Inspo & Design Process
For this project, I decided to make a video of myself doing a basic sun salutation that is perfect for anyone new to yoga! This is something I like to do every once in a while in the morning to kick start my day. I learned this in high school from a yoga teacher and I really enjoyed the flow and how awake and relaxed my body felt after just a couple short minutes. For some reason, I find videos on Instagram accounts like coffeeandrainbows super entertaining to watch and they inspired me to create a similar video for this Almost all of the yoga videos on instagram I have seen are sped up to fit a longer yoga session into one short video, so I kept that in mind when taking my footage and during the editing process.
Technical Detail
I knew I should attempt to capture my sun salutation from multiple angles, however only two of them really worked with my space. I was able to alternate between between both videos to show the positions from different angles and keep it a little more interesting. It also helped in spots where my roommates dog, Tucker, decided to jump in the frame here and there! I googled how to increase the speed of my video which was just as easy as selecting the clips, right click, select speed/duration, and change the speed from 100% to 160%. I chose 160 to keep my video in the time requirement, but for my final I plan on rerecording this sequence and holding my poses longer so I can speed things up even more. Another thing I want to add next week is an introduction portion of myself introducing the sun salutation in a close up, seated position. Lastly, I added some meditation music I found through Creative Commons to accompany my video. I even used some tools from the last unit and edited the audio in Audition!
Mikenna's Blog 
Hi Mikenna,
I think your topic is a great one, especially for many college students that are stressed. Yoga is a wonderful way to start your mornings off on the right foot; wish I did it more often! I thought picking the basic sun salutation was a good idea since beginners could definitely do it. The music in the background gave the feel of relaxation which fits perfectly. I only have a few suggestions. The first one being that along with the introduction you plan to do in the final, you might try and discuss what you are doing throughout the video. I saw in your post that you did audio, but there was no audio coming through. In addition, I thought certain times were a little fast to tell what exactly you were doing. Maybe go through and slow certain points down since you do have extra time you can use before you hit 2 minutes. All in all, I think this is a very nicely made video.
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My favorite part of my video is the sped up aspect of it. This is something I have always found slightly mesmerizing about yoga videos I see on Instagram. To better my video, I would like to tape myself holding the poses longer than I did the first times so that the poses are clearer even after being sped up. At the moment, the poses are a little too fast and unclear to viewers. A suggestion from a classmate was to have a voiceover explaining each pose as I am doing it. I think I may do that, or I’ll add the name of the pose in the corner as text. As I said in my blog post, I want to add a close up intro scene of me explaining the sun salutation, its benefits, and why I enjoy it. I am aiming to have my final video be just under two minutes with the additional and reshot footage.
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I loved your use of music and fluid camera shots throughout the video story. The music definitely went along with the theme of yoga and that music choice definitely helps bolster the video. The camera is at a good angle and distance from you as the video develops. The audience is able to see how exactly to perform this pose and what a good yoga pose looks like. As far as improvements go, I would try to add some kind of narration or texts. The story would improve if you included some kind of narration at the beginning of the video to introduce the yoga pose you are performing. Maybe text or subtitles could be added at points throughout the video so that your audience is clear on what exactly is happening in the video. This text could be instructions or steps to maintain the pose. Also, I would cut the video off just a couple seconds earlier so that the audience doesn’t see you turning off the camera at the end of the story. The story will look much more professional if the video is cut off before you have to turn the camera off.
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Hello Mikenna! I think that your video is both unique, and helpful because it shows ways that college students can relax through yoga after a long and stressful day. I could definitely see myself doing using some of these techniques that you have shown in the near future! I honestly feel that your “sun salutation “technique is a very good technique for beginners so I really appreciate you showing us viewers something that we can actually follow. Your video is great, however I do have a few critiques. My first critique is that next time you should explain in the video what you are actually doing, instead of just explaining it in your description. Secondly, I would like for you to add some audio into your work, I could barely here anything if not anything at all. Other than that, your video was excellent! With these critiques your final draft should come along pretty nicely.
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