Project Overview:

This is a video-based project that explores different places in Philadelphia.

  • There is a collection of places that tourists would travel to
  • There is a collection of places that locals would travel to
  • There is a collection of places that students (Saint Joe’s) might like to see

From vlogs that are posted on YouTube to shorter videos on Instagram and TikTok, I will provide a plethora of places that people are able to check out in Philadelphia. I enjoy the places that I selected for this project and I hope others do as well and want to travel to them with their friends.

Prior Experience:

Prior to the idea of creating a travel vlog as my capstone project, I already made vlogs on the side of places and events that took place in my life. I like the idea of being able to review a memory after you might not remember it anymore.

Along with using YouTube to post my different vlogs, I have done a lot of camera work either in a digital photography class or a digital filmmaking class. I was really excited to use the software that I learned to enhance the passion I already had for filmmaking.

Challenges of the Project:

While this project is heavily based on something I have previously done and loved, it has also come with many challenges.

  • Timeline-wise, I felt as though there was a lot of time to complete my project. As I have come to discover I do not have a lot of time which has caused me stress.
  • There are a lot of places that you can visit in Philadelphia but figuring out a category for them all is hard. Also getting to the places and finding time to go while in school is hard.
    • Finding people willing and able to go on the vlogs
    • creating good meaningful content that is fun to watch
      • I have found it hard to have a good time while filming and not be as concerned with making sure I gear this towards the project
  • Weather-wise, most times when people do outdoor activities it is when it is warmer. When it rains it also makes it really hard to film and does not really allow me to use any of my equipment.
    • Gimbal, Drone

Prep work and Background Research:

I created an excel spreadsheet where I was able to create a timeline for how long the project would take me to complete. I found each of the places I wanted to visit and wrote their addresses down as well as if I needed a permission form to be signed prior to filming. For my vlogs, I knew I would be including other people so I made a consent form that they signed before filming as well. To get a better idea of how to market this to people I also looked to other people on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube to see how they formated their content.

After my extensive amount of research on the topic, I felt as though I was on the right path for creating content. I understood the platforms as well as what people were in search of.

  • Niche audience: Philadelphians
  • Niche perspective: College student
    • on a budget
      • worry about cost of transportation as well as the activity

Primary Technologies and Software:

For my project, there were things that had to be done in order for it to have a professional feel

  • buy and create a website using WordPress
    • create an Instagram account, TikTok, and YouTube channel
  • rent out a drone for aerial shots
  • rent out a gimbal to make sure there were steady shots in the videos
  • Premiere Pro – used to edit all content that was created
  • Canva – create graphics and expand on the design
    • logo, banner, opening, thumbnails for the vlog

Project Considerations:

Ethics: create content for large audiences that focus on travel within the Philadelphia area. Cost and transportation are key things to remember when creating vlogs. This project is geared towards people who are not tourists in the city but those who currently live in the city and it’s surrounding areas.

  • students
  • young adults
  • interns
  • employed people

Diversity: the perspective of the places traveled to maybe a bit biased since I am picking the places to go to. Regardless I am trying my best to go to places where anyone is able to go and find interest. I am also making sure that the places I go to are easily accessible to all.

  • sports-related
  • food-related
  • indoors/outdoors

Inclusive Design: my content is being published on different social media platforms: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube as well as a website that I have created. For the videos, there will be closed captioning as well as descriptions for the videos and posts.

Creation Process:

Creating the website was the start of the creation of my project. The biggest thing about the project has been the traveling and filming of places, however.

Creation really began as I, along with others, traveled all over the city of Philadelphia to collect the different short videos and content for the actual vlogs.

  • This was extremely stressful due to the weather and people’s availability. In a short span of time, I was tasked with being able to go to a myriad of places while completing schoolwork and still being active in clubs.

Final Deliverables:

As the project comes to an end, there are many things that must be completed by the end

  • a website that properly houses all content created
  • an Instagram account that houses photography and videography of the many places in Philadelphia
  • a YouTube channel with more vlog content that is geared towards a niche audience

Overall my project should be able to provide insight into places in Philadelphia through visual content and words alike.