Next, I cut scenes to fit the required durations.

During the editing process, I noticed that cropping and deleting scenes caused some transitions to be erased, so I added those transitions back in. I also adjusted the scale and position of the footage, text, and graphics for the Instagram video ratio. Once I was happy with the Instagram and broadcast videos, I exported them and followed the same review process. However, I noticed that YouTube consistently added one extra second to each video, even though I had triple-checked my mark out points. Despite re-watching and re-uploading the videos, this issue persisted. If anyone knows why this happens, please let me know.

Overall, I’m happy with these drafts and excited to hear feedback from my peers. I’m also looking forward to seeing the creative videos they’ve produced! 🙂

STORY BOARDS FOR EACH VIDEO:

Facebook Video            1920px x 1080px            TRT (Total Run Time) 1:30

:00 – :10	:10 – :15	:15 – :35
Close up view of forest stream and trees	Panning through stream	Panorama view of mountains
Text box and reminder notification graphic: “REMINDER: You have the power to protect your peace.”	Text box: ESCAPE TO A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN…	Text box: SOAK IN THE PARORAMIC VIEWS
Audio: stream and forest sounds	Audio: stream and forest sounds	Audio: wind through the mountains and trees
:35 – :50	:50 – 1:00	1:00 – 1:06
Waterfall from bank that pans to water below	Bufflehead ducks diving in a lake	Pacific coastline with waves and eroded cliffs
Text box: FEEL THE MIST OF A WATERFALL	Text box: DIVE INTO SMALL MOMENTS OF JOY	Text box: MARVEL AT THE TIDES TIMELESS ARTISTRY
Audio: waterfall sounds	Audio: birds and trees rustling	Audio: waves and wind
1:06 – 1:23	1:23 – 1:30
Close up view of birds along a rocky hiking trail	Black matte background
Text box: TAKE TIME TO NOTICE OTHERS ALONG YOUR PATH	Text box: Find your peace Serenity Park logo graphic Text box: WHERE PEACE TAKES ROOT
Audio: wind through the mountains and trees	Audio: Evening ambience with insects softly buzzing

Instagram Video           1080px x 1920px              TRT :45

:00 – :03	03: – :08	:08 – :16
Close up view of forest stream and trees	Panning through stream	Panorama view of mountains
Text box and reminder notification graphic: “REMINDER: You have the power to protect your peace.”	Text box: ESCAPE TO A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN…	Text box: SOAK IN THE PARORAMIC VIEWS
Audio: stream and forest sounds	Audio: stream and forest sounds	Audio: wind through the mountains and trees
:16 – :24	:24 – :32	:32 – :41
Waterfall from bank that pans to water below	Bufflehead ducks diving in a lake	Close up view of birds along a rocky hiking trail
Text box: FEEL THE MIST OF A WATERFALL	Text box: DIVE INTO SMALL MOMENTS OF JOY	Text box: TAKE TIME TO NOTICE OTHERS ALONG YOUR PATH
Audio: waterfall sounds	Audio: birds and trees rustling	Audio: wind through the mountains and trees
:41 – :45
Black matte background
Text box: Find your peace Serenity Park logo graphic Text box: WHERE PEACE TAKES ROOT
Audio: Evening ambience with insects softly buzzing

Broadcast Video           1920px x 1080px            TRT :30

:00 – :03	03: – :08	:08 – :15
Close up view of forest stream and trees	Panning through stream	Panorama view of mountains
Text box and reminder notification graphic: “REMINDER: You have the power to protect your peace.”	Text box: ESCAPE TO A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN…	Text box: SOAK IN THE PARORAMIC VIEWS
Audio: stream and forest sounds	Audio: stream and forest sounds	Audio: wind through the mountains and trees
:15 – :20	:20 – :27	:27 – :30
Waterfall from bank that pans to water below	Close up view of birds along a rocky hiking trail	Black matte background
Text box: FEEL THE MIST OF A WATERFALL	Text box: TAKE TIME TO NOTICE OTHERS ALONG YOUR PATH	Text box: Find your peace Serenity Park logo graphic Text box: WHERE PEACE TAKES ROOT
Audio: waterfall sounds	Audio: wind through the mountains and trees	Audio: Evening ambience with insects softly buzzing