Week 11 Instagram Post Two
Instagram Video 3
How did you author the video you recorded for upload to Instagram?
Using an iPhone 6s, I filmed this in one shot. I was simply walking through a park when I made the discovery of this door. I looked at it for quite a while prior to filming it because I was so surprised to see it. When filming it, I wanted the park to be visible in the shot in order to give context to the door. Therefore, the final product leaves the viewer needing to give the video a second look because the door isn’t immediately noticeable. Furthermore, I shot the video vertically rather than horizontally. I don’t have a specific reason for this choice other than that it was most convenient and I could capture a large portion of the ground and tree whilst still focusing on the door due to it being centred. But, because of my decision to film vertically, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to prepare it for publishing. If I left it in its full size then I felt the video was visually too long in a feed. Whilst I had the option to zoom in on Instagram, I needed to have the cropped video available in my camera roll in order to add the white bars. This meant that I downloaded the app RFV (Rotate & Flip Video) which allowed me to crop the video. I then ran the app through Square Fit but this time rather than bars at the top and bottom, I put bars all around. I felt that this gave the illusion of a framed photo. Then, once interacted with, comes alive through the subtle motion of leaves swaying. In turn, I muted the video.
How did you publish the video you recorded for upload to Instagram?
As I mentioned above, I took this video as I was going for a walk. Therefore, it was a spur of the moment video and so, I only took one video. Whilst there was the option to film the door up closer or film other parts of the park to give context, I ultimately decided to keep the video as one single take. The original video was roughly 10 seconds but I chose to only publish around 6 seconds of the video. The reason for this being that not much changes throughout the video and so, I don’t want to bore the viewer. In saying this, I didn’t want it to be too short either as I wanted the viewer to spend enough time viewing it that they can feel the serenity translate across the screen as they watch the leaves sway and the light filter through. To add further to the moment of serenity, I included a caption that reads as follows: ‘Backyard. This door took me by surprise. It’s someone’s own private access from a park into their home. It makes me wonder about the connection we have to nature. There’s a lot to admire in this world and so, we must make the conscious effort to do so more often.’ I intended to give context to the video as well as present a thought in the hopes that it resonates with the viewer by including a caption. Therefore, whilst Instagram is highly focused around the visual elements, the caption provides an empty space to add depth to the content that is published. Furthermore, this invites viewers to leave comments on the post, which makes the account more personal. I think that through these means, the other affordances of Instagram such as the story function become devices of valuable communication between follower and creator. For example, creators can post text, images, video, music and more to their stories. This adds to the experience of being in someone’s digital world.
How did you distribute the video you published on Instagram to other social media services?
For this final post, I gave Twitter and Tumblr one more go. Again, the distribution process was very simple. This week however, I tried to increase my presence on these two apps. For example, I followed some Tumblr accounts and went through the hashtags in which my posts were tagged in the hopes that I would find some accounts similar to mine that I could engage with and subsequently, would engage with mine. This however, hasn’t shown any results. Therefore, I wonder if the users of Twitter and Tumblr engage with posts differently to Instagram users. On Instagram, I’ve found that hashtags are effective in directing traffic to my account but this may not be the case for Twitter and Tumblr. Therefore, whilst some affordances are found across all platforms, the communities are different and so, some affordances are put into practice more than others depending on the app.