At first, I was really unsure what I was going to do my video on. I watched a lot of the NYTimes 360 video's, and realized each of the videos had a compelling story behind them. After having lived in an apartment near Thornden Park and spending some time there going on walks and runs during the day, I realized I wanted to create a video that portrayed Thornden Park in a different light and show that it really isn't this scary or bad place that Syracuse University makes it out to be, but rather a place where families in the community can come together and enjoy being outside.

I decided to shoot Thornden during the day, as that is when kids, families, and even students spend the most time there (it can be a dangerous place at night). When I first took footage at the park, it was a beautiful and sunny day. I was able to find two guys who were playing with there dogs in the circular/staged area of the park, however the interview I took of one of the guys was accidentally deleted shortly after I recorded it on my phone. I decided to go back a day later and was lucky enough to find two gentlemen sitting in the same area who were willing to speak with me. They both had grown up in the area and had been going to Thornden since they were kids, and they mentioned how much they appreciated having a place where the community was able to come together. Their interview really tied well with the message I was aiming to portray through my video.

I had no problems filming with the Samsung Gear 360 or uploading my files onto 360 auto director and Adobe Premier. However, once I started editing on Premier, I noticed that on one of my video files there was a thick black line running from the ground to the sky. I believe that this was probably due to the Samsung camera itself. I was able to remove the black line using the 'scale' effect, however it left that part of the video a little bit distorted. Uploading the separate audio file onto Premier was a piece of cake and using my phone to record the interview was a simple solution to not having a separate microphone handy.

Enjoy!