Commentary (1000 word explanation)

The idea to create a Video essay around E-sports came from my own love of and interest in the E-sports industry and the fact that it was going to be linked to my future aspirations both in University and future career. as aimed at adults. Initially I had decided to do a podcast on the subject rather than a dissertation as I wanted to be able to go in depth with my explanations and believed using a podcast I could cover more information in a non-boring way. However, as I did research about the E-sports community and its terminology I realised that it’s a much more visual topic and decided to change from a podcast to a video essay

Early on I started my research by looking at information on the history of E-sports along with what is E-sports as a whole, which allowed me to build up a knowledge that would be important later. This meant that I was able to use that research within my script later on to help with my script writing. Early on I also started looking at the idea of some primary research and started coming up with a set of questions that would be beneficial.

I kept the project on track by adding monthly updates to my blog checklist so I could keep track of where I was in the project. This allowed me to fully keep track of my project and to succeed in advancing it. While I had hoped to finish my project earlier, I had taken a huge 2 month break due to mock exams and study leave after Christmas break. This also included some time after that period to look over my subjects and make sure I was doing well in them

Initially the project had been about the business aspects that surround E-sports. However, after doing my initial project research I realized that there were so many interesting aspects of the community along with the business side of E-sports.

The direction for my video essay was based on a section of secondary research of video essays on YouTube, I also used this method for script writing and general advice. The common features used in these video essays and the method of presenting ideas can be seen in my final draft of my script and the video essay. Examples of this are the way I present a narrative throughout aspects of the video and try and showcase some of my own personal ideas and experiences. This was because I felt that the audience would be able to relate to my stories and therefore have a deeper understanding about my love for the topic. I decided to split my video into multiple sections and segment it, which is just a simple change that means if you have watched a section and need to leave you can go to exactly where you need to be, plus it continues to add a sense of narrative and helps me move from topic to topic without needing awkward cuts after I’m done. Within my script I decided to add visual notes in some parts so that when I look over my script I can get a good idea of what my video should look like and maybe what pacing I should have throughout.

After finishing the script, I moved on and voiced over it all. I mostly followed the script to the letter however in some parts there was some improvisation to make the flow of the video better or because I had thought of a better way to put it. I obviously recorded in segments as it meant that there wasn’t just an endless audio recording, because of this it made editing the main bulk of the video easier

Afterwards I took that audio recording looked it all over and then began on the editing process using those notes I had put within the script to guide me. (I edited using DaVinci Resolve a free program like Adobe’s premier pro, which I had mostly taught myself how to use throughout the year as I had used it for media studies and personal projects) - i was too ambitious when considering the Video essay factor as filling in video footage to fit with Voice over can be difficult, because of this i decided to do a hybrid piece of work initially keeping the Visual aspects and later moving to a more podcast style only using key visuals rather than filling in the whole video

After the video was finished, I exported it and sent the video out to close friends as a way to get feedback along with watching it back myself to see if I had made any fatal errors within my work. I then changed anything I thought was wrong and made sure it was as perfect as I could get it. This was, on the whole, mostly a positive result as it showed that I had delivered the topic clearly and they understood and enjoyed any data I had given. Then after this I uploaded it to YouTube as a private unlisted video and went into the description posted an EPQ blog link so that people could check out my blog with any of the research i did within the video

There were some issues that I experienced whilst completing the project including the issues around having to learn how to research and write a compelling script, which perhaps was a bit too long and made the video drag out a bit for an EPQ project and, in retrospect, I perhaps could have shortened it down by not focusing as much on some of the data I had gathered while doing research. If I had the chance to do this again, I would set my aims more reasonably and perhaps try and strictly schedule myself a bit more as the project had come down to the wire for me.

The presentation went well for me and helped me to develop my communication and presentation skills. This also allowed me to show off my hobby and teach people about my project and why they should be interested in it.

My presentation and preparation skills were improved as I used the PowerPoint as a base for what I wanted to talk about rather than as a script which meant I could expand when needed and answer questions confidently