At first the thought of creating a video about a certain aspect of the Southern community worried me. I had no idea how I was going to create a 5-7 minute video about Southern. After I sat down and brainstormed some ideas I quickly narrowed down topic ideas to Southern Cheerleading. I felt better after I choose a topic that I have a personal connection to but I was still worried about hitting the 5-7 minute mark on the video. As I began to videotape practices and games, the time limit became the least of my worry. I focused more on the content of the video rather than the length and how I was going to connect Southern Cheerleading to the university. When I submitted my draft, I was shocked that I was halfway done with my project, having been so worried with the time limit before.
Overall I thought I did well on my video midterm project. My topic was spot on with going along with the theme of Southern spirit since cheerleading is all about showing school pride and spirit. My video opened with a video taken at the homecoming pep rally. Instead of showing the whole performance, I decided to take clips from the video and put music in the background. I thought that this was a very good way to start the video, I was able to grab and attract an audience. After my opening, I started by showing pictures and videos of Southern Cheerleading at various events and games. I then placed slides that discussed what Southern Cheerleading was all about, videos and pictures followed to prove my points. I would also put in interviews from girls on the team in these sections to then again provide support for my slides. Though I did have four people interviewed for my project, I wish I was able to incorporate an upperclassmen interview, but the video I took for it didn’t work when I imported it into iMovie. The interviews I included though, were very good. They answered the question perfectly and helped make my video more exciting.
Technology wise, I have very little issues with using iMovie. It was a little tricky at first figuring out how to place videos and pictures into the program, but with the help of some friends and classmates who had experience with iMovie I was able to successful make my video and submit it on time. The only issue I had with sound during the project was the last interview with the cheerleading coaches. I took the interview after the game and there was a lot of background noise that made it difficult to focus on what Alyssa and Emily were saying. I played around with the sound settings and boosted the volume and tried to reduce the background noise. The video is still kinda hard to hear, but it was the best I could do. Another issue I had was with my upperclassman interview. For some reason when I recorded the video on my phone, it wouldn’t allow me to import it into iMovie. It was very frustrating and I tried everything I could to resolve the issue but was unsuccessful.
If I was given more time to work on this assignment I would have wanted to incorporate the competitive aspect of cheerleading. Not only do we cheer at home football and basketball games but Southern Cheerleading performs an intense two and a half minute routine that they perfect until nationals. Including this in my video would have shown that cheerleading has evolved into a competitive sport that also still keeps in mind the traditional cheerleading.
Overall I think I deserve an A on this project. I worked hard and continuously to provide a quality
finished video. I started with a clear beginning that grabbed the audience’s attention, then listed the qualities that Southern cheerleading has and then tied it into why cheerleading is important to the university. I enjoyed working on this project over the course of the past couple weeks! 
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