Rough Draft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWytoC6CTfI

This is a very rough draft of my video about Alexander von Humboldt. There is an additional audio track at the end which was supposed to be edited out. I am still getting the hang of audio so just stop the video at the last photo rather that listen to a repeat of the Moonlight Sonata for an additional 5 minutes. The video is 6-7 minutes rather than 11+.

I have to redo the narration which will be painfully obvious once you get to the middle of the video where the images and the narration get really out of sync. That and the fact that I am stumbling over the words is unfortunate. I also have to revise the script to explain more about that the landscapes towards the end, the waterfall and the volcano are by Frederic Church. Giving credit to the photographer Manfred Bruckels who photographed the von Humboldt statue by Reinhold Begas in front of Humboldt University in Berlin. His photo was listed under a Creative Commons license so I really appreciate being able to use it as I do not see me being able to get to Berlin to photograph the sculpture for this video.

My sources also have to be added which will probably take all of the last module of this course, that and completely revising the video as I redo the audio since the 7 revisions I saved did not save in any form resembling the final version of this video.

When I thought about what it would be like to make this video, I was not prepared for the amount of material that exists written by Alexander von Humboldt and also written about him. The process of skimming a 300+ page book to find 3-5 sentences which could sum up the work of an incredibly amazing mind, not to mention the thousands of pages written by him in his book Kosmos which I was not able to read, was an extremely daunting prospect. I hope that the quotes I found do justice to his accomplishments. 

About the images: I wanted to use images from the time period because I feel they capture elements of the thought and the Zeitgeist of the time. Showing the charts developed from Humboldt's readings, one of which was created by Bonpland, Humboldt's fellow explorer, shows the technical abilities of these explorer scientists. I think I should add Amie Bonpland to the video.

Aimé Bonpland (1773-1858) French Botantist

In the final analysis, the rough draft came out better than I thought it would. I enjoyed working with the art that I used in the video and learning about Alexander von Humboldt. The video captures some of the concept that I had when I began.