The purpose of our video project was to make a short instructional video that can be on anything as long as its clear and filmed in an interesting way that can make any simple activity look entertaining. I choose to focus on teaching any viewer how to play the saxophone, though I don’t know how to play it either I’ve always wanted to learn how to and I thought this would also help me to learn the basics since I would watch this video and plan out my steps multiple times during the process of creating it. I decided to keep my instructions very basic and for those who want to start learning and purchasing their first saxophone, so i added a section on how to pick the perfect saxophone for yourself since that step itself is overwhelming when you know nothing of it. After this i wanted to make sure viewers know how to put together an instrument since it’s something a saxophone player has to do often even long after purchasing it. And once we get all of that out of they way we just go through basic notes and how to get used to starting to use the instrument, with a video that has all the very basics in one, I believe it will make it easier to motive yourself and learn how to start using your first ever saxophone.
With my story boards I focused more on how I would flip my pages and arrange my sketchbook. I added text and arrows to indicate how i move things and if i was going to ‘layer’ my illustrations in the camera shot. There are some hints of what i will draw so i know what to add on my pages and what order i will have things appear in.
As I have mentioned before, I have never played the saxophone and i don’t own one and I don’t plan on spending a lot of money for a sax just to use for a prop so I decided to illustrate every step. My video focuses on one subject and item so illustrating things step by step and having myself to flip pages to go with narration will make the viewer focus more on the subject. I decided to zoom in as much as possible to my sketchbooks and to not use my voice for the video because I don’t like the idea of appearing in my video so I minimized my appearance as much as possible. I also believe that having a single focus and a clear audio that I got by typing, will help give more clarity. I used a website where i can drop pdf files and have an audio read it and I had small sections read out so I don’t have to worry about timing and having to speak clearly myself. I had little audio sections of saxophone notes to play when i ‘press’ keys on the saxophone so viewers an have a idea of what they should sound like. and for my background music I decided against playing it too high and to have any sax related music because thee are so many saxophones to choose from and genres that i think it would be best to have instruments that don’t focus on the sax.
It was simple to come up with an idea but going through with my plan was the most difficult part. I had the idea to draw everything to avoid complications with set and props but I still had to focus on props since I had to illustrate everything and plan how i want to layout my illustrations, halfway through all this I started to think my video might not be so entertaining or long enough to keep with the requirement. After illustrating, i had to make sure i could successfully flip and move through all my ideas for my video and making sure my illustrations show up clearly and that I could time them with the audio length. As for the ideas I could not go through with, some of my ideas and some of my illustrations did not look as consistent, or were not turning out as i planned.
