Creating Allegiance was one of the more enjoyable media projects I have worked on in the past. I selected Ben Greenwood, a good friend of mine, as my subject for this film because he is comfortable being on camera, and I know he has a good story. For this film I used my Cannon 7D and the Zoom H2N recorder borrowed from the university.

I was very happy with the footage I collected at the team training sessions. I was able to get more than enough footage as I shot from numerous different angles on all their drills and warmups which then gave me more material to work with in the editing process. Additionally, I am very pleased with the music I sourced. I believe that music suits the mood I wanted to create for this video.

However, one part of my work I was very unhappy with was the interview audio. I chose to conduct the interview out doors which I think was a mistake. At the time of day there is quite loud insect noise which meant there was this constant hum in the background. Additionally, every so often a bird would start making noise. As a result I spent a long time in Adobe Audition trying to clean up the audio. I was able to extract the hum in the background, however I could not take out the sound from the near by birds. In the future I will reconsider doing interviews outside and hopefully as I get more experience with Adobe Audition, I will learn how to clear up audio more effectively.

In the week before the project was due I asked my class for some feedback. This was very helpful because it was clear afterwards that I was too focused on Ben’s routine and not him. I think in the interview I got too caught up in the lacrosse aspect of his life, but in order to create an engaging portrait, I had to show more than just that. Thus, in the week leading up to the due date, I tried to shift the focus onto his dedication to the sport.

I did find it challenging to stay within the time constraints. Having collected so much good footage both at the team training sessions and at the gym, I found myself wishing I could include more. Additionally, the requirement to include found footage was very challenging. At first it was very difficult to find lacrosse stock footage as it is not a very well known sport.

Another challenge I faced was in regards to story boarding. I prefer to use story boards as opposed to scripts when conducting interviews because you can never really predict how someone will respond to a question. However when I attended the team training session, I had no idea what they would be doing. Therefore, before filming I watched a few lacrosse and fitness videos to give me some ideas, but for the majority of the practice I had to film whatever they did whether I had planned to or not. This was good because when they began an exercise I could watch and film for all different angles, but it was not so good because you are unsure of what footage you will end up with. Luckily, I managed to get some great footage. Overall, I am pleased with the end result.