R4
- Self-Reflection
The most challenging part of this video was definitely getting the shots on my own, as well as editing. In terms of filming, I honestly just grinned and did my best to bear with it; some of the shots, especially in my room, were difficult to get but I think they turned out well. In terms of editing, I had a really hard time figuring out how I wanted to edit around my music selection. I knew from the start that I wanted to use Your Smith’s Debbie in my final; it’s honestly just such a bop and I wanted to challenge myself to make a video around a song. The difficulty was choosing where to cut at what point, deciding if I wanted to break up the song, or have it start at the end, or use only the middle of the song, or, or, or. I’ve never worked with music like this before so I really had to push myself to be creative and try to utilize the song to the best of my ability and in a way that would work the best with the visuals.
It was really enjoyable to shoot with other people, as well as to edit (even though it was frustrating at times). I loved being silly and dancing on tables with my friends, especially after having them act out characters that were either major inflations of who they were or just completely different from them as people. In addition to some fun times recording, I had a lot of fun editing. I actually really, really enjoy going through the processes of editing a video; it’s just really satisfying to see it all come together into one cohesive final product. Although it was difficult, I really enjoy the challenge of editing, as if you’re putting together the pieces of the puzzle by stitching together a story. I also got to witness all of my ridiculous outtakes, which was pretty hilarious too.
I’m pretty proud of the final product, as well as some of the shots that I got. I’m proud of the editing I did; it was my first time working not only on my own but with a song I was trying to work the visuals around. I’m glad I made it work out in the end!
I learned– or, rather, reestablished– that I’m really bad at balancing the time I have left to work on a project and the goals I set for the outcome of a project. I tend to back myself into corner when I do solo project; I aim for really, really high production value and then I’m down to the wire trying to make everything perfect. I also learned that I’m really bad at communicating my big ideas to people. The concepts I have in my head are so perfectly clear and put together in my own mind, and yet when people would ask me what I was doing for my project I had a hard time articulating exactly what I was thinking. This being said, I’m pretty happy with my ability to communicate with my cast– I may be terrible at articulating big ideas, but asking someone to move a hair the other way or have their hands rest a certain way comes naturally to me. This also being said, I can be a bit neurotic; I retook some of the room shots at least twenty times before I thought they were good enough to use, and that mentality just does not fly when you’re working with others who have either limited time or patience.
- Video Analysis
The room shots are framed all from the same angle, except for the close ups and when it pans down to me on the floor. I then tried to emulate me sitting at my desk with the shots of me with other people. I tried to carry my frustration and defeat throughout the video through the similar shot angles. I’d say the majority of the shots are well-done; they’re in focus, and I did my best to color correct.
I would say my audio is a little lackluster; it’s fine for the purposes of this video, but I went back and forth between my phone and an actual audio recorder (just due to restrictions on consistent access to one). There isn’t a whole lot of dialogue throughout the video, mostly just one-liners from the people sitting across from me, but I think it adds humor as well as purposefully develops my disheartened state of mind. Since the music was the first thing I determined for this project, I would hope that it adds to the overall quality of the video! I just thought it would be something upbeat and funky and fun, like the conclusion to the story.
I’d say the edits are a lot quicker than I would normally make them; just due to time constraints on the video, I needed to cut down a lot of the clips in order to make them fit into the allotted time frame, but I think it still looks fairly normal. I intentionally stayed on some shots a little longer in order to create the feeling of anticipation or frustration or just plain empty-mindedness.
Overall, I’m pretty happy with the outcome of this assignment. My concept started off pretty weak, so I’m glad I could develop it into something at least visually appealing, if not a little ridiculous. I always learn something or other about editing and workflow when I do projects like this, and this video was no exception. Next time I’d absolutely narrow down my ideas for an assignment as short as this one; I had such a hard time grappling with being unable to fit all of my ambitions into just a minute-ish long video. I’m satisfied with the final product, however, and I’m glad to see how far I’ve come in just a semester of film work.
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