I came up with this experiment to improve my video shooting skills. I made this videos based on the theme of “Textures we see in our daily life”. The video was recorded in my apartment and there was no editing at all. All I did was put the videos together and add in the background music.
Here is a screen shot of the sequence:
Screenshot of the sequence for Experiment-2
Here is the video I made:
I really like to find interesting details on normal things. It became a habit of me since two years ago. I was doing abstract photography at the time and my purpose is to make my audience wonder what is in the photo. When I tell them it is something we use everyday they are all very surprised. This video is not abstract but I tried to show the beauty of textures of things around us. Textures of steel, leather and zippers actually look surprisingly good when you look in a different perspective. I used a 100mm macro lens to record this video because I think the macro lens can show the textures in the best possible way, and the 2.8 aperture can give it a elegant looking blurry effect. It really helped me the make the video look beautiful, detailed and high quality.
I sent the survey to 5 friends of mine and here are the answers I received:
Q1: What do you think this video is trying to show the audience?/What is the theme of the video?
Student1: I think the video is showing a piece of memory of someone. Because all those things could be highly touched by one person so it gave me a feeling of thinking about someone when someone has left.
Student2: I think the video is trying to show the details of daily subjects and hope we pay more attention to tiny things or details.
Student3: This video is trying to use the camera lens to capture the slight object, which is the eye can’t be find easily. Theme: Daily object’s texture
Student4: I think the theme of the video is the beauty of life
Student5: Show the texture of surface and the details of different objects.
Q2: Why do you think that?
Student1: Because all those things could be highly touched by a person everyday.
Student2: The video combines different clips of tiny subjects and the perspective is from a blurry version becomes clear and then it turns to blurry again. Therefore. The time when the subject becomes clear has more attractive to me because I wonder what the subject is.
Student3: It is a good work! Maybe add some shots with natural objects would be better, like the old branch texture.
Student4: 1.Every things in the video are really normal, daily things
2. The music is soft and gentle
Student5: Because the change of focus.
Q3: What would you name this video?
Student1: Leaving (?)
Student2: The beauty of fuzzy.
Student3: Noticing
Student4: Details of life
Student5: Something in detail
Ask Zane for the right answer to Q1. (the answer needs to contain “daily” AND “texture”.)
If you were right,
Q4: Is there anything you think can be improved?
Student3: Hard to think of any, if I have to say one then it will be nice to have some handmade objects in the video because everything in the video is made by machines.
If you were not right,
Q4: How can the video show the object in a better way?
Student1: I want the music to be https://youtu.be/
Student2: If the clear moment of the subjects could stay longer and choose the subjects that most people often use in daily would be better.
Student4: I think he did a good job, the video conform to his theme – textures.
In my opinion, the kettle maybe can be replaced by other things, because the textures of kettle is not clear enough for me
Student5: The change of focus could be slower the clear moments can stay longer.
I was a little harsh when I was judging the answers of the Q1, because I wanted “daily life” and “texture” to be the main parts of the answer. So I only marked Student 3 as correct. However most of the other answers are also quite close to the actually answer, which means my video more of less communicated the main idea with the viewers even without the topic of the video. I would consider it as a successful work because most of the answers did contain at least one of the main key points of the video. I also think the background music was sounding a bit to sad and depressing and it might send a wrong message to my audience, so next time I will consider the music more carefully.
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