Nate Jones’ Post

Whew! Time flies when you're having fun. It's been an incredibly busy month and a half. I took a lot of time off in April so I wasn't as on top of posting on here like I had been. Some big things happened since my last update. All of the solar eclipse content we made at Exploration Place skyrocketed, and as of right now garnered over 15 MILLION views across our various platforms. Almost all of those views coming from a short video about solar eclipse glasses. It performed particularly well as a YouTube short with about 10 million views and basically tripeling our previous subscriber count as we approach the 30,000 mark.  The same video got 5 million views on TikTok and pushed us to nearly 25,000 followers, up from about 18,000. Segments from the long eclipse video were also published individually, and I was very happy to see those have success as well. Now it’s just a matter of doing all of that again as I’ve returned from all of my travels. Some of those travels included a work trip to Boulder, CO. There I attended Dome Fest West, a film festival that featured various types of dome theater content. It was great! There was A LOT of A.I. driven visuals along with the more classic dome theater movies. Some of the things we saw at the fest will definitely be making their way into EP’s Dome Theater as we go forward. I am breezing past a couple of projects that were uploaded over the last month or so, sorry about that. Now I am excited to get back to a normal schedule and begin producing more videos!

This is kind of like a bonus video in a way because we actually filmed it TWO YEARS AGO!!! Recentely I re-discovered that it was unfinnished and was able to wrap up the edit. I would say it was about 85% done when I found it. A very unique situation to be sure. It was fun re-watching what I'd already put together and asking "why did I do that, what if I did this?" Then ultimately realizing that past-me made the right choice - most of the time. I have not filmed many videos with Jose, but he has a great energy on camera and this is no exeption (no pun intended). You can find this video on Exploration Place's YouTube channel now: https://lnkd.in/gWNaAHGG

My goal was to make the only video about the upcoming solar eclispe you need to watch in preperation for April 8. If this isn't that, it'll do till one gets here. It was great to get out of the studio, go outside, and add some new faces to our Exploration Place video roster. The challenge was choesively blending essentially three videos different videos into one longer project. To help with that, in pre-production I wrote a pretty extensive outline for this video. As I told each of the hosts, there were parts of it that I wanted to stick to pretty closely, and other parts that could be more fluid. Each of them did a fantastic job bringing their knowledge and personalities to their individual segments. I also did a lot of custom animated graphics in this one, but I've already written way too much. You can watch the entire video, "Solar Eclipse: Why, What and How?" here: https://lnkd.in/g2NutbqT But that's not all! Exploration Place is hosting a solar eclipse watch party, here are the details about that: https://lnkd.in/ggtWePZs

It's been a BUSY couple of weeks! Recently uploaded a toy review/unboxing video, something I've wanted to make for awhile now at Exploration Place. Ann did an amazing job as the host talking about LEGO-adjacent gift ideas for kids that love building stuff. The filming process was pretty straight forward and I inentially didn't do a lot to the edit to make sure the toys/info took center stage. That video is watchable here: https://lnkd.in/grmRTYQf In the lead up to the big, annual Death by Chocolate fundraiser at the musuem we published a James Bond inspired 15-second promo on the EP Facebook page. It was put toegher with some stock foorage assets, plus some archived clips, coupled together with a love for 007 movies that dates back to the late 90s. The timeline looks simple but getting the timing of the animations, masks, etc. was the complex part. Really happy with how it came together. Looking forward to documenting another SOLD OUT Death by Chocolate.

Another video project has wrapped at Exploration Place! Fellow Southwestern College alums Victoria and Brooke did a great job touring the new exhibits at the museum. It was a very colaborative filming process which really elevated the final product. On a side note, remember I had been experimenting with Adobe's A.I. vocal enhancer, this was the first time in my limited experience with it that I was disapointed in the job it did. For some reason it was having trouble with the "s" sound and the beginnings and ends of sentances, doing a weird fade out thing each time. I punted on using the A.I. tool this go around and settled for good ol' fashioned human intellegence to treat the audio. Anyway, you can find the video here: https://lnkd.in/ddsUfxcb

I just hit "publish" on the latest project. It's year three for the Exploration Place's Black History Month celebration and year two for filming this talk show-style video that discusses the honorees. This is one of the longer videos we'll make at EP all year, but as for putting it together it's by far the most "traditional" when it comes to the production/editing. One thing I always get a kick of out when doing this type of project is, now that cameras have such high resolutions (we use the Panasonic GH6, and I filmed in 5.7k) it's easier than ever to turn one camera into three. The video is online now, find it and discover more about the Black History Month celebration here: www.exploration.org/bhm

I definitely learned something about sunflowers during this project! Erica Hoskinson did an amazing job on camera pointing out the different parts of the flower and their uses. One other thing I learned was how to use Adobe's A.I. vocal enhancement tool. I try to be pretty selective about employing A.I. and I'm happy with this result. The audio was already clean but it did a great job leveling things out, which was helpful. I'm curious to know how it can help enhance bad audio. I'm sure I'll find out some day! Watch/listen: https://lnkd.in/dJcVpZPw

I was assigned to make a quick video featuring the new Nursing Mother's Room at Exploration Place. Kai did a great job showing off the space. This project marks my first attempt at making an animated map, I'm happy with the result. One goal of mine in 2024 was to modify how I film videos at work so that not only can they be viewed in the "normal" 16x9 aspect ratio, but also formatted more easily to vertical viewing experience. This video is a prime example of that plan coming to life. Here is the wide version: https://lnkd.in/g36iwgtt and the vertical version: https://lnkd.in/gYBA_-vM

I'm pretty sure this is my FIRST "post" on LinkedIn, and it's only fitting to share the first video we completed of 2024 at Exploration Place. It was not the most complex project, but it was still fun to work on. Awesome to see what's hidden under the Kansas in Miniature exhibit, shout out to EP's other Nate for going down there with a camera! Victoria also did a great job as the tour guide. You can watch the finished product here: https://lnkd.in/gjtSNFzg