For my mini-project I wanted to do a video tour of my site, while zooming in on specific buildings, plants, and animal species. I wanted to show that even though it’s a small little garden, it has a lot to offer to anyone willing to see.
This connected me to my site because I looked into the history of the garden and I became even more familiar with the garden itself. I had to walk up and down it multiple times recording and also looking closely for different species to record and how to record it. And doing that made me more familiar with the layout of the garden and also the species within the garden which overall makes you connect more to a place. And specifically, I realized that my park is recycling water, which makes me appreciate it even more to know they’re doing their part for the environment. I didn’t realize there were so many insects using the sunflowers. It’s the first time I saw a caterpillar here too. I had seen the black phoebe bird multiple times but I never knew what type of bird it was, I always thought it was a chickadee so when I researched it for this project, I was surprising to learn it wasn’t. But overall just spending time in the garden and having to really pay attention to all the details of it and record all of it really makes me feel a lot more connected to it.
This project expanded my comfort zone because I am super self conscious about my voice and about being on videos and also have a lot of anxiety going out in public, especially by myself, let alone recording a video and recording myself talking. And I knew that when I planned this video, but I wanted to challenge myself. This was really a sort of test for me. While filming the one scene of me talking out loud to the camera there was a family by the top of the garden and it took me a few minutes to work up the courage to say the lines out loud. That sounds kinda stupid now that it’s over with and as I’m typing this but at the time it took me some time haha. Even just recording the tour video I felt self conscious since there were quite a few people at first and I felt like they were judging me. I also didn’t want to record them without permission so I kept having to angle the camera away from people while walking/recording the path which was awkward. I knew this video would require voice overs, and I could’ve done something else like drawing that doesn’t involve my voice or me making an appearance, but I wanted to challenge myself. Even though I felt anxiety and self-conscious while filming this, I did it anyway and I’m glad I did because now I know I can do things like this.
Sources:
Information signs at the Manhattan Beach Botanical Garden
Black phoebe overview, all about birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (n.d.). Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black_Phoebe/overview
Manhattan beach botanical garden. (2022, July 05). Retrieved July 12, 2022, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Beach_Botanical_Garden