For the second assessment, I decided to work in a group of four, including myself, Pavina, Lyreca and Patrick. We agreed that the prompt “word” and “portrait” are highly related, and so is “joy” and “hurt”. Thus, we decided to create only two videos, combining two prompts each.
Our idea for “word and portrait” came from Youtube channels such as Buzzfeed or Hiho Kids, which I am using as reference, despite not being an artist. For example, in this video by Hiho Kids, the concept is very simple, 100 kids answering one question. It is also visually modest, just kids sitting on a plain background, simple cuts and texts on screen. However, those qualities are what makes the video appealing, accessible and easy to watch. Thus, in our video, we have different people saying “I Love You” in different languages. We believe this particular phrase is simple but powerful (relatable too) and having it said by different people in different languages will give it more personality.
However, the idea for “joy and hurt” came up while we were shooting in the studio. The studio provides coloured lights so we decided we can play with that. In the end, we use Pavina as the character and we just tried to capture her emotions.
For our shoot, we rented out a green screen studio and a few equipment from the techies. We encountered a few problems on set, like figuring out how to use the equipment we borrowed, dealing with an audio recorder that didn’t work properly (which we didn’t know about), and having to ask the tech staffs to help us with the lighting to find out that some needed to be adjusted manually. Aside from that however, the shoot went pretty well. We all took turn in setting up the props, acting our lines and operating cameras.
We split the editing workload into half, meaning me and Pavina did the “portrait and dialogue” video. Still, we all met up to do the first edit together so we could speak up our minds, though mostly it was pair-work.
On my part, I did the visual. This includes cutting up and arranging the footage that we shot, inserting the “overlaying effect” texts Pavina suggested to enhance the visuals, amping up the brightness and changing the green screen to blurry bokeh background with light tones to suit our concept. Pavina was in charge of the audio. The video turned to be “fun” and “warm”, the way we wanted to portray it, which is shown through the cuts, facial expressions and music.
The “joy and hurt” videos was edited by Patrick and Lyreca, so I wasn’t sure about the process. They did show me some of the process while we were editing together, so me and Pavina could give them some feedback, such as changing the disturbing laugh sounds at the beginning of the video. I do like the end product, as both joy and hurt were shown pretty clearly, both through its visual and audio.
Through this assignment, I learned a lot about group work. Working in a group means having to compromise ideas and dividing workload fairly, and making do with our different schedules for meet-ups. I also learned to operate new filming equipment and be involved in a film set-up, also the fact that it’s not a good idea to shoot with two different camera brands. Lastly, I improved a few technical skills in Premiere, such as editing green screen and the text effect.
If I were to do this again, I will include more languages and people into the “portrait and word” videos to make it less pausy and more interesting. While as for the “joy and hurt” videos, I’ll not shoot them in a studio, to make it more natural. Nonetheless, considering the time that we had, I was happy with the outcome of our videos and and that we worked well together as a team.