A Plus of the Pandemic: Road Trips and the Outdoors

An extended spring break in March 2020 turned into a global pandemic that we are still living through today. COVID-19 disrupted life in many ways: graduation ceremonies canceled, indoor dining prohibited, and air travel discouraged. Through this difficult year, I made the decision to do college remotely. While I would have much rather been at Trinity for my first year, I was able to spend another year with my family and explore the outdoors of the Pacific Northwest and surrounding states.

To begin my video, I used the instrumental version of the song "Runaway" by Kanye West as subtle background audio behind the breaking news video clips reporting on COVID-19. Clips from Good Morning America, NBC News, and NBA on TNT were used to flashback to the first days of the pandemic, giving the video a nostalgic feeling. 

After the nostalgic opening to the video, more upbeat music begins, and a combination of A-roll and B-roll with voice-over (VO) runs through the remaining part of the video. The footage consists of mainly landscapes and scenery throughout Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and California, and I decided to add in a few shots of my family exploring the outdoors.

Reflecting back on the project, it was much more work than I anticipated. Initially, I only had a couple of shots for the video, but after editing, I realized my video was too short and I needed to be strategic in finding video clips and images from road trips last year to make the video a little longer. While I thought producing a video would be relatively simple, small things like finding transitions, choosing songs, adding subtitles, and choosing how to order shots in a video actually takes a lot of thought. 

Overall, I think the final cut of the video was successful. The opening video clips really created a feeling of suspense reflecting back to the unprecedented first days of the pandemic. As the video transitioned to the nature shots, I enjoyed bringing this footage into iMovie and reliving moments from the past year. In the video, drone footage I collected was used, and I think it worked very well. If I would've known about this project this past summer, my goal would have been to collect more drone footage, especially in Colorado with the snow, but I'm glad I was able to insert some clips from the drone in Oregon.

If I was to remake this video, I would add some more narration and make the video longer. Instead of focusing on multiple trips and events from the past year, I would focus on one trip, and make the video more like a "video blog" of my day-to-day life during a road trip. Additionally, I was forced to use some still photos in the video instead of solely video clips as I didn't collect enough video footage. 

While describing one positive thing from the pandemic was mainly a success, I would consider changing the few things I listed above if I was to remake it. Either way, creating this video was an extremely nostalgic experience and it helped me learn more about strong video production techniques.