Table of Contents
Pitch
Polishing the Pitch
By Week 12 the pitch was largely finalised, we discussed our pitch with our supervisor and completed some improvements. The main addition to our pitch deck was a revision of our branding by our UX team and data and comments from playtesting. During our previous sprints, I had been working on playtesting SPACE, I did not have a chance to collate this data until the beginning of week 12. We also removed quotations, that weren’t adding anything to the pitch overall and saved some seconds. We improved the overall visuals of our pitch by keeping consistent typography, type size and strong imagery. We spotted and corrected some typos.
The Final Pitch Deck
Team Rock-It Presentation 2021. SPACEFig 3. Team Rock-it! 2021. Pitch Deck
Demo
The team had planned and recorded footage for our demo by our planned ‘packaging for submission’ week and I had started on editing the video transitions in After Effects. The team had also selected stock videography together and created a storyboard of how everything would fit together. All that was left to do was ‘package’ the demo by polishing the transitions, last-minute touches and ideas – this was a bigger list of things to do than I anticipated.
Workflow
Record Prototype Footage (SPACE and XD Wireframes) > Animate Video Transitions > Overlay text/transcript to make impact > Refine Video Transitions > Branding > Music > Final Polish
- Team: Planning, Storyboard, Narration, Video/image transition and edit & Video Selection
- Jo: Navigational Footage, Branding, Typography & Music
- Sarah: Prototype footage & Art Direction
Version Control
The team worked collaboratively on the demo but we ran into problems with version control and the Adobe software. The version control or team projects in the Adobe Suite would not run on every team members computer, so we decided to send MP4’s back and forth. I still think this was the easiest and fastest solution, which still meant we worked in a collaborative sense and everyone felt involved in the process. Setting up working version control for video editing in the last moments of a project would not be a simple thing for me to do. OneDrive, GDrive and Dropbox were suggested but these would involve lengthy upload and download times for a full after effects file, with stock videos and so on. There is no version of GitHub for video editing that I am aware of or that I reasonably had time to implement and research. Generally editing the MP4 files together only lead to problems in the last minute stress and I feel our end result benefited from our collaboration.
Polishing the Demo
Tools: After Effects, Premier Pro
The video was originally edited in After Effects to achieve polished transitions and to super-impose the XD Prototype onto an iPad.
The UX Team had some problems with software and lost some work, honestly, I couldn’t tell, I thought that the video they sent looked great.
Going Off Plan!
The planning documentation for the demo and the final product is a little different because we added some last-minute ideas. This flying-off-the-seat-of-our-pants thinking did mess with my preparation, preparation, preparation philosophy but you can also prepare for fast creative decisions. In case there were gaps I had filmed extra footage of the prototype the week before which we could use to fill the gaps. The final additions really added a ‘pow’ to our ideas.
The work was cut down from the original storyboard I had planned leaving an extra minutes worth of footage, there were some creative arguments at this stage. The team wanted to include more stock footage and less of the prototype, this was a little hard to hear. I have worked so hard on the prototype but it can only represent the time I had to put in, and this is about what will look best, not my personal feelings. We compromised and I added some more footage of the prototype and more of stock videography, which the team said in both cases they loved. I felt that in the end, it was the perfect mix.
I love the branding and style of our demo. I also explained that part of our approach for investment is to advertise ourselves, so I wanted to include our faces at the end of the pitch. The team hesitantly agreed. I think a short call to action, to join Team Rock-it for a cocktail in SPACE next time added a nice touch to our demo and I’m confident about our work.
Team Rock-it have reached our final destination
“Prepare for trouble, and make it double! To protect the world from devastation! To unite all peoples within our nation!” (Pokemon Company 1997) Team Rock-it have performed our pitch and demo!
Fig 5. Tenor 2021. Team Rocket Prepare for Trouble [GIF]
List of Figures
Figure 1. Masters 2021. Stand out with Sustainable Practices
Figure 2. Sarah MASTERS. 2021. Describe Space
Figure 3. Team Rock-it!. 2021. Pitch Deck
Figure 4. Sarah MASTERS. 2021. Demo
Figure 5. Tenor. 2021. Team Rocket Pokemon [GIF] Available at: https://c.tenor.com/9OTugC1NH-gAAAAC/team-rocket-pokemon.gif [accessed 21 Aug 2021].
References
POKEMON. 1997. Pokemon [film].
‘Premiere – Does Version Control Have a Part in the Video Production Workflow?’ 2021. Video Production Stack Exchange [online]. Available at: https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/12566/does-version-control-have-a-part-in-the-video-production-workflow [accessed 23 Aug 2021].
