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Welcome to Sheffield!
Promotional video report
My plan for approaching the video was that I wanted to focus on the arts and music scene within Sheffield, as other promotional videos I have viewed seem to stray away from this element of Sheffield's art culture and focus more on the architecture such as the cathedral. I have achieved this by showcasing art galleries, graffiti, and exhibiting multiple music venues. Sheffield is well known for its emergence of the Bassline genre which was developed in the early 2000s, and I really wanted to emphasise this idea. With this intention, I sat down and planned out which locations I wanted to capture that I knew would be successful in terms of promoting Sheffield to its full extent, as well as be aesthetically pleasing for the viewer using vibrant colours and fast paced editing. Below is a storyboard I curated that illustrates what I planned out to create, as well as my ‘shot reference’ guide to assist me whilst I was creating my project. This was massively beneficial as I could follow my plans during the filming and editing process, allowing me to be incredibly efficient.
I organized everyone within my group's roles based on their strengths, and I decided to allocate myself with the videographer role as I have achieved many years of previous experience with content creation and understanding of equipment. I thoroughly enjoyed participating within this project as I could bring my ideas into reality and utilize my creative skill sets. One thing I thought was noteworthy is that this project allowed me to use the Canon AX11 camera, which is a piece of equipment I have never used before. This granted me the opportunity to gain skills which I can now apply throughout my degree, and within my career too.
Within the video production, I have captured a lot of Sheffield within a short space of time. I have achieved this by applying quick cuts through the editing process within Premier Pro, by utilizing the facilities it possesses such as the ability to apply transitions as well as adding significant music and text such as the title, credits.
We faced little difficulty whilst producing our promotional video due to great management from the group as a whole. Although, one challenge we did face was gaining permission to film at certain locations. Within Winter Gardens, we had to contact Sheffield Council in order to film onsite which was thankfully granted to us, but at other locations were not so successful. One of my main locations I wanted to film at was the Site Gallery, but due to covid restrictions implemented by the management filming at this location did not seem feasible due to time logistics. I decided that we would leave this out as it was only one location, it wouldn't have much of an impact on the video as a whole as we had a great deal of content at the time this decision was made.
Something which I think can be improved within our project is accessibility, which is something that Sheffield Hallam strides upon. One way in which I could develop my video is add subtitles when our presenter, Lucy, is speaking. This would enable those who are deaf to still enjoy the video and gain understanding as to what is being spoken clearly, rather than attempt to lip read.
When seeking inspiration, I decided to research into other neighbouring cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham to see what their promotional videos demonstrated. My findings were similar to my initial ideas of what I wanted to portray, such as the fast paced exposition to communicate a vast amount of information to the audience in a short space of time which would highlight tourist attractions.
The links to the videos can be found below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQzl_zdQDYM