Gliding Forward to Escape the Chaos of War

By Giulia Paolino

Over the span of around three weeks, I had the opportunity to plan, film, and edit this digital storytelling project for my Digital Design for Media Communications class at the University of Toledo. My goal was to highlight a Ukrainian figure skater at my rink, Denys Kovalenko, and showcase his inspiring story. 

To begin this project I directly contacted Denys to make sure that he would be comfortable sharing his story. I then wrote a list of around 12 questions that gave me a base to form my video. I tried to set them up as the first being opening questions, then his story, and ending with how he is moving forward. These were then shared with him about a week before filming as well so that he could prepare and also let me know if there was something he did not want to answer. I also wrote a list of different elements and videos I wanted to film for my B-roll so that I could be prepared when I got to the rink. 

Filming went as smoothly as I could have asked for. I started by interviewing him. I also had a second phone doing a voice recording in case the phone quality wasn’t good, and so that I could take notes on it later. If I could go back and change one thing, I would have had him not look at the camera when answering the questions. After the interview, I followed his usual training day. He started with his off-ice class warmup. He then put on his skates and entered the ice. I tried to take different videos from different angles, levels, and perspectives to show his story in a more artistic and professional way. 

For the editing, I first started by watching a few videos to get an understanding of the basic functions. From there, I started editing the video clips together. I then wrote a script based on how much time I had as well as what Denys shared in the interview to use for filming my voiceover. To finish, I adjusted the sounds of the videos and added music (I chose the song he skates to because I thought it was fitting for this project). 

Overall, this experience taught me a lot. Not only did I learn to use a video editing program that I had never used before, but I also got the chance to enter into the world of videojournalism and see all the work as well as satisfaction that goes into it. 

Video, Production, Editing: Giulia Paolino 

Featured Skater: Denys Kovalenko