Author: hannahjokoch

A Reflection on Completing My First Mini Doc & Promotional Video

It’s hard to believe that it has been an entire semester since my professor gave me the two projects that would end up being the most challenging yet fulfilling projects of my time in college. I can’t help but feel proud of myself for all I have accomplished this semester in the face of several unforeseen challeneges in both of my projects.

Vision to reality: Kanga Coolers Doc

on a whim, I reached out to a company I had seen on my favorite TV show and asked if they would be apart of my class project. I was convinced I wouldn’y hear back & that they would not trust me to tell their story. I was wrong…

Throughout this semester, I have put countless hours into filming and editing this project. I had such high hopes for it and I wanted the end result to be perfect.

Letting go of Perfection

Yesterday, I finished my project at 2:45 am. I had spent the better half of the weekend perfecting my project. I had spent countless hours that day trying to find the perfect music. I reached a point when I said to myself “this isn’t going to be perfect just let it be.” So, I did exactly that and pressed the export button on premiere pro. No, it wasn’t perfect but I am happy with what I did. Starting out this semester I set out to make a short documentary about a local company. Initially, I had planned to make my video 30 minutes. I had several hours of footage and to me, someone with no experience I thought this was totally doable. However, after time went on I realized that was simply not going to happen. I wanted my video to be interesting and I decided the length was not worth the uneccesary footage. I went through my video with a fresh perspective and deleted everything I thought didn’t help move the story. Ultimately I ended up cutting 5 minutes and ended up with a 10 minute long video.

A personal Reflection

At the start of this project I genuinely had no clue what I was doing or how I was doing it. I taught myself how to conduct an interview, the ins and outs of premier, and so on. I have gained so much experience throughout this semester. I have always dreamed of making documentaries and I had convinced myself that that is what I wanted to do with my life. However, I had never had hands on experience. Apart of me was worried that after completing this project I would not longer have that same dream. Four months later and I can confidently say that this project has given me reassurance that this is what I love to do!

Watch my mini Doc here! & read my narrative

---

Working with a Client the Aftermath

This semester I had the opportunity to work with the Furman University Counseling Center. They asked my group and I to create a welcoming video and redesign their landing page. Unfortunately, I ran into some unforeseen issues throughout the course of this project. However, I managed to overcome the challenges and I ended up producing better work because of them. For example:

1. It started out as a group project: at the start, I was in a group of three. However, by the end I was the only team member. While frustrating at first, I believe this taught me that I am capable and that I can push through and still produce great quality work!
2. I had to change directions a few times: I wanted to create an animated video for my client. Given the brief I thought this would best fulfill their wishes. As time went on I began to realize that I needed to go a different route and focus on my strengths. This ended up being a good decision and the video turned out great.
3. Deciding what’s best: Throughout parts of this project my client gave me suggestions. When applied, I realized they did not work as well as the client originally thought. I had to make the decision to give the client exactly what they wanted or do what I thought looked best. Ultimitaly, I did what I thought looked best and it paid off!

Check out my work for the Counseling Center!

Moving Forward

“This blog post will mark the end of my time in this class. As I have written, I have been able to reflect on all that have accomplished throughout this semester. I am thankful to have had the opportunity to expand my skill set and I look forward to using them and growing them in the future.”

Well Sort of…

I have put countless hours into this project and I am really pleases in the direction it is heading. However, I still have a lot of work left to be done on my documentary. It takes hours to edit just a few minutes of the clip. I am usually not a perfectionist but I think this project is turning me into one. Honestly, I find the editing process very peaceful and I really enjoy it. The other day I started editing at 2 and when I looked at the time next it was 8. I could have sworn it had been an hour, maybe 2. Do I have ALOT of editing left, 100%. I don’t even want to know the collective amount of hours I will end up spending on this project. However, despite the enormous amount of work left I am not overwhelmed.

I Got It Under Control

Why am I not overwhelmed? I think it’s because I feel confident in what I’m doing now. I have developed a really nice work flow. I feel comfortable in saying “know what I’m doing”. At the beginning of this project I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to do it yet here I am doing it. I went into the internship office a few days ago and I realized just how much experience and credibility this project is giving me. I am doing this 100% on my own which is actually very impressive to me. I reached out the guys at Kanga Coolers, scripted the interview questions, schedule the interviews, set up the equipment, filmed, and now editing all by myself.

Can I Make it Great?

I find myself asking this question a lot throughout this project. Every time I watch something I pay close attention to the techniques they used, what I liked, what I didn’t and I am trying to imitate these within my own work. I am honestly finding it hard to enjoy anything I watch these days because I can’t stop asking myself those questions.

The Finish Line

I don’t know what my end product is going to be. I think when you are doing something for the first time it is hard to come into it with high expectations. However, since I care about this and I am human of course I had very high expectations for this project. Will it live up to that? I don’t know but if it doesn’t I am not gonna beat myself up about it because of how much I have learned by doing this.

by: Hannah Koch

At the beginning of my project I was so excited I thought I had created such a unique idea and that that excitement was gonna drive me to the end. I thought to myself “I’ve seen a thousand documentaries surely I can make one myself” what I wasn’t thinking about was the amount of people behind it. Here I am attempting to do everything by myself. This Include: writing, scheduling, directing, filming, interviewing, and editing. All of this on top of this being my first film project I didn’t really know what I got myself into. I completely underestimated how much work it takes yet I have managed to slowly figure it out and I am so proud of myself for that. I dedicated a lot of time and energy into pre-production, most of it was completely out of my comfort zone. For example, reaching out to some guys who were on an ABC show, in no way am I qualified to do that but I did it anyway and it paid off.

I Got It!

I felt like I had prepared so much in my pre-production phase but when it came time to film I felt like I had done nothing at all. I knew if I waited for the last minute to film I would hate myself, so I took the leap and scheduled my first interview. I was so nervous because I had no I idea what I was doing but then I realized that that is completely ok and guess what? The interview went so well! ll the right supplies I had my camera, I rented out two tripods, another camera and some lights. Well I get to the interview and to my dismay the video quality of the second camera was terrible so I made a judgment call to scratch it and that was ok as I was just gonna try again at the next one. Unfortunately due to my poor planning I chose to wait until the hour before my interview to rent out equipment. Obviously this was a mistake and lets just say I was struck with my own camera and tripod that was trash. However, I made that work too and I was happy with the footage. Thankfully, for my most recent interviews I have successfully been able to use the two-camera method. My moral of this story is I have learned to plan better and I have learned that you always need a plan B when it comes to filming because plans always fail and you just have to accept and overcome. Looking back on it there a few things I would have changed but overall I was genuinely impressed with the work I had done. . Since my first interview, I have conducted a few more of the guys at Kanga Coolers and I learned from every one of them. The team at Kanga could not be more helpful they have given me so many resources to use for my documentary and have given me some ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of. The guys at the company have really grown to appreciate my project which helps me validate my work and even invited me to join their “Fun Friday” dinner as a friend of the company.

Why You Should Do It

As I am nearing the end of my filming and production process, I look back and realize how proud of myself I am doing something I have always wanted to do and I am somehow doing a great job. This has genuinely been such an incredible experience for me, I have learned so much, and I have met some amazing people through Kanga Coolers that I know look up to and none of this would have happened if I hadn’t put myself out there. Going off of that, I have learned that in order to be great at something you have to start doing it.