I’ve been making videos for a longtime. Ive progressed from imovie ’09 to After Effects and Premiere. After watching many hours of tutorials on youtube and many hours of films i would like to think i have learnt some valuable lessons.
The recurring style i have in my own videos is the cut to a rhythm or a beat (a few of my videos are on my other Vimeo account). Its an element that has to be used in music videos but also feature films. Commonly in horror movies the orchestral strings will rise, causing the pace of cutting to increase until it can go no further *cue jump scare*. The church scene in Kingsman: The Secret Service is a great example of editing to music as the speed of the footage is ramped up and down to fit to the song. That scene could be a stand alone music video.
Ive always been fascinated towards music videos which are well synced to the song. A simple way to tell if the video is rhythmic is by watching it without sound. It allows you to actually see the rhythm of the song instead of hearing. I’ll end this blog with a quick compilation of films that have been edited into music. Its really interesting how the editor has transitioned from one cut to another, as well as one song to another. Its a good watch.
Monthly Archives: March 2016
Hats off
This week in our workshop we went over peer analysis, the ‘Coloured Hats’ system. While im still pretty confused on what they actually mean i see why using this system can be useful. It directs clear thinking attention in one direction at a time, help avoid jargon as someone backtracks a possible negative criticism. It allows for equal talk all aspects of someones work. Primarily each seperate Hat specialises in management, information, emotion, discernment, optimistic response and creativity.
At one point i had the ‘green hat’ on. The ‘creative hat’ is meant to generate ideas on how the ‘thing’ can be better and solve a solution to the previously said discernments. I ended up critiquing the video and had to backtrack quickly to avoid an argument.
While i see the Hat system has merit i don’t like it. Its just too ‘robotic’ and considerate. I think conversation shouldn’t be formalised.
A Lofi Looking Self Portrait
“produce/generate individual and original media components that might contribute to a creative self-portrait.”
“demonstrating poetic, playful and abstracted ways of representing the self and the self in contexts”
Text: With LO-FI in mind i decided to tackle the subject matter in a harsh light to make it look as unprofessional and stupid as possible. Ive structured it so its a self-portrait of a ‘day in the life of’ just so its not a bunch of randomly taken pictures as well to add “poetics” to the assignment.
Id start my day inside my room sleeping:
then i leave my room and wake up
i then brush my teeth with my personal toothbrush
catch the train and occasionally bump into an old friend
during my uni break i like to eat food but its not usually hungryjacks
and if ive got a long break i might explore the city a bit more (pre-production B&W grading)
https://youtu.be/HIVJYlPJ62o
Sometimes i duck into galleries like the current one at RMIT
Upon finishing at Uni id catch the train home or to somewhere else. On this train ride home someone had left behind their sourdough.
I might even go to a friends house instead of home.
https://youtu.be/8-UyuUcBa64
but then ill most likely end up going home where ill slide the door lock on
https://youtu.be/tgQdnEbGA_c
Then ill cook dinner if i hadn’t already eaten (this is poppy)
then maybe id relax with the sounds of Zamfirs panflute on low as the whole house would be sleeping (i cant play the pipes and the organs been broken for a year)
So deep
“Media isn’t what you think it is, its what it wants you to think it is”
-Anonymous passerby
Editing – does quality matter?
Jeremy Bowtells raised some very good points in this weeks Lecture. The rhythm of the editing is a key component to juxtapose meanings using spaces and gaps. Using the ideas brought up i will dissect a video ( more series) i have come to love over the past weeks.
John Winslow ‘how to keep smoking’ is like nothing i have seen before. Its purposefully bad bad video with an unconventional message (like many of his videos). John talks in a stuttery and sometimes coughy voice when he dubs over many many shots of his journeys in NYC. each sentence juxtaposes the image we see, and ends as the footage ends, continuing as if a never ending sentence, that just keeps on going and going.
He carries a VHS camera everywhere he goes, and recording random occurrences, odd things and everyday people. Its a guerilla shoot as he doesn’t go for permission to use people in his video. Its truely substance over form as the story is the most important aspect.
John always “makes a cut for a positive reason”. This reason is the rhythm of the videos cutting. Rarely does he have footage of one or 2 seconds. Virtually every shot it 5seconds long ive noticed. it is not ‘stale’ as later in the video he breaks this cycle for the underlining or ‘big philosophical’ question. its what makes his videos different and exiting to me.
I really want to explore the wittiness, awkwardness and Lo-fi attributes of johns videos further in some upcoming projects.
Attention music
Again returning to the topic of hyper attention these are some of my favourite study tunes. its really just background noise
https://soundcloud.com/omgtsn/scood
https://soundcloud.com/ethan-peglar/ive-always-wanted-to-do-one-of-these
My hyper and deep attention last week
While reading the passages, in the back of my head all i could think about was how i was reading it, while processing and thinking about the content. In a way, the passage was made meta in this the exercise because we were forced to undertake a traditional institutional learning approach of reading. I only moved towards hyper attentionish techniques (writing notes and underlining) because i realised i might have to write something about it later. It was a waste of time however because the notes were on the paper, and i lost the paper, so now i have nothing but fading memories
Media 1 already off to a good start with 13 posts already done
Upon completing the first week of Bcom Media i’ve just realised that im well behind the blogging benchmark; 0 post have been completed (not including this). I dont know what to talk about so i guess this topic is a good way to start. Ive been trawling through blackboard and mediafactory websites to see if ive missed any work or information for week two. I feel like im already at the “All the work while crying/deadline” spectrum in that powerpoint. Ive found on media factory theres a reading called ‘Blood in the gutter’ which i need to read for this week. The download link takes me to blackboard but unfortunately theres no download buton there. #justgoogleitmate? When i search it online it comes up with 1 million other results of mediafactory blog posts. I dont feel like reading anything at this time but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to read them later. Thanks for reading this far. thats all.