The
brief for this project was to create a video, the video could be
solely of still images or a mixture of images and footage. The video
could contain audio of either self-made, un copyrighted or
self-recorded. The theme for the video was 'a point of view' which
left it quite wide open to pursue any direction you wish. The video
has to have some link or connection to seminal texts. The video has
to be outputted in Adobe Premiere.
My
idea came as inspiration from the book Image Makers Image Takers, in
which a wide range of photographers are questioned about several
aspects of their photography. This sparked an idea to create a point
of view (as the theme suggests), I had several questions in mind to
use for my video so tested them out in the studio. After seeing which
provoked the best answers I chose the question 'Why do you take
photographs?'. As the models I had to hand were photography student I
thought this would evoke some interesting answers. I would ask
several models this question and ask them to write down their answer
on an OHP projector while I filmed their hand movement. I would then
photograph them in front of the projector with the words of their
answer projected on their bodies. There were certain elements that I
found out I needed to change after my first shoot. The models needed
to wear white clothing so that the text is seen more clearly and they
needed to use a thicker marker pen to write their answers again to
make the writing clearer. I then recorded them speaking their answers
to use as audio. All of this footage and stills would create my short
video.
My
reasoning for making this video was to get people thinking. These
days the majority of people have a camera, most people carry one with
them at all times (on their mobile phones) so I wanted to stop people
for a moment and get them thinking 'why do they take photographs?'
People tend to just snap away, selfies, images of the food they've
eaten but there is something that interests us all about documenting
our life and viewing it through a lens. I intend for this video to be
an online viral video that people come across without clicking on it,
I hope it'll make them stop and think about why they take photographs
in this fast moving world of imagery.
Adobe
Premiere isn't a piece of software that I have used before so having
six weeks to make footage, images and learn how to use premiere was a
bit daunting at first. When I had solidified my idea it was a case of
getting the content and experimenting with premiere to put it all
together. I'll be honest the software did scare me a little with all
the different parts to it on one screen but after workshops with John
I started to figure it out.
To
create the opening title I used singular letters displayed for less
than a second to make it look like the title is being typed on the
screen. I tried to do this through animation or effects on adobe
premiere but as I am not very familiar with the software and couldn't
see a way to do this via animation. I decided to do it using the
title option on premiere, where you can create titles of many
different styles. I used a downloaded font called 'Mom's Typewriter'
and used layers of singular letters to make the effect of typing.
For
the audio part of the video I used sound from the models speaking
their answers, then I used an online website called UJAM to create a
piece of audio to go with the silent parts of footage I have shot. I
used different beats and tunes to create a unique and new piece of
audio so that it was my own.
If
I were to have more time to work on this project or were to do it
again I would spend more time making my footage making sure there are
no camera shakes or background noise. I would have more time
experimenting on premiere to get to grips with more advanced aspects
of it to have a more refined video.
