30 Seconds in a College Coffee House

In keeping with my friend theme for this blog, this week's post centers around my good friend, Kat! You may recognize her from my previous blog post featuring just a few of my extraordinary girlfriends.

One of the best things about Kat is how many different hats she wears: marathon runner, nursing student, poetry writer, natural blond.... the list goes on.

But, for this project we needed to focus on someone in just one environment, my subject this week was.....Kat the Common Grounds Barista!

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What is Common Grounds?

Common Grounds is a locally owned coffee house, that just so happens to be located in my freshmen and sophomore dorm. I've never been much of a coffee house person, but that's the beauty of Common Grounds--–there's something there for everyone. The atmosphere is actually true to the brand's name. It is a great stomping ground for everyone. They have coffee, tea, food, dessert ,and more––a little something for everyone. As you can imagine, it's a relaxing refuge for a busy, stressed college student. I've spent more than a few long afternoons and late nights there, so I wanted to repay Common Grounds by making a 30 second commercial to let everyone else know what a great spot on campus it is. As an experienced barista, Kat has been around to a few coffee shops, so it's no mistake that she's working at Common Grounds. They're actually alike in a lot of ways: very friendly to people and very passionate about coffee. So, it only made sense for her to be the main focus of my mini advertisement for Common Grounds.

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Storyboard & Script

In order to see Common Grounds through the eyes of Kat, I wanted to follow her around on a typical shift. The other employees were super helpful and even let me go behind the counter to take some cool shots. I really wanted the ad to have an authentic feel to it, so I didn't really edit my photos other than adjust some lighting or contrast. I did, however, create the ending screen in Photoshop. I used the company's current logo, and inverted the colors so it would be black and white. Then, I placed it on a black background. In Premier Pro, I layered caption graphic on top of it to give Common Ground and www.bensound.com a shout out at the end of the video.

I was deliberate about the sequence of the photos in my storyboard; I wanted to immerse viewers in the story. You can check out my finished storyboard below.

After I took the photos, I sat down with Kat and interviewed her about working at Common Grounds for about 20 minutes. Since she's a recurrent visual focus of the project, I wanted to make her the narrator or main character of the story. Using her as the voiceover was a no brainer because I really wanted the story to be told from her perspective. During our interview I asked Kat what kind of music best reflected Common Ground's brand , and she said "something indie and laid back". So I ended up using a song aptly titled "Inspiring Folk" from www.bensound.com.

To make viewers feel like they were really behind the counter with Kat, I also recorded some natural sounds from the coffee shop. I recorded some of the machines behind the counter working, but I also got some gentle background chatter from the easy going, but constant crowd of customers. In order for Kat's voice to be the main focus, I decreased the volume level of the music and natural sounds. I also used the pen tool at the end of the commercial to fade the music out.

You can see what soundbites I chose to use and where I placed them in the script below.

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Workflow & Final Thoughts

This was pretty much my first introduction to Premiere Pro and it was a whirlwind! I mean, you have to think about visuals AND audio at the same time! That may not sound difficult, but look at the content file for this project:

Not stressed yet? All you see are accurately named files neatly organized into folders? Alright. Why don't you take a peek at this project's timeline in Premiere Pro:

Tell me that doesn't overwhelm you just a little bit! There were a lot of moving parts to consider before it all came together, but I feel like I tackled the beast! In addition to getting all the files into Premiere Pro, I also had to edit down the audio, plan out transitions, make sure everything was in time with the music, and keep within a 30 second time limit!

All–in–all though, I definitely learned a lot about the program and I'm actually looking forward to the next time I can dive into Premiere Pro. Until then, enjoy the final product of all my work. Take it from a Barista, stop by Common Grounds the next time you visit Lexington, Kentucky.