The public service announcement, or PSA, is like a commercial — but for a good cause. You will make a PSA for your school or classroom library. The goal of the PSA is to make students return their overdue library books. Of course, you can choose any topic for your PSA.

1. Get to know your library.
2. Create a storyboard for your PSA (for examples, see Schoolhousevideo.org).
3. Write your narration.
4. Write a schedule for times when you can videotape in the library (or classroom):
• when it is empty
• when it is crowded
• shots of the library stacks for your special effects
• shot of a student reaching for a book that isn’t there
5. Capture your video into the computer.
6. Add your special effects.
7. Add a narration.
8. Save your project to tape, a digital file, or DVD!
   
   

Writing the Storyboard

Storyboards are essential for PSA's

The purpose of this video is to make people return library books when they are finished with them. Tell this story with these scenes:

1. A student or students try to check out a book that is not on the shelf; they are sad.
2. “The Mystery of the Missing Book” — or whatever title you want
3. The library as a place where many people come and go
4. A mysterious person checks out the missing book
5. Various shots of every nook and cranny of the library
6. The sad student(s) gives up, disappointed.
7. “Only You can Prevent the Heartbreak of Lost Books: Return Your Library Books!” — or whatever message you choose

You will use special effects to make shots 3 and 5 more interesting. The titles in 2 and 7 will be made with the Title Designer (click on Title in menu). You will use the Title Designer to “disguise” the mysterious person who checked the book.

The narration
No student will speak to the camera, so there are no lines to write. Write a narration that informs people that “only they can prevent the heartbreak of a missing book.” This will be a PSA — a commercial with a worthwhile message. You can get a sense of how to write PSAs by watching PSAs or commercials on television. They are very similar. (See Lesson 5 for more information on this genre.)

You will be creating a ghost-like look at the library for this project, so your writing might build up the “mystery” of disappearing books. There will be a section when the library is visually searched for the missing book (no people in the shot, just shots of the library stacks, shelves, carts, etc.), and this is the chance to show off your knowledge of the sections of the library, what books are shelved in what sections, etc. Your librarian or teacher will be glad to help you with this. This PSA will also show people something about where things are in the library if you write that into the narration!

Shooting the video
When you videotape the library, you want the camera to be steady, so a tripod is essential. Keep the camera lens “wide” (instead of telephoto). This will create a wide-angle shot of the library. You want exactly the same angle for both the crowded library and the empty library, so don’t move the camera or the tripod. Taping people walking into the library is fine, too. Try to have people help you by not looking at the camera. If they do look into the camera or wave, etc., don’t worry. You can remove them when you edit.

Videotape all the scenes in your storyboard. These should include:

• The mystery student taking a book from the library shelves. The book leaves an empty spot on the shelf.
• A different student reaches for the empty space and is sad. (You might shoot several different students reaching for the book.)
• Wide shots of the library with and without people.
• Shots of the library shelves showing the information on the shelves.
• A shot of the “missing” book (you will use this with the special effects).

Capture the video into the computer from the camcorder
Tip: For this project, it might be easier to work with video clips if they weren’t in the Timeline. When you don’t want the videos moved automatically into the Timeline, you can turn this feature off in the Capture window More > Capture to Timeline (remove the check by clicking on it).

Special effects — creating ghosts with multiple video tracks and opacity control
You are going to create the ghostlike atmosphere for your beginning. You will do this by creating different video layers for each of the video clips you took from the same angle in the library.

If your video clips are on the timeline, find the wide shots of the library. Create two or three clips of about the same length. You can create multiple short clips from a single long clip by using the razor blade tool. You can adjust the video lengths so they are the same by using the selector tool and clicking on the ends of the clips (see Lesson 2 for more on this).

If you have had a lot of people traffic in the library, you can cut many small clips from the same long clip, move them to separate video tracks, and have the people seem to walk through each other! With Adobe Premiere Elements, they can occupy the same space at the same time.

Stack the video clips in the Timeline. Put one clip in Video 1 and a second one directly over it in Video 2. Make sure the blue current-time indicator is over the clips you are working with. In the Monitor window, you will see only what is in Video 2! Notice a colored horizontal line across the clip. This is the opacity control. By adjusting this line, you will be able to make the clip more (or less) invisible.

Click on the line in Video 2 and move the line down. You will now see what is on Video 1. By adjusting the opacity of Video 2 to 25%, the people in both clips will become semi-transparent, like ghosts. The library itself will seem solid. That is because the library is the same in both shots. You can use as many video tracks as you want. The scene can be crowded with ghosts!

Tip 1: It is easier to control opacity by opening the Effects Control window (Window > Effects Controls). When you click on a clip, you can go to this window, click on the triangle by Opacity, then click on the number. You can move left or right or just type in a number then hit return. 25% is a good number to start with.

Tip 2: By clicking on the film can at the left end of the video track, you can change the way your clips are displayed. You can show only the opacity line, which makes it easier to adjust.

Tip 3: The clip on the highest video line is the one that shows. If you have four clips on four video tracks, you must change the opacity from the top clip down. The bottom clips won’t show through unless the clip above them is changed.

Tip 4: If your library is just a little bit “crooked” when you adjust the opacity (maybe the tripod got bumped!), you might be able to adjust it with the motion control in the Effects Control window.

Tip 5: If you add more than 3 video tracks and you don’t see them, pull up the top of the Timeline with the mouse. It will stretch and show you all your tracks.

The mystery student
Export a still of the video of the mystery student checking out the missing book, (See “Who Took the Book” above). Use the Title Design Window to make a black rectangle to disguise the student’s identity (see Lesson 5).

Special effects “search”!
Put the video clip of the “missing” book on Video 1. Even better, export a frame (or “still”) from the clip and put the still on Video 1 (see Lesson 5 or use Help).

Put the video clips of the library stacks on Video 2, one after another. Stretch the still so that it is under all the clips on Video 2. If you are using the video clip of the book, copy and paste it as many times as necessary to be under all the clips on Video 2.

Now apply transitions to the clips on Video 2. Normally, a transition goes between two clips, creating a “transition.” But transitions can apply to single clips, too. (Adobe calls this a “single-sided transition”.) By applying the transition to the clips, it will look as though the book is moving all over the library — eluding discovery. With a single-sided transition, the video clip on the video track below shows through.

Open the Effects window. Choose Swing out Effects > Transitions > 3-D motion > Swing out. Hold down the Control Key, click on the Swing Out icon, and drag it to the edge of the library clip. This will place the transition only on the library clip. As the clip “swings,” the book will show through. Apply single-side transitions to all the library clips. Remember to hold down the Control Key.

If you want the transition to be more dramatic, you can actually change the length of the transition by clicking on it and dragging it longer. It can stretch just like a still image can!

When you play the video, the book will seem to flow everywhere in the library!

Record your narration

• Move the blue Current-time Indicator to the beginning of the video.
• Take out your camcorder. It should not be connected to the computer for this step. You will be recording your voice. Only the sound is important, so you can leave the lens cap on.
• Start recording on the camcorder. You should be in the “camera” mode.
• Hit the space bar on the computer to begin playing the video.
• Narrate as the clip plays. Remember, you will be narrating into the camcorder, not the computer.
• When you finish, stop the camcorder.

Adding the new sound track to your project

• Rewind the camcorder.
• Reconnect it to the computer.
• Click Capture in the upper right menu.
• Digitize the video clip you just made into the computer by hitting the Capture button.

If you have chosen not to capture video to the Timeline, your narration will appear in the media window. (Otherwise, it will appear behind the original clip in the Timeline on Audio Track 1.) Move it to Timeline behind your video. A video track and an audio track will be there. If you left the cap on your camcorder, the video track will be black. Alt Click on the narration audio track with the selector tool. This will unlink it from the black video. Drag the audio clip down to a new audio track. One will appear below the old ones. Now go back and click on the unnecessary black video track and delete it.

Alt Click on the other audio tracks. Go to the menu bar. Choose Clip > Enable. Click on “Enable” and the check will go away. This will mute the clip. If you ever want the sound back, you can re-enable the clip. But you will only want to hear your narration.

You can also add music now. Add music files to your media window (use Add Media) and drag them down to the Timeline. A new audio track will appear. Note: If you ever have trouble getting a new video or audio track, go the menu Timeline > Add Tracks.

Save your project to tape, a digital file, or DVD!

You can add or decrease opacity over time, (i.e., you can make people in clips appear completely solid or become more transparent as they move through a clip). To do this, you add keyframes to the clip in the Effects Controls window. By adjusting these keyframes, you can control the opacity of the higher tracks, which will let the lower tracks show through with changing image strength.