I came across this video, while watching Ollie Ritchie’s Salt video. While Nathaniel Drew claims that his work was inspired by SALT, I would say that this body of work is beyond beautiful and original. The perfect synchronisation of his voice over, the music and the scenery made this short stand out the most. His use of atmos and sharp edits, add a mood that matches the poem about love. I liked how he rarely shows the face of the protagonist but you assume she embodies the love he is talking about. Her red dress and slow, almost dance like movements, to the rhythm of the guitar is a testament to how important audio is. This is something I would like to incorporate in our final video. In my group, we discussed what our protagonist should be wearing and the significance of imagery in our video. We were stuck between her wearing white, the message being that she is ghost like and a little mad,  and black, for mourning all the ones unknown to her. While I imagined that both colours would work, black appealed to me more, as the act of mourning seemed more interesting. It would be difficult for us to make her seem ghost like, since then we would have to consider her emotions to be different whereas, a person in mourning is grief stricken and lost. We decided on black clothing and then proceeded to think of a backstory for her. While I felt that a back story was not necessary, as the poem itself embodied the pain and longing of someone, Paul reminded us that it would be easier for the actor to understand the character. We did not have a set character in mind but we did know that we wanted her to be so sensitive and empathetic that she would be mourning for people, who she had no association with. It was difficult for us to grasp her character aswell, since we were so stuck on the technical aspect of things.

Someone in the group suggested having drone shots and for the first time I adamantly disagreed. The video above is a perfect example of why drone shots just don’t fit in well with short films and most videos. I feel like there are countless other ways to explore and show a space more creatively. I would have enjoyed the video above even more if the drone shots were replaced with hand held shots of walking or the scenery.  While we have yet to begin shooting for our final project, I am confident that our shoots will go well and our main purpose is to experiment and have fun.