Assessment 2- Video surveillance

I wanted to discuss the issue of surveillance (while briefly touching of artificial intelligence) which we have covered this trimester in making video. Although I wanted to cover this issues in an engaging way. I believe the best way to engage an audience is through images and videos. Pixabay.com had such a large selection of non-copyrighted images and videos that it worked perfectly for this assignment. The overall message I wanted to convey was the immense impact that technology has made on our lives, and what price we pay to reap the benefits of these technologies, like sacrificing our own privacy. I thought it was important to show what great improvements technology has made to society in the beginning, and let the audience decide of their loss of privacy is worth the benefits they gain from what we all have today. My main focus was about privacy issues relation to technology and I briefly touched on artificial intelligence as it becomes relevant to the privacy issue, in terms of things like facial scanning and recognition, and devices in the home, that can be used to gather private information from millions of people every day. Although the rest of my video was concerned with how technology is often used as a means of surveillance on all of us, and is constantly gathering information based on the people who use it. I used relevant images and videos relating to what I was talking about in that moment, as a way to engage the audience. While these are simply copyright-free stock images/videos, it creates a visual for those watching, to feel like they’re receiving information both audibly and visually. The real information of the video was in the script, but I think the visuals added a nice aesthetic appeal to the video. I used a copyright free background music at only 10% volume. This was to create a calm atmosphere, without overpowering the video, and keeping the audience focused on the actual information rather than possibly being distracted by something like the music. The editing process involved a lot of simple cuts and ensuring all images were perfectly matched up with the audio. I did struggle with this at times, as I did some parts out of order. If I was to do this assignment again I would improve it by recording the audio in its entirety first, then overlaying the images later, as I can change the length of an image easily, but obviously cannot change the length of an audio clip I have already recorded. Originally my main issue was finding something to make the video visually engaging to the audience. I had filmed myself talking about the issues but I found this to be boring and realised I needed something more visually stimulating. To make it still personable I decided to include a clip of me in a vlogging style at the beginning, and simply left my voice as the audio for the rest of the video. The stock images and videos create a more professional looking video that has much more engagement with those watching.