Mum: Video Portrait from Sandy Nguyen on Vimeo.

(Please watch in HD on Vimeo) 

For my project brief 3, I decided to create a video portrait of my mum, because she was the first person to come to my mind when first told about this assessment.
I believe I have been successful in portraying her as a fun, outgoing and supportive character throughout the video by showing viewers interesting photos that match her style and personality.

The main choice I decided to make when creating this video portrait was to have my mum speak in Vietnamese, because she isn’t fluent in English. I felt this would make her talk and delve more into the subject she was talking about because it is her first language, therefore allowing her to be more expressive.
I am hoping the subtitles do not put people off and they are able to concentrate on both the subtitles and the images on screen.

The difficult moments I experienced during this particular process was mainly in the editing stage; trying to figure out how to add subtitles and align them perfectly with footage and music on iMovie since this is only the second time I have used the program.

Things I have learnt:
How do you know if somebody is a good interviewer?
A question they ask, no matter how short, brings the interviewee to give a long and interesting answer instead of a useless yes or no.
I think that as the interviewer, you must make the other person feel comfortable, as though they are having a conversation instead of being attacked or getting the third degree. Unless you’re in an interrogation room, the person shouldn’t feel as though there is some sort of harsh spotlight on them, piercing through them to reveal the truth. What they have to say must come freely for it to not be an awkward interview.
The more comfortable they feel, the deeper they will go and the better their answers will be.

Trying to fit in all the things you want to show people about a single person in the mini time frame of two minutes is hard work. My mum talks a lot and when I recorded my interview with her, it went way beyond two minutes, so I had to decide what was necessary for me to keep, in order to convey the meaning I wanted to convey.

I’m at the stage of the project where I am refining everything and making it one smooth production. I want to make it x10 better than my project brief 2, not only to prove my learning process, but to do my subject justice.

For our 3rd project brief, we are asked to create a 2 minute media portrait of someone we know. The first person to come into my mind was my MUM, because she is awesome and I have a lot of ideas that I can put into this video to represent her.

Some quick ideas I have:

1. Photos of her in the 90’s when she arrived in Australia from Vietnam (to show how hip her fashion sense was back then)
2. Old photos of me and her when I was young
3. A video showing all the small, quirky things she buys + collects to put around the house
4. An audio recording of my short interview with her (possible talking about her immigration  and how that has changed her life)
5. And other things that are still in the thinking process

I want to show her as a fun (and funny!!), outgoing, family person who goes out of her way to make others happy

Hopefully this 2 minute video will do her justice