Professor Pabico assigned her COM 336 class the task of individually creating a minute long video that conveyed an assigned theme while at the same time conveying who they are as a person.
Creating a 60 second video based on a theme seems like an easy task, right? WRONG. Producing a video comes with many trials, tribulations, and unforeseen difficulties. The end product may give the illusion that the project was easy, but in reality it was particularly challenging.
The First Challenge: The Message
For the assignment, the COM 336 class was broken down into groups. Each group was assigned a topic (Time, Separation, Politics, or Abstract). After the topics were assigned each group member had to convey the topic in an original way, without being cliche. Some topics were easier to brainstorm than others. For example the group that got the topic "separation" had a difficult time at first coming up with ideas.
How do you display separation without being morbid or depressing? It took a long time for the group members to overcome this hurdle. They tossed around ideas such as driving separate ways, sitting on a park bench and having someone leave, going separate ways when walking, but all of these ideas were cliche. Finally, a group member suggested an idea that was more original and easier to convey a sense of self. The idea was to convey the message through the "separate" lives an individual lives at home versus in public.
The daunting task of conveying the message became easier but still the task at hand was not an easy one. Now that the means of conveying the message were decided each group member had to figure out how to make a "self-video" that was separate from the group. The question arises "How does one create a video the encompasses both who they are and the main theme of the video?" This brings us to the next challenge encountered when creating a video...
The Second Challenge: Filming
Attention: a 60 second video requires far more than 60 seconds of film. In-fact a 60 second video can be comprised of edited film from 5 minutes of filming to 500 minutes of filming. This point can not be stressed enough. If you expect to film a video and not have to film more than the expected film length, you will fail.
When creating a video, filming is the most important component of the process. You could have a perfect idea, have a perfect plan, come up with a great soundtrack, but if you don't have video footage to go along with that-- that is not only eye-grabbing but also concise-- the video is worthless.
In order to film you must allocate yourself an ample amount of time. Filming is a process. You must first brainstorm. In this brainstorm think about what you want to film, what angles you want to film from, what perspective you want the shots in, locations for filming, the time of day you want to film... the list goes on and on.
The brainstorming process for the separation group was taxing. Each member not only had to figure out all of the technical and creative aspects but also how to show separation within the shots. Each group member came up with their own way of doing so. One member did so by filming at multiple locations, wearing only two outfits(one outfit for "private" and the other for "public"). On top of this the group member shot the same concept but from different aspects. For example the shot they envisioned was listening to music. For this they filmed two separate shots-- one of her listening to music in public, the other of her listening to music at home.
Due to the fact that many students do not have professional-grade filming equipment, the students were allowed to film with their cell phones. It is important to note though, that to film with a phone you have to hold it horizontally-- or else the footage will not display properly in iMovie. It is convenient to film with a phone, however the process of extracting the video from your phone and getting it on to the computer is something that many students had difficulty with. There were issues of Android versus Apple and the devices not being compatible. There were also issues of the videos not opening up after being exported. All in all don't expect smooth sailing when filming a video.
The Third Challenge: Editing
Editing can make or break a video. The platform that the COM 336 students used to edit their films was iMovie. In this application you can edit, trim, add transitions, add music, add effects, add title and credit screens and so much more. For beginner movie makers iMovie is a good start. It is relatively easy to figure out and after using the application several times you can easily master it.Now, just because the application is simple does not mean editing is. Editing requires you to go through all of your film and find the best shots that convey your message. This was especially hard for the assigned video project because the film had to be exactly 60 seconds -- no more and no less. To make the film exactly 60 seconds was extremely difficult because you could have the perfect shot but in order to fulfill the time requirement you have to trim it. Because of this, the film you first envisioned rarely turns out to be the final film.
After you have edited your film down to the best segments of film, you must figure out how to make it coherent. You do this by adding transitions and filters. Adding these to your film can add emphasis to the message and make it more clear what is trying to be expressed. One member of the separation group used the filters to her advantage. She added the black and white filter to her "public" film while keeping her "private" film in color. This emphasized the theme of the movie while also adding an underlying theme that her public life was dull and "black and white" while her private life was fun and in color. As you can see from this example, editing is powerful.
Unexpected Challenges
The key to success is being able to deal with adversity, even when it is unexpected. This holds true to the movie making process. There are many struggles that are expected but there are also many struggles that are unexpected. One of these unexpected challenges is the process of uploading your video to social media platforms. Depending on your videos format and the computer you are using this process can be a walk in the park, or a walk in hell. If you have a PC and are using iMovie to create your movie, it is very difficult to upload a video file from your PC in the iMovie format.
Another unexpected challenge is fear. When filming it is easy to do stupid things and exaggerate scenes for the sake of the film-- some of these things could be considered embarrassing. It's all fine and dandy until you remember that you are not the only one that will see this video. Once you realize this, it is sometimes hard to remain focused on the video. Instead you consider editing it and removing the embarrassing scenes. DO NOT DO THIS. Those scenes make the video. For the COM 336 project the embarrassing scenes added to the sense of who the student was. It turned the video from just a theme to a personality. Although you may doubt yourself, remember why you put the scene in the film to begin with.
After reading this post you may be scared to make a movie,that is okay. Making a movie is a challenging and time-consuming process. However, I encourage you to try. Making a movie is not for everyone but, you never know if you never try.
No comments:
Post a Comment