This blog is about a one minute video prototype demonstrating one of Nike’s App: Nike+ Run Club, which is designed for runners to track their activities.
Design
The design of this video aimed to be as exciting as possible since the purpose of the App was to encourage people to workout. I was hoping my audiences to get excited and motivated to go for a run after watching this video. An very important element of this video was the music, Light em up. The whole video was designed for this song, catering its beats. The reason I did this way was simple, based on my video editing experience, adjusting speed or duration of videos was relatively easy, but editing music was very difficult because the pitch would change if you change its speed. Therefore, in order not to change the music in the editing phase, I did some light editing on the song to make sure it fits the one minute requirement before I drew the storyboard and planned the visuals. Then I just left the music unchanged until the video was done.
There are 5 features demonstrated in the video:
Scenario 1:
- Feed: the feature that allows the user to browse Nike’s news;
- Activity: the history of workouts done by the user, including data and analysis;
- Club: the place to check out and reserve Nike events;
Scenario 2:
- Run: the core functionality for this App;
Scenario 3:
- Auto-pause/resume: the feature that automatically pauses tracking when user stops, and resumes tracking when user starts running.
Stodyboard
Drawing a storyboard with preset music was fairly simple because I did not have to plan the time duration for each scene. I already had empty slots (the music beats), so all I need was just to fill in those slots with footage.
The storyboard was precisely planned. Each second had its purpose. If you watched the video, you will find out that the video is almost exactly the same as the storyboard. The execution of the storyboard was very strict.
Filming and Editing
Filming the video was fun. Because the due date was on Monday, I had to shoot the video on the weekends. However, Seattle was rainy on weekends. I had no choice but continuing the project. Here I would like to give my special thank to the runner that appears in my video, Jack Sun. He helped me filmed all the scenes on a cold rainy day with only one shirt and one pair of shorts on. Thanks to his dedication, the filming session went really well. We got all scenes that I wanted in two hours.
Another interesting fact was the use of wheat flour. I planned one scene where the actor clapped his hand and the talcum powder went all over (like what LeBron James always does). However, nobody had talcum powder, so we ended up using wheat flour. It worked!
I used both my own iPhone and Apple Watch in the video.
You may noticed that my Apple Watch was actually broken. I did not broken it during the filming session. I broke it a while a ago but I still decided to use this one because it looked very stylish.
Editing the video was not very hard since I had a lot of experiences editing videos. However, it was still a time consuming process as you can see how many video clips that I imported from my camera.
Finally, big salute to my dearest camera, the hero of this filming session. It underwent two hours of raining while remaining functional.
Feedback
Likes
- Perfect editing: people love the organic combination between video and audio;
- Nice idea to pause the music when the person in the video was pausing running;
- Very exciting music (people love fall out boys).
Need Improvement
- Demonstration of the UI is short: people did not have time to watch a scene because they switched too fast;
- One person mentioned that she did not know what the App was until the ending credit. I might add an intro for the next time;
- A little overexposing: I turned the ISO a little too high so some parts are very white. I should have turned it down a bit.
In terms of the nature, this video is more “promotional” than just a walk-through. It is more like a TV commercial that attracts people’s attention with cool visuals and exciting music. The intended audience are potential users. However, as a prototype, this video lacks some elaborations on the App’s features. It can be more descriptive on the operation of the App. Although it is very difficult to thoroughly illustrate an App in a minute, I could use more time on demonstrating the App rather than scenarios.