After watching the student videos that were provided and recommended I truly got inspired. Although they were all very different I took something away from each. Below are the three videos I choose to write more in depth about. Whether I thought they were good videos, not so good videos, or needed some work all three inspired me in some way.
Art of Motion
The first video I’m going to talk about was done by a group of students from the University of Rochester. This video is very fast pace and uses stop animation. Stop animation is a technique used to make objects look like they are in motion. In this video the people are the objects that are given the illusion they are in motion. The topic is displayed to be some sort of fight scene. The concept of motion is the main topic but a fight scene is also present. The first part of the video shows only one character that is flying, sliding, jumping through a college campus. It almost seems like this character is just trying to enjoy his day by the way he is flying through campus in an almost comedic way. He suddenly runs into his enemy and the fight scene is in full effect. This video almost reminded me of a scene out of the Matrix movie. The normal fight scene that is between two arch nemeses is electrified by the stop animation. Instead of the fight being on the ground with two characters running around fighting each other it is taken into the air. Although the characters were portraying a fight scene no one was actually being harmed. Once again even though the illusion of motion was the main concept a comedic view was also used. This video is very strong and well done. Even though it is very fast it is still interesting and kept my attention.
Cooking Activity
The second video I’m going to talk about was done by a student who enjoys cooking. It is a short self portrait of a student who is showcasing a part of himself through cooking. This video had a slower pace than the art of motion one. I noticed some text in the beginning but not too much. There were also some camera angels of the kitchen and food that I though was very interesting. The topic of this video is very obvious that it is cooking. Whether it is a hobby or a life dream for this student you can see he truly enjoys cooking and the presentation of food. The whole video shows the student preparing a meal. He incorporated still shots of ingredients and utensils. Although the video starts off a bit slower it speeds up when he is cutting some ingredients up. These I feel was very important because even though the video is short the slowness makes it drag a bit. Sometimes the preparation of a meal can take hours so speeding up the video was important to not make the video an hour long. This video is short and sweet. The topic of cooking is easily portrayed through this self-portrait video of the student. The angle used by the camera makes for an artistic view on cooking. I believe this video was very well done for being so short. The only negative comment I have is that the student could have used better lighting in some areas and the ending was a bit abrupt.
The third video I’m going to talk about is a self-portrait video done by a student who uses objects to literally explain himself. The first thing I noticed about this video was how clear it was from the other videos. I’m not just talking about the topic but the actual clarity of the video. The student is showing his life through his living space. Some text is used but at the right times and there is no overkill of words. The video topic is clearly a self-portrait of this person and his life. The video starts with the opening of a door and also ends with the closing of the same door. This I thought was very clever and shows unity in the video. The video displays themes throughout that go along with this person’s life. He shows his art, music, band, tech, and his productions. This video was a bit slow paced but so greatly put together that it didn’t really matter. You could tell that this student really knew what he was doing because everything flowed. There were many topics of himself that he shared but they somehow all fit together. The transitions between these topics were created by text and went very smoothly. The student also put footage of his band, and productions into the video which gave it more life and movement. The combination of slower frames and actual footage made this video. I have absolutely no negative critiques about this self-portrait video.
All three of these self-portrait videos were very different and had varying topics. I picked these three videos because they were the ones I enjoyed the most and got the most inspired from. I liked how they all did not use much text and used slower frames and faster ones throughout their videos.
This is the only blog post that I felt indifferent about. Jessica mentioned how the videos inspired her. I'm glad that the videos inspired you to make a better video. Some of the videos were good, but none of them inspired me that much. I honestly felt that most of the students had better experience shooting a video than I do. I have zero experience making a short movie. Maybe that's the reason why I feel intimidated when I watch some of the videos with better production values. I do agree with your statement regarding the last self-portrait video. That video was done really well. That video is much clearer than any of the other videos because the creator uses objects to describe himself. Whenever you use objects in a video, it's easier for people to relate with your main point because those objects are familiar. That's a better idea to aim for instead of making an obscure video where you confuse the viewer. All of the videos were different so that made them easier to watch. If all the videos were trying to portray the same thing, it would've been a chore to watch. The videos you chose had very little text because too much text can hinder the experience of any video.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that I also was very inspired by watching the videos, some were better than others but I feel as if I took a lot away from them. The first video you talked about was The Art of Motion and I’m pretty sure we had the same views on it that it was very well put together and comedic. The students did a great job with the use of stop motion and getting the point across of the illusion of motion without anyone actually moving. The next video you viewed was the cooking activity movie which I thought was absolutely awful, it didn’t interest me or keeps me entertained it was a ok piece of work. But, it was nice reading what you thought about it and to see that you actually got something out of it and were interested. The last video was the self-portrait in a literal sense which in all honesty I couldn’t even recall which it was until I read your explanation of it. It’s nice to read about how you described the flow of the video and the concept of space and how everything flowed smoothly from beginning to end. Great job.
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