I was with a friend today when he asked if I had watched Hillsong’s teaser for their upcoming conference in Sydney. He told me that it was really good, so I decided to have a look at it when I got home.
It was a rather attractive promo video, with stunning visuals, montage-like editing and a theme that followed the title, “Speak, We’re Listening”. According to a write-up by Hillsong Film on the making of the video, they briefly wrote about the idea behind it, and why they chose certain visuals and specific voices.
The idea was to contrast the reality of the noisy/chaotic world we live in with the silent sanctuary of the presence of God that we actually do live in … We start the journey with a calm landscape – slowly but surely building in intensity – building toward a crescendo, building towards a climax. These nature-scapes were also inter-spliced with modern/graphical imagery to give the sense of modern distractions/noise … We also used a voice to lead us through the narrative aspects of the film promo. We wanted to use the voice of a younger man, slightly weathered – large beard and an overcoat.
It was an interesting read, for the fact that I was able to know a little more about how it was made, and some of the ideas that guided the entire video. I watched it a second time after reading the write-up, and felt even more drawn towards it than I was before. Not only did it play its part as a promo video, but it was also a film well made.
Putting this into practice, it is really important to come up with ideas that will lead your video through, to an end product that portrays the message you want to deliver. That is what we have been doing in the studio, and by presenting our ideas to our classmates, we get to share our experiences and give one another different insights.
After altering our scrapbook sketch by replacing the background music with ambient audio from the café – as can be seen in this post – Jia Jia and I proceeded with thinking of more ways in which we could improve our prototype for Project Four.
We had some ideas to change the still images to moving visuals, as in having them in the form of a video instead of pictures. However, after talking to Seth, he reminded us that there is already a lot of potential in our current idea with the still images. We realised that we may be taking too big steps in trying to change it up, and that we should slow down.
Jia Jia and I then came up with a couple of different iterations, still following the same concept but making a slow move towards progress, one which would eventually be our final prototype. We find that this is important, because it gives us the opportunity to see things step-by-step, and not to rush into something that we are unsure of. Some of our ideas would play around with the visual quality of the images, the background audio, the stylistic techniques, and so on.
We plan to think of some ideas as to which cafés we could visit over the weekend, then get some sketches done on Monday. Thinking about it, we would need to find a café that allows us to film with ease; one that has decent lighting, and also sufficient space to do what we have planned out.
We had recorded some ambient sounds from some of the cafes while doing Project Three, and so we decided to edit them in our scrapbook idea, just to see what it would be like. Previously, we only used some royalty free music found online. The idea to capture sound from the places we visited was a good suggestion by one of the members of the panel in our last presentation.
As Arif and Elaine were talking about how they wanted to do car reviews in class, I was reminded of a channel I’ve been following for the past two years or so.
It’s funny, because Regular Car Reviews isn’t actually just regular car reviews. This YouTube channel that tests out and reviews cars – mostly older cars – with dry humour and a whole lot of fun. It’s engaging, how they take something so serious and supposedly masculine, and make a car review that is funny and makes great entertainment. I don’t know much about cars, but watching Regular Car Reviews is always a good way to take my mind off things because of how funny it is.
There isn’t a narrative structure to their videos, but the way each car is reviewed can be quite consistent. They often give an overview of the physical attributes of the car, followed by its internal specifications and a test drive. I believe that the most attractive part about their channel is their use of humour – that is what makes it all so entertaining to watch. I mean, I’m not somebody who likes cars all that much, but their humour is what keeps me interested.
This led me to thinking about my other classmates’ project, and how they have been focusing on comedy reviews. It makes such a good angle, reviewing things with a sense of humour. You can take something that is usually so serious or boring, and give it a twist.
I think that is what makes a good online video – one that is worth watching and talking about. In order to have that sort of impact, people have to put a lot of thought in both the content and overall structure, to make a video that has a lasting impression on those who watch it. It should be both doable and memorable. It should go against conventional methods and have something that is unique and stands out amongst what it already out there.
By reflecting on this, I have a better idea as to what I want to achieve in the weeks to come. I quite like how progress is with what Jia Jia and I have been working on, and with all that has been done and will be done, I hope that we would be able to impact viewers with what we have to present, in a way that is both different and memorable.
We had a studio discussion today, in which we were all seated in a circle and told Seth and our classmates our ideas for Project Four. It was nice to hear everyone’s ideas and I look forward to what each group will present in the weeks to come.
As Seth helped us find a clearer direction for our sketches that would eventually lead to a prototype, we came up with a revised probe for Project Four:
How can we use stylistic techniques to create a hybrid form of travel review?
I like how it has become more focused as compared to the diverse amount of sketches from the previous project. Seeing as how we would be focusing on the idea of scrapbooks, Jia Jia and I came up with three ideas (so far) that played around with different stylistic techniques to produce different results:
1. Video of the place + Holding up cue cards 2. Instagram scrapbook: Mini videos + Text in the caption
3. Still images + Sounds from the place (Cowbird)
Hopefully Jia Jia and I will be able to come up with more ideas, and also take some time to explore a bit of the above sketches later this week.
The past eight weeks in the studio have been exciting. We have had the opportunity to work with online video practices that interested us, and have proceeded to deconstructing them as well as worked on many sketches to help us better understand it. We’ve received the brief for Project Four, and that is to create a prototype from one of our sketches in our previous project.
Before proceeding with all that, however, Seth decided to give a mini lecture on several key terms that we have been using in the studio. Some of the words included narrative, non-narrative and interactive. I remember not fully understanding these words back in the first few weeks of the studio, and the way I comprehended it was rather vague.
In the studio today, Seth gave us a couple of readings and also showed us some clips and videos to help us understand these terms. With today’s class doubled up with all the previous studio sessions, I can say that I am beginning to truly understand what this is all about and why we are doing this. My classmates are also great inspirations, and it’s never dull to hear what each group is doing because all our ideas and proposals are always so different.
After all that, we also went to a nearby café just to have a chat about what has been going on in the studio. It was a good change from sitting in our usual spots, and I got to talk to have several casual conversations with a few of my classmates. It was a nice breather, and Jia Jia and I also came up with some ideas that we might want to pursue in Project Four.
As I was writing an essay for my ‘Music in Popular Culture’ subject, I stumbled upon an online video that I found quite interesting. William Pharrell released a music video some time last year for one of his hits, Happy, and it received much response from his fans and the media due to how unique of a video it was.
It was a “never-ending” music video, which played on and on and wouldn’t stop till you closed the window. It held the title as the world’s first 24-hour music video, and it’s great because you can actually control the time of the day. Initially I wondered why he did that – does he want to deliver a message of some sort or is it simply for publicity purposes? Maybe both, but either way, the video managed to leave a mark as the first music video of its kind. Which, is pretty cool.
Quite a lot goes on in the video, and it is mostly people dancing and lip-syncing to his song. It isn’t too interesting in its narrative structure but what stands out is the fact that it is a video much unlike the others on YouTube. In fact, this one has a webpage all to itself.
Before I began classes in this studio, I used to think of online video as simply one that lived on YouTube. Need a tutorial on how to use Adobe Illustrator? YouTube’s got you. Want to keep up with your favourite artists? YouTube’s got you. Looking for something to keep you entertained while waiting for your girlfriend to get ready? YouTube’s got you.
On the contrary, YouTube may be one of the most popular platforms for online video, but there is more to that than what is on YouTube. You’ve got webpages like the one for Pharrell’s music video, you’ve got Vimeo and DailyMotion, you’ve even got social media services like Instagram and Twitter. The possibilities are never-ending.
Reporting
We were the second group to present today, and I was actually pretty excited to share our discoveries with the panel within our 5-minute presentation. After telling them about what we have done and what we plan to do in Project Four, we received our feedback. We were told not to carry on with Korsakow, which, looking back, I agree with. They told us that by giving people the option to make their own decisions on this platform, we are also limiting interactivity, in the sense that we would not be able to get comments from other people who may have visited the café. By putting our travel video review in this closed space, we do not give people the opportunity to share their opinions.
Relating
The experience with the panel reminds me of another project I did back in college. Back then, my group and I were so enthusiastic about so many ideas that we forgot about the main focus. We came up with so much to do and were so excited – and drained out at the same time – that things begun to become a little messier than desired. Getting feedback from the panel today was a good reminder to stay on track and work with what we have, rather than jumping to different things and trying to achieve something else without noticing the potential a certain idea already possesses.
Reasoning
Because Jia Jia and I liked both the scrapbook and Korsakow ideas, we felt like it would be a good idea to combine the two. On the contrary, it restricted certain things and caused us to stray away from the fact that there we already have a good thing going on in the scrapbook idea. The panel’s comments were important to helping us realise that, and it is only through this sort of constructive criticism that we would be able to get better.
Reconstructing
With the comments received today, Jia Jia and I plan to scrap the Korsakow idea and fully concentrate on improvising and improving our scrapbook idea. Overall, today was a good experience and we look forward to starting on Project Four.
Seeing as how we will have to reconstruct our presentation for this Monday so that the panel would understand what we have been doing in the studio for the past seven weeks, Jia Jia and I discussed which two out of the four presented on Friday we felt would make it to Project Four.
We like both the scrapbook and Korsakow ideas, so we thought of a way that we may merge both to create a non-linear sort of structure. That way, people would be able to make conscious decisions as to what they would like to be exposed to. For example, in the context of our project, which café would they like to visit? What drink would they like to order?
We also want to further explore our scrapbook idea by using moving visuals instead of still images. Hopefully, that would make our travel video review more engaging and entertaining. Hopefully all goes well for Monday’s presentation!
Spent the past few days getting our sketches ready for Project Three, and now the day of our presentation is finally here!
Reporting
Since we had only 10-12 minutes to presents, Jia Jia and I decided to present only four out of ten of our sketches, which turned out to be a good idea. If we were to do more – as in our the presentation for the previous project – I’m pretty sure we’d be rushing through the whole thing. We presented the four that we might to pursue in the final project, in hopes of getting better insight on which one(s) we would present to the panel the following Monday. As we were running quite short on time, we didn’t get to hear much feedback from the class. However, Seth did give a good suggestion which we happened to miss out on, which is to elaborate on how we got to the whole topic of travel video reviews. Overall a decent presentation, in my opinion. I also really enjoyed listening to all my classmates’ ideas. It’s so refreshing to see just how much potential online video has, and the various ways in which it can be put forward to its audiences.
Relating
I really liked the fact that we were able to first present to our class before proceeding to facing the panel on Monday. I do remember a time when Jia Jia and I did not get to present due to the lack of time. We couldn’t get any criticism nor comments, and that made coming up with ideas a little more difficult.
Reasoning
I have come to realise the importance of consulting your lecturer and peers – that sometimes it is necessary to first go through them before you proceed to improving a certain thing, as they would be able to notice your mistakes better than you, and give you suggestions that you may not have thought of.
Reconstructing
Based on the comments that were given today, Jia Jia and I plan to pick two to present this Monday. We also plan to better our presentation such that we will come up with a clearer explanation for the entire project as well as make some slides to present to the panel.
