Every Three Seconds – Raising Awareness of Dementia

I’m Jesse Dye, I’m majoring in communications, with an emphasis in video production. I had a great time seeing this project come together, and I’m excited to share how it went along the way.

Objectives

I’ve worked in Assisted Living facilities since I was 16 years old. I’ve always been around Dementia, and I’ve seen what it can do to everyone involved. I always knew that I wanted to make a video about this topic, so when the time came to choose what I would do for my senior project, I knew exactly what I would do.

My goal was to create a video that would help raise awareness of Dementia. As this is a pretty serious topic that affects millions of people yearly, I established these guidelines for myself from the very beginning.

1. I wanted to find an overall tone that was appropriate. I didn’t want to be overly flippant, nor overly dramatic.
2. I wanted the information that was presented to be correct and concise.
3. I wanted the information to be presented in a way that was easy to understand, and visually pleasing.
4. I wanted the video to feel professional, as well as personal.

Before I did anything on my project, I made sure that what I was planning on doing had a specific purpose and adhered to my guidelines above.

My project slowly changed throughout the planning process. Eventually It ended up becoming more of a public service announcement/Informative video, rather than an interview. The guidelines above led me to going down this route.

Pre-Production

Before I could do anything else, I had to ensure that I was sharing correct information. I visited a ton of reputable sources to get my information, some of these sources are, the National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Center of Disease Control, as well as the 2024 Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias Research Progress Report by the National Institutes of Health, which I’ll link here.

I then formed a script, a previsualization sheet, a shot-list/storyboard, as well as a stylesheet. I’ll put those documents below, as well as link them here.

Production

I’m fortunate enough to have many friends who are very knowledgeable about Dementia, as well as how to work with those who are afflicted by it. One of my good friends agreed to read the information shared in this video, as well as share what helped her as she cared for her husband, who had Dementia.

She and I developed the script together, as well as block out the best place to shoot with what limited space we had in her room.

We were able to get through production with relative ease, as we thoughtfully planned details out beforehand.

Post-Production

This project was very heavy when it came to post-production. I had a bunch of facts and statistics that were listed, each one needing graphics to compliment it and keep the viewer engaged. I wanted my graphics to complement one another as well and appear as one cohesive whole. To accomplish this, I made somewhat of a style sheet for when the time to create those graphics came.

Creating these graphics took over 60 hours, but I’m happy with how they turned out. I feel that they follow my four guidelines I set for myself at the beginning of this project.

I tackled many of these graphics in two parts:

1. I designed the graphic and ensured that it complimented the points that were being made.
2. I determined the best way to transition between graphics. I wanted to ensure that they were not a distraction, but also visually appealing.

Here’s some of the animations I made for this video, try to see if you can tell which ones interact with each other.

I ended up having about 100 compositions in my project. I adopted a workflow that would allow me to build “templates” for myself, so that I could have a base to reuse when I needed to animate something similar later in the video.

Here’s a couple screenshots of the After Effects timelines of some of the main graphics. As well as the Premiere pro timeline for my finished product.

Conclusion

Making this video has been an eye-opening experience for me. It was full of challenges and issues but at the same time it was full of learning experiences and victories.

I can confidently say that I used many of the communication principles that I gained throughout my college experience, and I know that I will continue to use them as I progress to the next stages of my life.

I’m so thankful for those who helped me along the way, and for those who continue to help me be a better student, son, filmmaker, and husband.

All media listed above can be found here.