In the case study there are multiple professional looking shots of the phone being reviewed, defined by the use of camera movements such as tracking in, out and across, as well as tilts and pans. For our sketch, we wanted to explore how this would look if the subject was less deserving of a review, let alone such long lasting, high end visuals. We chose the bottle opener after considering various objects that don’t require review-style criticism, and we felt that since most tech reviews centre around the latest high-tech devices, the idea of a basic device such as the bottle opener being reviewed would be result in a humorous dynamic.
Having selected a bottle opener as the reviewed item, we went into filming, aiming to replicate the kind of shots in the case study substituting the high-tech iPhone with the low-tech bottle opener.
An issue we ran into while filming our sketches came from our ability (or inability) to film smooth shots of the bottle opener. We needed to film shots that looked professional and found it trickier than first anticipated. We recognised that we needed something to balance the camera on rather than relying on our own hands for smooth shooting, and knowing this we set up a make-shift ‘dolly’ out of items we could find in the room and shot the bottle opener using this technique. This stems from practice we’ve used before, only where in the past we have had something more professional at our hands such as a tripod or an actual dolly, this time we made do with what we had and tried our best to replicate this practice with the resources we had.
We also added music to better replicate the shots seen in the case study and to keep the professional feel there despite the use of the bottle opener as the subject, adding to the juxtaposition. The music itself is royalty free.
