During our last session on July 13, 2023 each student group presented the final results of the projects we have done during the course of this semester. It was a great way of getting a better understanding of the individual folktales besides the ones we were working on ourselves. Together we took a look at the different video editing and coding experiences as well as talked about our individual difficulties during the process.

Coding

In the beginning of this semester most of the students, myself included, struggled with the coding part of this class. The most common mistakes were such as:

• forgetting to close the tags
• changing the geographic coordinates in the header
• Finding quotes in the text so it can be properly coded
• Finding all words for the notes and glossary
• not using the <q> tag

At least for me it was a foreign experience and way beyond my “academic comfort zone”. Nonetheless it was an experience that greatly benefitted me in the end.

Video Editing

This class wasn’t the first time I used video editing programs but I never worked with DaVinci Resolve before. Since I missed both tutorial sessions I had to figure the works out by myself but thankfully our instructors provided us with a detailed step by step guide. Nonetheless there were a few things that really proved difficult in the beginning:

• locking the subtitles and setting them at the right place (the timestamps were sometimes confusing)
• adding a title page without shifting any of the subtitle, audio or video tracks
• inserting the credits at the end

These were all things that most of the students struggled with and together we came up with helpful suggestions how to solve any of the before mentioned problems, e. g. the use of additional editing programs or to create the videos in multiple steps to avoid the shifting of the subtitles. In the end most of us felt confident in using DaVinci Resolve again with considerably less effort.

Results

At the end of our last session we talked about the class in general and gave feedback on our individual experiences and accomplishments. Personally I am really glad that I had the chance to participate since I gained a lot of new skills and insight into the Konkomba culture.