design

My goal for this project was to create a 60 second video that communicates the motivation, usage, and functionality of a health/fitness product or service.

I decided to create my video about a light therapy lamp, which is a device designed to provide additional light exposure during winter months for people who experience depression or other effects related to seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to the American Psychiatric Association, SAD affects around 5 percent of adults in the United States. For many of these people, light therapy can be an effective, low-cost, and minimally invasive treatment for SAD.

process

I initially created some sketches and storyboards to help me refine the vision for my video. I wanted my video be fairly simple. My first idea was to just show a person walking slowly outside on a gloomy day, for an almost awkwardly long time, to represent how SAD can make it difficult to stay motivated or have interest in doing things. Then, the person would turn on the therapy light and begin to feel better.

In another iteration, I tried to be a bit more explicit about the purpose of the device, prompting the viewer with the phrase "Feeling SAD?" and connecting the gloomy weather outside with the use of the light.

During the week I was working on the video, I was out on a shopping trip with my roommates when a thick fog quickly started to roll in. I thought this would make for a really great environment to use, so we filmed a variety of different shots based on both of these concepts for me to put together later.

Finally, I had my footage and some ideas, and I needed to put everything together to tell a compelling story about this product. I chose the shots that I thought worked together the best, and added some music and sound effects to help communicate my ideas and set the scene within my video. I also highlighted the particular brand of light that we used (it was just what my roommate happened to have).

video

analysis

I had a lot of fun envisioning the concept, filming, and editing the video, and I thought it turned out really well. I think the video turned out quite close to what I had been envisioning, but it's not the only way I could have presented this product. I think my presentation of the product doesn't provide a lot of context about it explicitly, and instead relies more on the environment, character, and emotion to communicate what the product does and why someone might want it. I suspect this would be more effective for people who might already be familiar with SAD or already recognize their own symptoms, rather than providing information to someone who isn't already familiar. If I were to create another video for the same product, I think I would want to try pushing more in this different direction.