Tag: pitch

How to make a pitch video

As you all know, instead of giving 5 minute presentations, we are asking you to make short videos instead. These should cover the same topics your 5 minute presentations would. These should be 5 minutes maximum, though you may find that you can pack a bit more in when you are making a video, so may be able to tell your story in 4 minutes or so.

This shift in delivery produces (at least) two new challenges for you: you need to think about how your content translates to video form, and you need to figure out how to make a video.

As I think we have talked about before, these kinds of presentations are an act of storytelling. Stories about what you have done so far, and cyberpunk fictions about your near-future adventures doing your project. All of the same elements of the proposal can fit into this video based format.

If it is helpful, you might consider thinking of these videos in terms of a Kickstarter campaign video. Kickstarter has produced some good guidance on this process. Here is some guidance from their Creator Handbook. Their advice should sound familiar:

Who are you? Introduce yourself, your team, and any similar work you’ve done (show some examples!).

What are you planning to make? The more details, the better. Sketches, samples, prototypes — it all helps backers get as excited as you are.

Where did this project come from? Tell people how you got the idea, and how much you’ve accomplished so far. Sharing the project’s history helps others understand the kind of work you do, and how you go about it.

What’s your plan, and what’s your schedule? Lay out a clear, specific timeline for what backers can expect.

What’s your budget? A simple breakdown lets people know you’ve thought things through and have a workable plan, so they can trust you to use funds wisely.

Why do you care? Tell people why you’re passionate about your project and committed to making it happen.

Kickstarter’s Creator Handbook

Even the most startup tech-bro approach to the pitch video retains the key storytelling aspects we have been talking about: The Problem, The Solution, The Characters, The Features. Kickstarter videos, like most advertising, ends with some kind of Call To Action. It is worth thinking about whether or not your videos are a form of advertising, or if there is some kind of Call To Action you can or should add.

How To

Making a video may seem like a technically daunting task, but it can be as simple as propping up your cell phone on a level surface, and telling the story (like the late night hosts have been doing this week!) Or recording your voice and screen as you work your way through a powerpoint presentations (like many of us have been doing as we record flipped-classroom lectures for our asynchronous online courses.) If you want to get fancy, you can… but you don’t have to!

Camera and Sound

You should know that sound is more important than image. If you notice, Colbert and some of the others are using their wireless headphones… as a substitute for a lavalier microphone (not because they are getting stage directions from the control booth.)

Lighting will make or break your image: always make sure the camera is between your subject (you!) and the light source. The natural midday light from apartment windows is amongst the most beautiful, even and flattering light around.

Keep your camera still (unless you holding your camera is part of your story telling). A quick search reveals dozens of hacks for cell phone tripods.

Editing

Here are some technical resources for editing and screen recording. For screen recording on MacOS, you can use Quicktime; just be sure you do some tests to make sure the sound is working (I made that mistake yesterday and recorded an entire 35 minute demo with no sound!!) Windows also has screen recording functionality, though it may not be as straightforward. If you are already getting used to Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, you can also use the recording function to generate a video of whatever you might do on screen.

You can do basic video editing in Quicktime. If you are MacOS, iMovie is your best bet for a simple effective editor, with lots of YouTube tutorials; you can even get it for iOS, so you could conceivably shoot and edit the whole thing on your iPhone. If you are on Windows, Hitfilm Express is the best reviewed free video editor (I haven’t used it before); you can also use some of the built in tools to do basic editing. If you want to get fancy, DaVinci Resolve is currently the favorite free full-featured video editing software.

But remember, you don’t have to get fancy! You just have to tell a good story.

Final Project and Presentation

Final Paper Assignment for Core II

Your final work for Core 2 is to produce a project proposal that includes a basic proof of concept. Yes, we will be reading it for a grade, but your true audience for this proposal are the gatekeepers who hold institutional purse strings, allocate resources and space, approve curriculum, or administer technology resources. Your job is to convince this hypothetical reader that your project is intellectually and/or pedagogically vital, builds on but doesn’t duplicate existing work, is done in the most effective and efficient way possible, uses the right tech, and most importantly: that you can pull it off in the time frame that you have available to you: the ITP Independent Study.

Your project proposal should be 12-15 pages in length. You are welcome to follow the guidelines for the NEH Digital Humanities grants, or another discipline specific set of requirements. This proposal will be the basis for your ITP Independent Study proposal. Generally, it needs to include:

  • an abstract or summary with a clear problem statement
  • a project narrative that gives the practical, historical, theoretical, and technical contexts for the project proposed
  • an environmental scan of projects that operate in a similar technical, scholarly, or pedagogical space as yours
  • a clear, relevant, and detailed work plan or project timeline
  • proof that you have a strategy to complete the project within one semester

Proposals typically include a budget; you may choose to include this, but it is not required. You may find it useful to include your personas and your use case scenarios. Some disciplines may have other, discipline specific requirements; please include those if relevant.

The proof that you can complete the project can incorporate your biography, or a description of how the proposed project builds on your previous and related work, but in this instance, you need to complete a proof of concept for the project. This will be different for each of you, but it needs to demonstrate that you have learned enough about the task at hand that you will be able to complete it. Most of this learning is technical, but it might not be exclusively technical.

Some examples of past proofs of concept:

  • When proposing a group wiki assignment, one person created a simulation of one assignment at the halfway state, with the text edited in character by the user accounts for each of the 4 personas described.
  • When proposing an online resource for images for use in teaching theatre courses, one person created a record for one image in Omeka.
  • When proposing a mobile app, one person found an open source quiz app they could build on, changed the text of one of questions, and recompiled the app.
  • When proposing a student assignment to create multimedia historical maps of NYC neighborhoods, one student created a sample map with the Google Maps API that contained a map point for each type of media expected to be used (video, audio, photograph, text).
  • When proposing a game, a student might present a draft of the game’s narrative, or presented one element of its gameplay.

You will be turning in a text, and giving a presentation. The presentation will take place on one of the last two weeks of class, May 11 or 18. These will be 10 minute presentations, with 10 minutes for discussion/feedback. We will invite all ITP faculty to join us, though we don’t expect all will be able to make it for both of the days.

Here is the grading rubric if you like that kind of thing.

The text will be due May 20th. Please upload it as a Word document to the Files area of our course group. We will not give extensions.

Midterm Assignment

Your midterm assignment will be to create a project proposal that has two scope variations: one full, and one reduced version.

Your proposal should follow this structure:

  1. An introductory descriptive paragraph, which should include a problem statement, and say *what* your tool/thing will do.
  2. A set of personas and/or user stories.
  3. A use case scenario (where would someone find your tool/thing and how would they use it). Keep it short.
  4. How you will make the full fledged version. This is your “ideal world” version that fulfills all of your visions and fantasies (what tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc).
  5. Your assessment of how much time the full-fledged version will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.
  6. How you will make the stripped-down version. The stripped down version is the minimally viable product. It is the most *bare bones* version to prove that what you are trying to get at is viable. (What tools you will use, how you will get them, how confident you are that all the moving parts will work together, etc)
  7. Your assessment of how much time the stripped-down version will take, and how much of the skills you currently know and what you would have to learn.

You are welcome (but not required) to repeat the last two steps with scope variations in-between the full fledged and bare bones version.

In previous years, this assignment asked you to propose two projects. If you are, indeed, trying to choose between two projects and fleshing them both out would be useful for you, you can fulfill the midterm assignment by offering what’s above for each idea, minus the stripped-down version.

Class that week (on Monday March 30th) will be dedicated to workshopping the proposals. We will follow the following format: you will have 5 minutes to present your proposal orally (or one of your two proposals, if that applies), and we will have 5 minutes for feedback. Think of this as a pitch. You will want to lay out the project abstract, present very short versions of your personas, give one use case scenario, and then talk about how you would build it, and how long you think it would take.

You will submit your proposal to the Forum by Wednesday April 1st, which will give you the chance to reflect the feedback you got in class on Monday.