DREW ME IN Episode 1: Interview with WGC youth entrepreneur

Hello! I'm Nadia Drew, and this summer, I'm interning at WGC. I'm also the host of a mini-series titled "Drew me In", where I'll be meeting and speaking with entrepreneurs and community leaders to learn more about them and gather tips on persevering through adversity.

I am currently enrolled at Rainier Beach high school and I am an upcoming senior! My dream career is currently digital marketing as it connects to many of my character traits. I love to be creative and to do things that push me to think outside of the box. I am very excited to be apart of a space that uplifts youths voices and creativity!

Project

During my first week here at the WGC I got the opportunity to interview one of the amazing youth participants at WGC, Riyanna Deq.

She an amazing teen who balances school as well as being an entrepreneur! She has participated in multiple programs held here at WGC such as the styled by AI fashion program and the Minecrafting Judkins Park program. This Summer she along with another group of youth entrepreneurs had the opportunity to participate in the Summer of Soul events and sell their products. WGC helped them by providing all the youth needed supplies, a booth at the event, and helped with branding and marketing, such as T-shirts, business cards, booth displays and more! Riyanna is a very kind and inspirational person, one thing she said that stuck with me was "take that leap, entrepreneurship is a lot, its more difficult than people think but once you get the hang of it its unlike any other".

Riyanna & WGC Program manager Ty Griffin at Juneteenth Festival

Behind the Scenes

This was my first time setting up, leading, and editing a real interview so there were many things to learn while along this experience. My first task was setting up this interview was connect all of the mics to the sound board we had. After getting the microphones plugged in, we started setting up the cameras until we found a placement we found to be the best. We did all of the set up together and used teamwork to make a good system for the interview. Before we were ready to start the interview i used Canva to create a backdrop that was displayed on the smartTV behind me and Riyanna.

After recording the interview I got to editing it on CapCut. Although this process wasn't the fastest I really enjoyed learning and experimenting with different things until i found what felt right. I had done very minor editing while growing up but it was never anything quite like this so i did face some challenges. My first challange that i faced was the audio. After retrieving the audio and editing it into the video there was an apparent problem with the audio. Every once in awhile on Riyanna's mic the audio would go in and out, in order to fix this i snipped the scenes where her audio went down and then turned the volume up on them. The problem didnt get completely solved as some parts were just too quiet to hear but thankfully by adding captions helped the video be understanble.

What I learned

Throughout this experience I learned many different things, but there were things that really stood out to me. one of the first things I learned was how much thought truly goes into editing as well as attention to detail. before this project i thought most people editing videos took a long time just simply due to there be a large amount of footage, but I know know that during editing there is many things you have to take into account. Another thing i learned was how to set up an interview, I found it to be super interesting to see all of the different things you need. This project has helped me grow because although i was nervous to be on camera and ask questions i still did it which helped my confidence a lot! i am super excited to contine on learning and exploring!

Closing

Thank you for reading and watching! I hope you enjoyed getting to know Riyanna as much as i did. stay tuned for more stories from the WGC community!