How do I produce a portrait that reflects who I am within a time frame of one minute?

Thankfully, I decided to rely on the fifty words that I used in my Project Brief One, weird quirks.

Since it was only a fifty word description, it was fitting to do a fast paced video that consisted of rapid shots and cuts. Upon editing, I struggled to try and control the promptness of each frame as the viewer may not have the time to process what was just shown on the screen. In order to overcome this obstacle, I decided to extend each frame by an extra second and eliminate unnecessary footage that wouldn’t be considered a “quirk” of sorts.

Particular transitions such as wipes, slides and quick dissolves were used in order to dissect a scene from another. For instance, the purpose of the quick dissolves between the cheese and the ironing sections was to juxtapose how I hate one thing (raw cheese) but love another (ironing). Furthermore, wipes and slides were to keep a consistent pace and light-hearted flow throughout.

I aimed to convey a vibrant aesthetic that fits with the theme of “weird quirks”. The RGB curves tool, was used extensively to distinguish one scene from another as well as complimenting images with the footage. At the beginning where the constant appearance of lips appeared, were all provided with a red undertone colour and high saturation in order to achieve a consistent aesthetic. Moreover, the images of the lips as well as the walking of each person at the end, were to reflect the idea of individuality. Using the map tool on the RGB curves, I was able to change the colour of the gum from clear to pink in order to give a pop of colour onto the footage.

I used the tool of “Motion” to crop and manipulate the footage to give the illusion of symmetry. However, the walking sequence is definitely something I could improve on during production.

Audio gains was used in order to adjust the decibels of the background music from the narration. A few takes had be done in order to achieve clarity in the narration, and re watching it now, it’s something I still need to work on.

I purposely didn’t feature on my self-portrait film as I wanted to present a piece that was purely filmed and edited myself. So all I’ll say is, I hope you enjoy!