Last week, for our final project in COM 561, my peers and I created video stories using Adobe Premiere, Audition, and Illustrator to showcase our mock brands. The assignment is to create three videos of these brands for social media and broadcast. Earlier in the semester, I made a brand called Serenity Park. This park serves as a tranquil, natural retreat for visitors to enjoy. When brainstorming video storytelling ideas for the park, I was inspired by a trend on social media: videos captioned “life without trending audio” featuring stunning natural scenes paired with their natural sounds rather than popular music overlays. This minimalist, immersive approach felt like a perfect fit for Serenity Park. So, I planned to use my phone to film beautiful nature scenes at the parks where I had shot brand photography for a previous assignment. Unfortunately, a bomb cyclone hit western Washington the week I had to film the draft videos, making it impossible to revisit those parks. Thankfully, I had thought ahead and had captured some video footage during my photography shoots. After the storm cleared, I filmed more scenes at a nearby park.

After assessing my footage and audio, I began storyboarding the video. I carefully selected shots that aligned with the natural, serene style of the park. The audio proved difficult in some shots as people would come along the trails, or a propeller plane would fly noisily above the shot. For the scenes with audio issues, I found some clean audio clips online at freesound.org. I decided to start the videos with a reminder notification pop-up graphic. I wanted a slow, steady, relaxing pace for the viewer so the video would induce a peaceful state of mind. For the closing scene, I chose an evening ambiance audio clip with natural cricket sounds to create a closing serene mood as the park’s logo, tagline, and call to action appeared on the screen.

Once the outline, shots, and audio were roughly assembled, I imported the footage, audio, and the Serenity Park logo into Adobe Premiere. Then, I designed the pop-up notification graphic in Illustrator and imported it. I edited together the Facebook video first. I trimmed scenes and audio with Premiere’s razor and cropping tools. I used the text tool and Effects Control panel, adding text overlays and adjusting their scale, position, color, and font. I used Lumetri Color correction tools, brightness, and contrast adjustments to adjust the visuals. Then, I added cross-dissolve transitions to create a smooth, calming flow across all elements—audio, footage, graphics, and text boxes. Next, I made new sequences for the Instagram and broadcast versions within the same project. I copied and pasted the original elements, then trimmed the scene durations to fit each time requirement. Once I finished each video, I used the mark-out tool to ensure each was exactly the length needed, then exported and submitted them.

After submitting my video drafts, I got some really kind and thoughtful feedback from my peers to help me re-evaluate and improve my draft video story designs. They mentioned they liked the overall calming style of the videos, the footage I captured, and the pop-up reminder notification idea at the beginning of the videos. They also had some helpful suggestions to improve the videos, like including the logo at the start of the video, ensuring the mountain scene wasn’t paced too quickly, allowing the nature shots to be the focus a bit more by making the text less prominent, adding more shots to increase the pace a bit, and adding some soft background music or a voiceover help bring the video together and help the scenes resonate with the audience more. I loved the suggestions and enjoyed trying them to see which worked best for the videos. To revise the videos, I first shot some additional footage at a local park, and added the footage and audio to my drafts. I again used the razor, volume, cropping, default transitions, and Effects tools to adjust the footage and color balance. I added the logo after the pop-up scene. Then, I recorded a voiceover, which sounded nice, but it didn’t feel right when I removed the text from the scenes. I wanted to ensure people watching without audio would connect to the message. Also, somehow, my voiceover was distracting from the videos’ slow, peaceful pace, and having both the text and voiceover made it feel too busy and redundant. So, I deleted the voiceover and added the text boxes back in. However, I placed them at the bottom of each video and reduced the background color transparency to reduce their visual weight. Then, I added some soft background music to increase the emotional resonance for the audience. I think this solution works really well!

Overall, the process was challenging yet rewarding, and I’m excited about how the final product captures the essence of Serenity Park.

P.S. I had to upload the Instagram and broadcast videos to Vimeo instead of YouTube because I had reached YouTube’s upload limit.

STORY BOARDS FOR EACH VIDEO:

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

:00 – :05	:05 – :09	:09 – :16
Close up view of forest stream	Black background with logo	Panorama view of mountains
Text box and reminder notification graphic: “REMINDER: You have the power to protect your peace.”	Text box: VISIT [logo] 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 – :25	:25 – :36	:36 – :46
Rocky beach to water horizon	Waterfall from bank that pans to water below	Bufflehead ducks diving in a lake
Text box: SMELL THE SALT AIR	Text box: FEEL THE MIST OF A WATERFALL	Text box: DIVE INTO SMALL MOMENTS OF JOY
Audio: lapping water and gulls	Audio: waterfall sounds	Audio: birds and trees rustling
:46 – :54	:54 — 1:07	1:07 – 1:21
Close up view of birds along a rocky hiking trail	Close up view of mushrooms then panning to sun through forest	Cormorants on the water with sun reflection pan to mountain in background
Text box: NOTICE OTHERS ALONG YOUR PATH	Text box: WITNESS THE SECRETS OF THE FOREST	Text box: MARVEL AT TIMELESS HORIZONS
Audio: wind through the mountains and trees	Audio: forest sounds	Audio:  Gentle water sounds with gulls
1:21 – 1:30
Black matte background
Text box: Find your peace Serenity Park logo graphic Text box: WHERE PEACE TAKES ROOT
Audio: Evening ambiance with insects softly buzzing

Instagram Video           1080px x 1920px              TRT :45

:00 – :05	05: – :08	:08 – :16
Close up view of forest stream	Black background with logo	Panorama view of mountains
Text box and reminder notification graphic: “REMINDER: You have the power to protect your peace.”	Text box: VISIT [logo] 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 – :37	:37 – :45
Waterfall from bank	Cormorants on the water with sun reflection pan to mountain in background	Black matte background
Text box: FEEL THE MIST OF A WATERFALL	Text box: MARVEL AT TIMELESS HORIZONS	Text box: Find your peace  Serenity Park logo graphic Text box: WHERE PEACE TAKES ROOT Text box: Visit serenitypark.com or find us on social @serenitypark
Audio: waterfall sounds	Audio:  gentle water sounds with gulls	Audio: Evening ambiance with insects softly buzzing

Broadcast Video           1920px x 1080px            TRT :30

:00 – :03	03: – :06	:06 – :11
Close up view of forest stream	Black background with logo	Panorama view of mountains
Text box and reminder notification graphic: “REMINDER: You have the power to protect your peace.”	Text box: VISIT [logo] 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
:11 – :18	:18 – :25	:25 – :30
Waterfall from bank	Cormorants on the water with sun reflection pan to mountain in background	Black matte background
Text box: FEEL THE MIST OF A WATERFALL	Text box: MARVEL AT TIMELESS HORIZONS	Text box: Find your peace  Serenity Park logo graphic Text box: WHERE PEACE TAKES ROOT Text box: Visit serenitypark.com or find us on social @serenitypark
Audio: waterfall sounds	Audio:  gentle water sounds with gulls	Audio: Evening ambiance with insects softly buzzing