As America Celebrated its Holiday of Independence on July 4th 2020, there was another reason to be proud and that was that I officially earned my Master Director Badge with Google Local Guides.
This one definitely strikes home for me as my background has always related directly or indirectly to digital video, just check me out on LinkedIn to see more of that. I have not however ever applied this technique of story telling for a travel and local mapping venture, especially with such criteria as 30 second lengths and location specifics.
When I dived into the world of Local Guides I discovered as so many before me had that a video taken of a location is not going to be viewed nearly as much as a image which makes perfect sense. My approach to this was simply what does someone want to see at a place in Google Maps and what is the most helpful? What can a video do for a place that a picture can not and and if a picture is worth a thousand words maybe a video can be worth ten thousand! Is a still picture of the Millennium Falcon blazing across the distant moonlit screen of the Star War’s: The Rise of Skywalker’s teaser trailer playing at the Swap Shop & Drive-Inn Theater as impactful as a video showing the views you can get of the screen from in and outside your car and the fans reactions of excitement to the trailer for 30 seconds, I would strongly argue in favor of the latter. Similar to how a video documenting for a few seconds the local wildlife on a nature trail, one showing a few quick highlights that you can see at a museum without giving too much away, or even one giving a quick vibe that you can expect at a dance club all are going to bring to life a place in a way a photo simply cant.
Seems enough people agree and I am so honored to of obtained this milestone and I cannot wait to continue bringing so many amazing places to life!