During this semester we’ve all focused on different elements of online video and sketching. We started our first assignment by focusing on a case study and then spent the remainder of our assignments expanding from that focal point. For my assignment I chose to study the websites “The Katering Show”, which is about two sassy, Melburnian comedian’s that attempt to follow and deconstruct different food trends. In this essay, I will attempt to reflect on the many ideas and issue’s I have encountered throughout this semester through each project I have completed and what I have learnt within those assignments.

Project Brief One:
During the first assignment, the task was find a video that we could use as a case study, although this was unknown to us at the start. The criteria asked us to find a video, online or on any other media, that we enjoyed or inspired us. My choice was “The Katering Show”, “an online video web series hosted by two sassy Melburnian comedians called Kate“, I had never been a fan of any webseries, however this one caught my eye a week back and their comedy style had really caught my interest. The show itself “explore[s] and hilariously break down the food trends that have come and gone”, and I believed that it “shines in the comedic and satirical theme that underlines its episodes”. Despite this assignment not being marked, it was something that I really enjoyed doing, because I enjoyed digging up background knowledge on something I was interested on, rather than being forced to research something that was simply provided for me. I did multiple posts on my blog  on the characters, overall theme of the show and my rating criteria on the show’s humour and presentation.

Project Brief Two:
This assignment required us to gain a partner, I ended up with Troy, due to our similar case studies during the first assignment. We both had a webseries that were comedy based, and therefore it only made sense to work together to produce our sketches. We were to produce 10 sketches in relation to the nature and narrative of our case study. However this is when we began to have some issues, initially we were unable to choose on which case study to focus on and so we thought we could do both, but as time went by the “main issue we encountered was fitting out sketches into our concept statement” which spurred from us trying to use both case studies. We ultimately chose to focus on “The Katering Show” as the episodes were a lot shorter and easier to manage. After receiving feedback for our sketches we realised that “we were making sketches based upon the themes of the series rather then the actual video concepts that were being used”. Our sketches relied too much on reflecting on what we had already seen in the shower and “focused too much on the actual structure of our case study, and instead we needed to experiment and branch out on the way our sketches should me filmed and presented”, rather than the actual concepts and narrative of the show.

Project Brief Three:
Similar to the first assignment, we had to create sketches based on our case study. However the difference in this brief was that we could use digital images and that we had to do a minimum of 14, but if we wanted to we could create as many as we liked. The more we created the higher our grade would be, this encouraged us to generate more ideas and so we would be able to spawn more sketches. I started exploring other media platforms – that was previously suggested to me – such as Snapchat, “where people could take pictures of themselves/their environment, caption it and then send it to whoever they have on their friendlist”. I also made a storyboard where it showed images of food that needed to be put together to create a cake, this was done through Photoshop and was inspired by another image I had seen online. Our “main idea is “Instructional” but we also want to incorporate other elements into our main idea as well”, despite having a more structural and solid foundation for our sketches this time around we still had trouble because “we haven’t branched out enough from our original ideas”. We still needed too explore the different concepts that had been presented in the show and stop focusing on the cooking aspect of it all. We presented our final sketches to a panel of judges, from our videos the main interest that was derived from it was “a tutorial/instructional video with a non-linear fashion”. Many of Troy’s videos had begun focusing on a non-linear theme which is what we ended up focusing on in the next assignment.

Project Brief Four:
We started off our final project with this prompt:

To focus on the non-linear aspect of our videos and how the information can be presented in non-traditional ways and how this can be combined with other mediums.

After the past experiences we’ve had in the other assignments, Troy and I, discovered that it was a lot easier to come up with a final and singular idea to present as our prototype. We spent a little less time outside of class, refining our idea and then the time in class we would work with Seth on expanding our prompt a little more, so it was a little clearer. Our prompt then became:

We are interested in the way a tutorial video is communicated in regards to linear step-by-step processes.

After brainstorming together we both decided on a video that uses the annotative system on YouTube. A single video will be a focal point that have annotations and links to different videos that show the different steps in the recipe – in this case Red Velvet Cake – and each will be in a different form. “Looking back on our previous sketches we really enjoyed all the videos that have been created and we really couldn’t decide on a certain form”, the most popular ones we ended up choosing was: speed painting, flash game, vine and a comical talk show theme. We also ended up having a more comical element to the videos, however this wasn’t a major focus that we wanted to use. The final issue Troy and I encountered was our presenting skills, despite improving throughout the course of the term we still had issues will clearly presenting our information and the concepts we explored. “It was obvious to us that we did have a more to do before we were going to be ready for our presentations”.

This term has been a real eye opener for me in terms of online video and experimenting with different elements. I really enjoyed creating videos for platforms other than YouTube, as well as being able to focus on tutorial/instructional videos in terms of a non-linear structure. Ultimately I have enjoyed this class and the way it has taught me to be more open minded and creative when it comes to videos online.