A 2 minute video portrait of my long-time friend: Zach.
It focuses on personal development, entering adulthood and freedom.
Reflection below.
This was an interesting project to work on as it consisted of a lot of constraints that hadn’t been given to me before. At first I thought that the integration of ‘found footage’ would be difficult, and that I would find myself using mostly original footage. However, once I began sorting through footage archives, I found a lot of great resources.
I was surprised at how well some of the ‘found footage’ elements blended in with the audio and video I had recorded and I think that this was the most successful aspect of my production – it made the 2 minutes far more interesting to watch. Exploring ‘found footage’ was really enjoyable and I discovered a lot of great collections that I’ll certainly return to in future uni/personal/professional projects.
I think if I could return to this project and make some changes I’d focus heavily on developing the depth and diversity of the audio. The voiceover narration was an integral part of the project however I think I could have done more; perhaps combining a wider range of sound effects.
Producing this portrait opened up a lot of creative possibilities, some which I implemented in the video, and some which I noted down for later use. A key learning discovery I made was the importance of diversity in such products. Through watching numerous examples, and trying to make my own – I reached the conclusion that for a (short) ‘media portrait’ to be engaging and interesting, it needs to be fairly ‘textured’. Such short projects also need to be quite fast-paced, and I think this restriction allowed me to experiment with new editing ideas and patterns.
This was the first task that involved some level of ‘collaboration’. Interviewing a close friend was an interesting and new experience. The week 5/6 Media 1 readings suggest that a close relationship needs to be established for collaborations to work effectively, and in working with someone I knew very well, I could see the truth/reason behind this idea.