I remember getting an email from the UMass Amherst Digital Media Lab about an upcoming video contest where the first place winner would get an HTC Vive and IMMEDIATELY understanding that I had no choice. I HAD to enter in.

My first experience with modern virtual reality had happened only a few months prior. The moment I slipped on my friend’s headset, I knew I needed one for myself. Virtual Reality has been a subject of my daydreams since I was a small child, and while the modern iteration isn’t the pure science fiction existentialism I expected, it is a profound step into new territory. It is like nothing else, and the possibilities of where the technology could go are endless.

The challenge was seemingly straightforward: pitch an idea for how to improve campus life with virtual reality in less than one minute. Of course, things weren’t so simple.

When I started college as a journalism major, a day rarely went by where I didn’t have some doubts about my choice. In high school I decided on journalism after winning a political debate at the CT Youth Form and meeting Charles Blow. I loved and still love writing and messing with multimedia, so I figured journalism would be a safe bet. Still, it was a safe bet that I never tried out. I never got to test the water with journalism; rather, I just jumped in and hoped for the best.

I then realized how stuck I felt. If at any point I realized I wanted to switch to chemistry or computer science, I’d be starting from scratch with even more debt to bear. Two whole years of progress would be flushed down the toilet, and I’d have nothing to show for it. College is a place for discovery; where your comfortable environment is flipped on its head and you’re forced to take care of yourself and make your own friends. However, you’re still expected to know what you want to do for the rest of your life by the end of your hormonal high school years so you can apply for a college that suits your interests, and I felt like that was a bit paradoxical.
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So, I settled on the idea of using virtual reality to create simulations where students could test those waters for free; to put themselves in the shoes of whatever career path they want to explore to see if the shoe fits right.

At the time, my editing experience was limited to Photoshop and iMovie, and the only camera I owned was a Nikon D80 (which can’t shoot video). So, rather than spend the limited amount of time I had learning Premiere and renting cameras from the library, I decided to stick with what I knew. The video is a stop-motion animation that was edited frame-by-frame in Photoshop and then lined up and organized in iMovie. The final sixty second clip took well over a month to put together, and at the time was the hardest I’ve ever worked on something.

Could I have approached it more efficiently? Absolutely. However, I knew that in order to win this pageant I had to be the prettiest contestant. The majority of my time was spent on the visuals and making sure the video flowed as smooth as butter. One of my main design goals was to never waist a second. Every moment needed to be leading up to something, avoiding harsh breaks that could pull away the viewer’s attention. If something wasn’t moving on screen, it would create a ugly contrast with the animated segments. So, I got to work.

Well, 412 frames, exports, and files later, I turned in my video.

A few anxiety-filled weeks later, I was told I won 1st place.
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