Athens, Georgia: Living & Loving Life Through Video

Us, In Athens from JaWaVi Films on Vimeo.

How many stories as of late have been written about Athens, Georgia? I saw one the other day, from Outside Magazine, where it ranked the Classic City as the #6 in their 16 Best Places to Live in the U.S.

This article was one of the contributing factors for me to create my latest video. Of course, there were some other factors at play. One, being that I had just received a new iPhone 6s Plus and wanted to give it a fair “test drive” on its video capabilities. Two, I have Flimic Pro, a powerful video capture app, which I’ve used in the past, but wanted to test myself and film on it using it’s customizable features. And, finally, my wife and I had someone watching our kids for about an hour and a half this past Wednesday so we got lost for a little while and enjoyed what was one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen in quite some time. Of course, drinks and a fantastic meal were involved too.

Date Filmed: Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Location: Primarily East Clayton Street, near the intersection of Lumpkin in Downtown Athens, Ga
Key Landmark: The Georgia Theatre
Restaurant: Pauley’s Crepe Bar
Recording Device: iPhone 6s Plus, using Filmic Pro
Frame Rate: 1080p, 24 fps,
Resolution: 2.39:1
Editing Software: iMovie for Mac
Color Grading: Cameo app for iPhone (Vivid setting)
Musical Choice: “Nothing Is Good Enough (Instrumental)” by Aimee Mann

How I created this short, but sweet movie.

As I mentioned earlier, I have the Filmic Pro video recording app on my iPhone. Often times, I’m lazy and simply shoot on the native iPhone camera app, which by the way is pretty darn good. But it’s nice to be able to have a more advanced option to record on.

Typically all of my videos/films/movies are in the 16:9 format, which is a standard widescreen format. However, this time, I wanted to shrink the vertical nature of the capture settings and go for a more cinematic look and feel. This is where the Filmic Pro app comes in handy. I simply hit the resolution settings and chose 2.39:1, you could also go for an even more narrow field by selecting 2.59:1.

If you’re anything like me and typically shoot with the native iPhone camera app, the reduced FOV takes a little getting used to. The key factor in using Filmic Pro is where it allows you to manually set the exposure, focus and white balance. This helps when you’re changing locations, such as Jennifer and I did when walking from natural setting sunlight to a darker indoor setting.

iMovie is a great video editing option for your movies. It is super easy to use, but for an advanced editor, can be a bit limiting to put it nicely. Titles are fixed, the color options are hard to manipulate (this is why I exported the movie to color grade it with the Cameo app) and creativity with overlays and fly ins are basically not an option.

However, I like iMovie. Naturally, some would argue that if you’re not using Final Cut Pro or Premiere then you’re in the minor leagues. Perhaps, but simple storytelling videos these days do not need a ton of transitions, renderings and effects, and with a little “out of the box” thinking as you edit, you can make your work on iMovie seem a bit more advanced.

Here are two tricks I used during the editing of this video:

Pull focus: You’ll see that twice in this video it seems as if I blurred the lens as you would on a DSLR camera and used it to transition into another clip. By no means is this necessary, it simply adds a subtle layer of intrigue to the overall video. The pull focus is actually found in the title section of iMovie and comes preset with text. All you need to do is delete the text and stretch out the length of the title from clip to clip. This will accomplish a focus transition for your project.
Alternative Titles: Using titles, logos and lettering in iMovie can be tedious to say the least. No worries, there is a very helpful (and free) website where you can create your very own transparent PNG files. Like every good video or blog post an effective CTA (call to action) needs to be present. This will allow fans of your website or video to be able to find you and search for some of the other talents you might be able to offer, or better yet, purchase your product or service.

Jennifer and I are no different. For this video, I wanted there to be some mention of our easy-to-find social media accounts. A transparent PNG would do the trick. Here’s what I did:

First, I grabbed a couple of screen shots of the Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter logos, pasted them in to a Keynote slide deck with specifically a black background. For those of you not familiar with Keynote, it is Apple’s version of powerpoint.

Second, I typed in @JennySueMakeup and @JaWaViFilms onto the Keynote slide, took another screenshot (on a Mac, this can be accomplished by holding Shift+Command+4). The screenshot can typically be found on your desktop once completed.

Thirdly, I went to Lunapic, the website I linked earlier and uploaded my screenshot with the logos and our respective @mentions listed. Once the file uploads, you will click on the section of the picture that you want to make transparent so you can overlay it on your movie. In this case, all I had to do was click on the black background, it became transparent and I re-saved the file to my desktop.

Fourthly (is that a word?), pull up iMovie, select the video or picture previously loaded into your project you wish to lay the transparent PNG on top of and drag and drop the newly created PNG file to your project. Highlight the PNG and select picture-in-picture, move it into place, then select crop and “fit to screen”.

There you have it, your very own Alternate Title and very effective Call To Action.

In closing, I hope you enjoy the video. It shows how this beautiful city, located about 65 miles Northeast of Atlanta and home to the University of Georgia, can serve as the perfect background setting for an evening out with your loved ones. It can’t hurt that the sight lines and architecture are very photogenic as well.

A Call to Action: Check out my 2015 Price List

Should you have a collection of videos for yourself or your business and just aren’t sure what to do with them. Send them to me and let me help edit your videos into something fun and interesting to post onto your website or your social media channels. I’m also available to come and shoot your video for you, edit and upload the finished project for you. Here is my 2015 Price List.

JaWaVi Films on Social Media:

Vimeo | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Snapchat, search for jawavifilms

Jennifer’s a professional makeup artist and has worked more weddings and given more consults than one could count. If you’re a future bride or a woman who is tired of striking out at the mall makeup counters, send Jennifer an email to book your date or event. She can be reached at jennifer@jennysuemakeup.com

JennySue Makeup on Social Media:

Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Snapchat, search for jennysuemakeup

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