The Vision of Video

When producing a video of any kind it offers a chance to showcase your creative and innovative side. Filming and video, in general, is such a fascinating process because it gives the abilities to portray a message or tell a story through real-life events or acting. The growth of technology over the past couple of decades has largely benefitted camera technology and the film industry. It has come to the point that we can just take our phones out and capture literally anything around us. So as times change it makes it even more challenging to film, edit, and produce an effective and unique film.

            Often times photography, writing, and video are grouped together and rightfully so. They are all different and effective in their own way, however. Using something like video brings more of a realism sense to a project because it can show people in their truest form. Video most of the time has characters, a storyline, and special effects. Video communicates a message well because it is happening right before your very eyes and can capture emotion so easily. Things are moving and flowing in a video, so it makes it simple to communicate a message.

            The topic our group was assigned was the topic of time. At first glance, the topic of time seems extremely simple and easy to portray. Upon further exploration and discussion, time is not that simple or easy of a topic at all. The video cannot be so obvious that the topic is time with clocks everywhere and just showing the clear passing of time. On the other hand, it is difficult not to slip into another topic like a day in the life or separation when trying to be subtle about time. Time always had to be relevant in the video at some point, even if it was not so obvious.

The group portion of this project did not get off to the best of starts. One of our group members frequently did not come to class while we had the time to work on this project. Also, as a whole class, we had difficulty with some of the computers taking forever to get the iMovie application on them. The group video we presented in class was not our first idea for the project. At first, as a group, we did decide on an elaborate and thought out plot for our group video. The plot was about a woman who worked her entire life as time passed her by. We planned on even having a father time character to better relay the message of our topic. This woman was going to work her entire life without enjoying one second of her life. The time in her life would be wasted away until she passed away. However, this plot was not meant to be.

After realizing our original idea was not going to happen, we switched our focus. We agreed to combine all of our videos. However, we thought it would be better to try to combine all our video into one instead of separating them individually throughout the four minutes. By combing all of our videos together, it gave the project a fresh idea. Four people spend their time so differently, but there is some overlap. We used shots that were very short and very long to communicate how time can feel likes it is going by so fast or dragging on so slowly. The video was structured, so it felt like the viewer was experiencing one day but in four different perspectives and lapses of time. The video ended up coming out better than expected and we are proud of our work. 

Moving on to the personal video portion of the project, that was a brand-new experience. As a person who does not have a large amount of experience with shooting and editing video, this was kind of an intimidating task at the start. Being able to film on the iPhone helped because it made for easy accessibility and it was simple to use. When assessing the topic of time for the personal video an idea was clear from the start. The idea was going through a day showing how personal time is used and try to get different ways time is showcased such as clocks, phones, cars, and cable boxes. The video encompasses a typical Friday. The video attempted to show personal things such as going to the gym, working, playing Fortnite, going to school, driving, and going out with friends. In theory, it is a simple but effective concept. It communicates some important things about myself and keeps on track with the topic of time. Editing the video was a bit of a struggle because of all the film that was taken to work with. The music was not added to the video until the very end in a possible risky decision. This video would set itself apart from others because it did not have music all the way through. The title of this personal video is “The Race.” This is the title because it seems like we are always in a race against time. There are only 24 hours in a day and most of the time that is not enough. The driving scenes in this video are supposed to be a reference to the title of the video.

The public nature of the video did to an extent affect the content that was ultimately produced. First off, filming in public can be an intimidating challenge at times, everyone is looking at you and could be judging you. Also having to showcase yourself to your classmates in a public matter can restrain the content of the video as well. A person probably does not want to come across as weird in a video in front of the whole class. Other than that, the video was exactly how it was drawn up to be. Showing myself in the reflection of a mirror at work ended up being the personal appearance in the video, and it happened by accident, to be honest. The personal video was challenging but came out good in the end.