After brainstorming, shooting and editing I have finally made my first 1 minute video for University. Originally I had the idea of shooting things that I liked: weightlifting, cars and food. Afterwards I would use the footage to tell people what I liked and narrate it through text and background music. However this idea was very literal and bland. I had to come up with something better. Through lots of revisions and extra recording I came up with some more metaphoric and engaging to the audience.

The video that I am submitting is literally me at work editing a video. However with the use of little text and visuals people being to wonder what this is all about. The question is what am I actually editing? People begin to wonder through the hints of self doubts and  random photos of my life what this all means.

SPOILER ALERT…

I am actually editing myself. The sequences are all the media I have taken and become the building blocks to my self-portrait. ALL of the visuals from photos to text are representative of me and when you put it all together through the sequence you an idea of who I am. Me editing myself is a metaphor to my own personal development through the experiences I go through.

Technicalities:

This is the sequence I have generated with all the footage I have compiled, cut and manipulated:

Key framing for the second title:

There were two shots where I did key framing. I used it on the second title to give a jump cut effect and I did it on the second last shot to give a zoom and speed up effect so it can go into the next shot. These two shots were important because this is what gave it the looping effect where I am making video of me editing myself making a video etc. This idea is inspired by Christopher Nolan’s film “Inception” where the main characters enter dreams into another dream to achieve an objective.

Overall I edited the sequence with a lot of jump cuts to five that instant effect with the shots and speed up the video. However at the very end of the video I placed a slow motion shot just to show contrast and give the audience a little break.

As week 4 was approaching to an end, so was the time to hand in my work.  Throughout the week I have been trying to record and capture as much as I could so I had more content to work with. The more that I had in my hands the more flexible it was for me to do my assignment and produce higher quality content. Furthermore I made a greater effort to show my friends and family of the work I have done so far to find out what I can improve and make my video and blogs better.

All the initiatives that I have taken throughout the week are all ideas explored form day 1. Brian the lecturer as really emphasised on the blog and how powerful it is as a reflective tool. These blogs have allowed me to collect my thoughts and brainstorm new ideas on how I could improve myself as a creator. I cannot just sit there and let the work come to me, I have to do the work myself and the opportunities will come. During the start of the course I dissed the blog, now I am slowly coming to terms with it and enjoying a little bit more.

During my talk with Jeremy about my video, he has given me a lot of good constructive criticism. The points that he made about how literal my video was really forced me to think outside the box. I thought to myself:

“how can I make this more engaging to the audience?”

I got my head down and started thinking of new ideas. I ended up ditching the recycled cut and taking out a lot of text. This time the video will be hinting at the audience, leaving them to interpret the themes inside the video.

At the start the workshop we had a little discussion on our though on passion. A lot of my thoughts and ideas have already been addressed my Week 4 Lectorial blog post. After the discussion we continued our work on PB2. At this point I have done most of the work: brainstorming ideas, shooting and editing. During the class I did a little bit of editing and I asked him a few questions:

” Even though this song is copy righted, is it okay to use a few seconds of it?”

“Is that not considered Sampling?”

He replied by asking me where it mentions that in a legal context. I tried finding a law that addresses the issue, but Jeremy already being in the field for a significantly longer time than I have probably already had doubts that it was true. Initially I thought it would be okay because I have heard so many hip hop artists sample a few seconds of lyrics from famous songs or words from impactful speeches. Now that I have clarified it with the tutor I had to take out the copyrighted sample from my assignment which were lyrics from the song “Big Spender” by ASAP  Rocky and Theophilus London.

“I added my previous editing work into this video to show what the video was leading up to, is that okay?”

He replied along the lines of: “why would you not make more original content, rather than recycling old ones”. If I had used the recycled edit at the end I would have made my video more literal and less impactful.

During this week’s lecture we watched a video of Cal Newport’s talk on passion, which extends from the week’s reading “The clarity of the craftsmen”, which is written by the Ted Talk’s presenter. Personally I found this to be a very interesting subject. His account’s on peoples pursuit for success within their “passions”, was very reflective on my life. Newport suggests that passions are something that is developed over time through hard work and success, not given.

When I was studying to be a personal trainer, I started with the idea that I was passionate about fitness. However as I got deeper into the field I figured that the world catered to fitness was something I was not so passionate to train others anymore. In contrast, when my brother bought a camera few years back, I started experimented taking photos. I never identified myself as a passionate photographer, I just wanted to try it out. I never forced myself to do it but I enjoyed doing it because I was willing to learn and improve upon this skill. Over time photography developed in making videos. After getting a job in a studio these skills were needed and had to be improve. I cultivated my photography and videography in a fun and positive environment. I then realised, this was a passion I just ‘stumbled upon’ as Newport mentions in his presentation about Steve Jobs.

I found Newport’s article to have a lot of truth. However there are always exceptions and there is plenty of evidence out there that suggests that passions can be a start to something, and in many ways can help us funnel into the direction of success.

Newport does mention, which I find very relatable, a lot of downfalls to follow blindly into your passions. The one that made a big impression was the fact that little slips a long the way to achieving success could lead to bigger doubts on the legitimacy of your love for the passion.