e0.1.0
Updated June 8, 2022You’re reading an excerpt of Admitted by Soundarya Balasubramani. Written by an Ivy League graduate from India, this is the proven guide for students worldwide looking to pursue undergraduate or graduate study abroad in the U.S., Canada, or Europe. Purchase for instant access to the guide and other exclusive resources—including sample SOPs, sample resumes, scholarship lists, and a private community with other readers.
First, you became a director by choosing the story and developing the content. Now, it’s time to become an actor (and possibly, a videographer).
Here are two ideas you can adopt while shooting the video:
Involve props that display your creativity and/or skill.
Shoot in a location that has some relevance to the content of your video. If your one big idea is centered around building low-cost technology to improve agricultural yield, then shoot it in a farm or a field if that’s feasible.
Sai followed the connecting the dots approach and split his life into three segments. As he spoke about each segment, he solved one layer of a 3×3 Rubik’s Cube on camera. Once it was fully solved, he picked up another, more complex, cube to metaphorically show that he’s entering the next phase in life. And ended it with how the university can help him do that.
Apart from your own voice, there could be other noises around the room such as the white noise from a fan, the hum of an air-conditioner, or the ping from your phone, not counting human intervention. Alleviate some of these problems by shooting the video in an empty room devoid of distracting noises. If you choose a specific location like we mentioned above, then keep a mic next to you to record the audio clearly.
Let’s move to the final phase of making a video.
Ideally, you should aspire to shoot the video in one sitting and preferably in the same location. But, if that isn’t possible and you end up shooting bits and pieces, no problem! There is enough technology out there that will do the job of stitching these together.
There are three stages in the editing process:
Stitching it together: Use some of the freely available apps, such as Quik, Blender, or Lightworks, to stitch the videos together (assuming it’s not a single shot). Sai used the Quik mobile app and managed to edit his entire video in less than an hour. These apps also let you add images and text in between as needed.