With the footage I shot around my house on the weekend, I produced two videos.
I was initially just aiming to produce a mini self-portrait, but by accident I created a murder scene out of my house. I think this was mostly to do with the dramatic background music, it made the shots look like some documentation of murder evidence. So then I tried putting some softer background music against my shots and also took out some shots that gravitated towards the horror genre and the result was definitely less intimidating. Not sure if I would call it a documentary about myself though as my presence is mostly absent apart from the fact I’m holding the camera.
For the editing, I kept the shots in the same order that I shot them just because I tend to dart all over the place and I think it’d be more interesting than arranging them in an orderly fashion. It’d also be interesting to see whether people realise I’ve gone all over the place especially considering they won’t know the structure of my house. So in the end, I think this was just more of a montage/editing exercise. I did make use of music in this video, but I wouldn’t say I focussed on it enough to consider it a sound editing exercise.
After showing the video to a few people and also screening it during class, people pointed out towards the end of ‘Vertovesque’ that the lightning flashed in sync with the music. This was half coincidence and half on purpose. During the edit, I arranged the footage before I put in background music because I wanted the music to accompany the footage and not the other way around. After I finished arranging the footage, put the music in and watched the whole thing I realised that the piano notes matched the way the lightning flashed at the end and decided to keep that rhythmic edit.
People may wonder why I didn’t make use of more rhythmic editing seeing as it is suitable for such a video, but personally I think if it is overdone the audience will become accustomed to it and the video will begin to be predictable. In order to surprise the audience, I decided to just make one part sync up the piano notes. Furthermore, the majority of the shots are quite similar in length, slowing down just a little in the middle before picking up again. I purposely elongated the last two shots to build suspense. The second to last shot is somewhat of a ‘feint’ as nothing really happens, then the last shot appears to be an almost an identical shot until the ‘punchline’ right at the end.
As for ‘Less murderous’, it was simply an attempt to make my house feel ‘nicer’. I changed the music, and took out some of the night shots, or lingered on them for a shorter time. My friend commented that most of the shots that I kept were okay, but the shot of the altar basked in red-light was still out of place and too spooky for the concept I was going for. While I do agree with what she said, at the same time I wanted to stay true to the nature of my house. And seeing as that altar has such a presence in my household, I decided to keep the shots in there despite its contrasting quality.
More than anything, I think these two videos are very strongly based on visual and sound, for visual and sound’s sake. Of course, the shots were filmed around my house, chosen and framed by myself, and so it is personal yet it probably doesn’t fully reflect my personality as much as it does my house. So rather than a self-documentary, maybe I’d call it a documentary on my house ? Actually, it might even pass as a drama in which my house has a split personality and is the protagonist and antagonist hahaha.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B67RnNkkCddvRG1xaDk2NFdwdE0