Dylan Pratt Behind The Scenes – Iteration 2

For iteration two, I actually had to resort to using Premier Pro so that I could have some leverage on what I could do with my filmed textures. I ended up using the Luma key on the textures to make them really weird effects on my video and and reduced the opacity so that I could underlay other videos in it. I did to form a better connect and make my audience realise what was really happening and where the textures were filmed, i.e., on the sets of a film shoot! I tried to lay separate audio in it as well that drove in what sort of a film shoot it was.

I think the effect I got in the end was pretty cool and I am pretty happy with my video. I think it almost forms a sort of observational documentary of our film set. I showed it to my other team mates and they loved it as well. The audio and the video in this case don’t match at all which is also intentional as i am able to show three different elements from my film set that I was able to capture through my mobile phone.

This video connects to spontaneity because none of these videos were actually taken with the plan of being used in my Post Industrial Media Video but just happened to work out that way as I started developing my project. The second iteration is quiet a jump from the first and surprisingly I did not have to reshoot anything for it as I already had all the other videos and audio that I used to form it.

I think I can make it more abstract though so that my textures as well as my underlaying video connect with each other more as I think my audio is enough for the audience to connect with my narration!

Textures on a film set – Iteration 1 PIM

For my first iteration, I used my discovery of finding different textures in the environment around me and in my case that would be on a film set, to make a compilation of the textures. We don’t realize how many different and really cool textures can be found on the film set, and the textures I got range from placing my phone on a light panel and moving it around to getting a distorted video of the air blowing machine vent. I used props, masks and various other things like a plastic bag that I found on the sets to form my textures.

I was determined to stick to only using my phone to make my video and so I downloaded three different types of video editors that I found on the app market on my Sony Xperia Play store. I downloaded the highest rated ones, but I can truthfully say that after using fancy software like Premier, it is actually really hard to use these simple and limited ones on the phone. Plus the screen is so small!

I was able to trim my videos and place them together on the apps. I also added a title slide that the app animated for me without me doing anything to it. The options were very limited and I left my video at that.

Overall, I really like the textures I got but as a video I could see that my video didn’t really form any connections in the mind of the viewers and they couldn’t make out what was happening. So for my next iteration, I have decided to have a much better title as well as use overlaying audio files that I collected on the sets to give a background story of what I am filming. I also did not play with any effects at all, and would like to do that just because it is a common thing to do with mobile videos as well and may effect my outcomes.

Regardless, I think this is a good iteration 1 but I have a long way to go before my final video!

Sketch 6 – Pretty Feet

This is probably the most common type of video in any teen girls’ world. It’s actually pretty bizarre how many people photograph or make a video of their own feet! Unconscious feet fetish might actually be really common. I guess, thinking about it, there can always be a great story behind every shot of feet, but at the same time I question if the idea of moving ahead, the conspet of getting somewhere, is so inbuilt into the minds of people, that clicking feet is now part of spontaneity in the form of a reflex action of sorts, when one holds a camera and looks around for something to click.

Stopping my rant here, I think it is really interesting, not only metaphorically all over the place, but even composition wise. Looking at what I shot, I think composition of making the picture good is a huge part of it.

What I was actually trying to do was create small splashes in the left over rain water in my drive way. Though, I guess I was also being very gentle because I had my phone in my hand and did not want to make it horribly shaky. Hence, I ended up making ripples instead of flying water.

The colours in here are also interesting to me because again, they belong to only two families – Grey and Red (feet are also red due to blood flow). I am now thinking that sticking to close family shades to make different elements of my composition is probably more advisable than having colours all over the place, when it comes to making a by the rules aesthetic image.

Sketch 1 – Caged Dustbins

Walking out after the intensive, behind building number 9, I was talking to my friend when we heard the generator noise around us. It was really loud and over-powering. She thought it would make a really good sound to have in a sci-fi kind of film. Remembering what I had been watching in class all day, I looked around, taking out my phone to see what I could shoot to go along with the sound. There was a door, made of metal bars with dustbins on the other side. I started shooting immediately using various options. I shot with colour, black and white, perfectly upright and some shots in different angles.

My chosen affordance is spontaneity. That is exactly what my phone afforded me that day. I was able to jump from hearing an interesting sound to shooting a video that I like very much. I was not being billed by the hour, nor did I have to run somewhere to get equipment. It all took less than ten minutes and gave me a perfect video to use. Had I been using fancy equipment, I probably would not have bothered to run back to get it or shoot this piece. A phone allows us to be spontaneous and capture what we deem beautiful or extraordinary in the moments of everyday. In this sketch, the process of making the video was spontaneous.

An issue I did realize was that sometimes your video material can be spontaneous but takes more shape as minutes pass by. It is unplanned, hence the time taken to get a shot you can live with happily may be much longer. I did end up shooting ten videos here to end up with one sketch that I liked. I used the black and white filter on my video as well, which came through after much experimentation. Alternatively though, I think experience makes this issue go away as you develop an eye for things.

This video has been inspired by TransmiLoop as I have tried to give it an effect which I think is loopy and the sound was what inspired me in the first place.

Spontaneity in ‘TransmiLoop’

As a group, we chose the video titled ‘TransmiLoop’ by Lorena A Diaz Herrerra and Stephanie Ramirez Lopez. This video basically creates music by looping everyday transmit sounds and videos. In our opinion, this video shows that a mobile phone affords spontaneity because of how the sounds in the video are captured, which was just shot straight out of our everyday lives. While watching the video you are struck with how amazing it is what a mobile phone can capture beautiful moments like that. That it was captured mindlessly and then played over and over, which might have been the beginning of the film coming together. It is known that working with expensive equipment often cannot give us the same form of experimental freedom. Cameras and audio recorders are expensive to use and like we discussed in class, a lot of planning goes into it to get the optimum output. Storyboarding, angles, aesthetics and such do not need to be planned when you are just using mobile phones. Hence, the power of spontaneity comes into play.

Spontaneity is defined as a sudden impulse or an unplanned action. The mobile phone allows you to capture these spontaneous moments at random times. When out of the blue something catches your eye, you have access to capture these moments because you have your mobile phone. A mobile phone provides the practitioner to record and edit any moments anywhere, anytime and it also makes it easier to shoot people who are not working actors. Pointing a mobile phone rather than a whole film camera set up at someone is less suspicious and conscious and so the less chances of them rejecting being filmed. It also captures the spontaneity of the action better because when someone knows they are being recorded they may act differently and the shot might get too stiff and unnatural. It is also more possible to cover a wider range and/or any kind of subjects on impulse with a mobile phone. On the business front of filming, a mobile phone offers a good chance at observational films which enforces truth behind what is being seen and hence, might be more believable for our audience.

For our Post-Industrial Media class, we plan to capture unplanned and/or unscripted moments, make each of them count and produce a story from that. We want to remind people to stop for a moment and take in what they miss everyday.