Pro Video Editing

Video Blog Post

Samantha Christopher

Making the self and group videos for class was a tedious and long process, but enjoyable when seeing the final product.  Shooting the self videos was fun. It was an opportunity to stop and think about what in the everyday life should be highlighted and how it should be done.  Nothing specific seemed worth capturing rather everything seemed worth it. Various angles and wide/close shots were taken to get the right feeling. In terms of the group video, shooting was a bit harder because instead of being natural, scenes had to be acted out to portray the topic politics, specifically the politics of women.  

At first politics seemed like a very hard topic but after narrowing it down to the politics of women in society everything began to work.  Working with Breanna and Kristina was amazing because they are both strong independent women with passion and many ideas. After bouncing various ideas off of each other for a while the final concept was created.  The focus was on three women who live vastly different lives. One woman was married and a stay at home mom, the other woman was a young girl who likes to drink and party and the last woman was a working woman with an office job.  ( Not saying that a woman can not be all of these things at once, but for the sake of the project they lived different lives.) Each of the women encountered a man who violated them and overstepped their boundaries. The married woman was in an abusive situation with her husband, the scene depicted the man forcfully grabing the woman and shaking her after she stepped in front of the tv and gave him a beer.  The party woman was being followed/drugged while out. The working woman experienced an unwanted encounter with a coworker/boss as he touched her in a sexual manner while she was working. The video ended with all three women with red tape on their mouths and ripping it off in unison. This symbolized the end of silence for women in these situations and situations alike. The three woman coming from different walks of life was meant to show that all woman, no matter race, ethnicity, size, lifestyle, demographic etc experiences some sort of sexual inequality and/or abuse.  The message was strong and important to the world today (especially because of Trump), which made the whole process of shooting and editing the video more worth it. Before shooting, the concept was formulated and the scenes were drawn out in order. The physical shooting of these videos were all done in one day when all of the group members met. Some shots were taken 2-3 times from different angles so that there were a few choices. The whole process took a few hours due to roll changes and wardrobe changes.

In a way the self portion of this project mimicked commonly watched festival “after movies,” movies composed of handfuls of videos from the weekend creatively put together to create a specific vibe.  The self video was an opportunity to create a feeling and a specific vibe for someone. There was ample freedom to take the video in any direction. Keeping with the festival aftermovie feeling the self movie manifested into an uplifting pure feeling.  The video is supposed to embody family, friends, love, work/responsibilities, freedom, happiness and adventures, all wrapped into one person. Yogi and Bear, the featured dogs, represent purity and happiness and mostly love. Family being pictured represents love and closeness and importance in one's life.  The Grill was showing the work aspect of things, and the friendly relationship with coworkers. The many scenes from festivals represent freedom and constant adventures. All in all the video was supposed to portray balance, balance between work and fun, family and friends, adventures and stability and loving it all.  Some of the videos used were already shot and others had to be shot for class. The newly shot videos weren’t hard to create. The GoPro came everywhere (to work, school, home, friends houses etc) for about a week and when the moment was right the videos were shot.

The difference between videos and words is that words are more cut and dry.  Although words and sentences can always be left open to interpretation, they are more tailored to mean exactly what they say.  That is why picking the right word for things is important because only certain words can portray exactly what needs to be said.  Videos on the other hand are more left open to interpretation, which is why being assigned the abstract topic brought the most freedom.  One can focus on different aspects of a video and see completely different things. Photos are similar but they capture specific moments, a pause in time, versus a video that captures more of a feelings.  The moment is still there in a video, but now the power to feel the energy around the moment is there. The essence of videos and capturing the right moments was used in both the self and group video. The self video was more of a capture the moment and feeling sort of thing, where as the group video was more of a express a clear message through motion and movement thing.

The editing process of the videos was tedious, considering there are so many effects options and a specific time frame to keep in mind.  After watching many YouTube videos and taking time to play around with things the editing came out just fine. The cross fade effect was the effect that was most commonly used throughout both videos.  It is more minimal than most of the effects and casually lead one video into the next, versus over dramatised pixelated transitions. Full on effects of the video were not really used besides making almost all of the group video being black and white.

Both the group and self video turned out better than expected.  The message of the politics of women in society was strong and presented well.  After showing it to friends and family they understood the message without having to explain it.  The self video was more of a freedom of expression video which is what made it so fun and personal.