Turning Tech Maroon
I made this documentary to showcase the Aggies in Tech program and the students in it. AIT is relatively unknown on campus. There isn't a ton of information available as to what it is and who is in it. This was my chance to show the program to those who wanted to know more about it. Also, I've never heard of a program at A&M having a documentary so I thought it might be fun to potentially be the first.
The camera I used was a Samsung HMX-F80. It records in 720p. I used it over my phone so I didn't have 100's of clips crowding my photos app.
I also wanted it to have a "Super Size Me" or "Grizzly Man" feel to it.
Inception
I decided to make the documentary just a few days before we left for the trip. I half-jokingly mentioned the idea of it during a class but the idea sounded fun. My goal was to make a documentary focusing on just the Cohort and not necessarily the trip or companies. I had an old camcorder in my dorm with a practically empty 64 GB SD card. In my mind, the worst that could happen was recording a bunch of my trip that I could look at if I was ever feeling melancholy.
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When I told everyone that I was serious about the documentary nobody believed me. Even as they saw me at the airport with the camera I think they might have suspected this was just some weird bit I was doing.
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Planning
I didn't have much of a plan going in. I was going to attempt to record what was interesting and get interviews with the Cohort during the trip. To be fair I had no idea what to expect on the trip. I had never even been to these cities and our schedule for the day wasn't known until that day of for most of the trip.
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AIT is chaotic but we always weather the storm eventually. That was the vibe I was trying to capture. We would be getting to the airport half-asleep, some of us arriving minutes before boarding, and then touring the city without a care in the world.
Those who liked the idea of the documentary took their opportunity to help. Either filming bits of it or helping conduct interviews.
Shoutout to Sarah, Hannah, and Will.
Recording
I watch a lot of movies. I can appreciate good camera work, lighting, and storytelling. I didn't trust myself to do any of that. I tried to record as much as I could. The problem was that we were extremely busy some days with our only free time during bus trips. The 11-year-old battery in my camera also drained fairly quickly requiring me to have two portable chargers on me.
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I tried to interview everyone in the Cohort. The problem was that some people didn't want to be interviewed or gave answers that I wasn't able to use. It's probably for the best because the more interviews I had the longer it would have ended up being.
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I was still working out what the documentary should look like in my head while on the trip. I didn't know if we should look professional or if I should record us talking about tech or what. I basically let whatever happened happen. I recorded Batman Style because I would rather have enough usable video and have to sift through the junk than not have enough to make what I wanted.
This was my second time opening Premiere Pro.
During my introduction, the polaroid of "my girlfriend" reads, "Error 404 Girlfriend Not Found."
In Seattle the picture of Bill Gates house says Microsoft Bob. Bob was a failed iteration of Windows that looks like the inside of a home.
Naysa mentions the Gif in her speech at the Aviation Museum.
I made it because I thought it'd be cool to make a gif.
Editing
Outline
I cracked open Premiere Pro and got to work. I first imported all the footage and skimmed through the clips to refresh my memory. I cut anything that obviously wasn't going to make it in. From there I started to see the outline of a story.
I made a point of not doing an interview for myself while on the trip because I didn't want the documentary to end up centered around me. The camera could only see what I could so it would be super easy for it to turn into "Jacob's West Coast Adventure." I give myself enough screen time in the intro.
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After Effects
Now I'm not a professional in After Effects but I've dedicated a fair amount of my free time to learning it. Specifically motion design/mo-graph. I knew I could make something useable to start out the documentary.
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I edited a simple introduction of myself that briefly went over why and how I got into the program and what we were about to do. For the Cohort's faces intro, I learned how to animate objects on a path which was a quick and exciting way to first show Cohort 0.
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My favorite part about this intro is when Dr. Deer asks us if we like technology. It was one of those ideas that was born out of limitations. The original plan was to have Dr. Deer be on screen and the word technology would come shooting out of her mouth. But the picture of Dr. Deer I had was a headshot. No problem! Use Photoshop to remove her neck and put her on a random body from pexels.com. This obviously looked a bit odd. What if I made her look like a video game sprite so the weird details wouldn't be noticeable? Mosaic blur effect activated. I made sure to keep enough detail for viewers to see that they were still looking at Dr. Deer and a classroom. But it's also 2023 and my peers are all using smartphones. Will this just look like bad-quality assets on their 6-inch screens or will they see what I am trying to do? I made sure to test how the scene would look on a phone before I committed to it. When I think pixel-y video games I think of RPGs. I knew how to animate a simple box and text scroll. Voila! My vision was unmistakable now.
I thought the easiest way to show parts of the trip I didn't record would be to show those moments with pictures. It would also give me the chance to fill any gaps in the story. I liked the idea of using Polaroids because it could give those moments personality. The captions were hit or miss sometimes and I'm not sure how well they were received. The text did get a little warped from re-sizing them to the pictures. I liked the juxtaposition of Polaroids and 720p footage for a tech-savvy program.
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The last piece I needed was the ending. I wanted to have pictures of the cohort from the trip that didn't make it in the documentary as well as some from the semester that showed we were friends and not just classmates. I had never thought about how credits were made before and got a headache thinking about animating each photo to move up the screen one by one. Even if it just meant copying and pasting the Y-value keyframes. But then I thought of Star Wars. I remember seeing how they used a long glass pane that they pushed the camera over to make it look like it was moving. Why not just make a "glass pane?" The credits scroll is just a composition with the y-resolution multiplied by 10 and it moves up the visible area of the screen. I'm fairly sure this is how most productions would do this and I felt proud that I was able to think through it myself.
Sound Design
I wrote the script out and started recording the lines in Audacity. I used the noise reduction effect to get rid of the background noise on my voiceover. I attempted to do the same for the footage. However, when I did, I couldn't get rid of the noise without messing up the audio.
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The first music I added was at the introduction. I wanted something that sounded like retro video game music for Dr. Deer's section. Pixabay.com is my go to since I am no musician. I picked other retro-sounding music to put over the rest of the documentary since it would fit the theme I had built. I put music behind my voice when I spoke and in spots where there wasn't a lot of dialogue like when we first arrived to San Francisco and Seattle. I used pieces of, "sliding paper on table," for the polaroid's movement.
Polishing
I had basically everything in the place at this point. I put keyframes on the audio tracks, adjusted the timing of everything, and trimmed any fat that was left. I was very concerned with the runtime since I didn't know how long my audience would be interested in this video.
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I learned how to add subtitles and text for names. I used the glitch effect on the text with some audio of static to introduce everyone. I used the curves effect on some clips that were uneasy on the eyes. The dark Seattle restaurant went from a black and orange mess to a more visible black, yellow, and orange mess.
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I made a disclaimer for the beginning in case Texas A&M didn't like my video. ChatGPT helped with this a little. I also repurposed a gif that I had made for the program for a cinematic intro logo.
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After watching through it a couple of times and making tweaks where needed it was ready to post. I sent a message to the AIT group chat saying to expect it the next day at noon.
Results
I WON SUNDANCE!!! No not really. I did get over a hundred views within the first 24 hours though. The Cohort told me they liked it and even the CMO of Everbridge, Professor Alexander, watched through the whole thing judging by his comments on my LinkedIn post. I got a couple of messages from Cohort 1 students telling me how it got them excited for their upcoming trip. I think it accomplished what I wanted it to do.
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The experience also made it a success. I'm proud of what I made. In my opinion, I nailed the early 2000's documentary style. While watching, it felt like something I would see on HBO at 2 am. I also got to improve my After Effects and Premiere Pro skills and create something that didn't exist.
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