The thought of doing a solo project greatly frustrated me as I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it. This was obviously the first project I had to come up with everything on my own and do everything. I wasn’t confident at all using the camera going into Project 4 because I operated it the least out of my group members in previous projects. I also greatly struggled to find a story idea that interested me because in my opinion the local stories in the area are quite boring. I finally decided to cover the YMCA of Centre County’s Polar Bear Plunge that took place at Black Moshannon State Park in Philipsburg.
Once I rented out the camera I took it back to my house and played around with it a little bit. After about 10 minutes with it I felt like like an expert in operating it. On a Saturday morning I had to drive 30 minutes to Philipsburg for the story. I didn’t mind it because it gave me some time to brainstorm before I was on site filming. The only bad thing is I didn’t have anyone with me to shoot my stand up. I simply wasn’t going to ask someone to go with me 30 minutes away at 9am to shoot a 15 second stand up for me.
Once I got there I knew I had picked the right thing to cover. The natural light looked great as well as many awesome shots, naturally, being in a State Park in the mountains. It was very cold but I didn’t notice it much because I was constantly moving around getting different shots. There were alot of people that showed up so it was easy getting different shots. There were also two real news stations there, including WTAJ, which made me feel that I picked a great story. I shot for about 3 hours nonstop and interviewed a few people. I interviewed the Event Coordinator which turned out very well. She had been interviewed by local news many times before so she knew exactly what she was doing and gave very professional answers which turned out great for my project.
Then after a few days it was time for the editing process. All my shots were saved on my SD card and looked good so there was no problem there. It took me two different days editing in the Finestra Lab but it went relatively smoothly. I was a little nervous about editing by myself but everything turned out well. I didn’t enjoy being by myself all those hours shooting and editing the project but with that being said it turned out well. Project 4 definitely boosting my confidence big time in being able to produce a story.
(Picture taken on the bridge that goes over the lake)