This project was about the Zeta Tau Alpha’s (ZTA) sorority’s philanthropy. ZTA was raising money for Breast Cancer awareness outside of Lavery Hall in Blacksburg, VA. For promotion, members were charging passers-by to pie them in the face. I produced this video with a mobile journalism kit. The kit included a smartphone gimbal, a wired Lavalier microphone (with a transmitter and receiver), and an LED light.
An interesting discovery learned while completing this project was that ⅛ people will develop breast cancer in their lives. With numbers like this, it's no wonder why ZTA worked hard to raise these funds, even going to the extreme lengths of getting pied in the face. I also learned a lot about why people support this cause. In the story, I interviewed a man who has had many relatives fight breast cancer. Although his relatives were cured of the disease, he knows many people whose relatives were not cured of the disease—this was his motivation to do all he could to support this cause.
One struggle I had filming this project was trying to get the best audio even though a cable was missing from the mobile journalism kit. In my kit, there was no TRRS cable to capture audio, and a professor reserved all the other kits that day. With ZTA’s event only happening that day, I had to record audio on a spare phone. Ultimately, the audio was not the best, but it was still comprehendible, and the subtitles made readability smoother.
I will use what I learned from this project to produce better social media videos. For example, I was working on a rush video for the Delta Chi fraternity and could not figure out why the video was posted horizontally (16:9 aspect ratio) on Instagram Reels. Had I known to edit the video vertically (9:16 aspect ratio), the video would have fit perfectly.