Thursday, 4 November 2010
Monday, 3 May 2010
Final Post
For this project, this is my final post now that all four videos are complete and the hand-in date is soon. I have already given analysis of each video and what I feel works or doesn't, on the post where I've put each final one and so this is an evaluation of the project as a whole.
Overall, I'm very happy with how the project has turned out. It's been good to try something different and to experiment some more with video which has always taken a backseat to photography. I had fun putting the project together and it's a personal one to me as I go undertake journeys a lot and editing the footage or the photographs reminded me of journeys, or of events that happened on them or once I'd reached the destination.
Since I started the project way back last year, it has changed a lot and the idea has pretty much done a turn from being all about stills to wanting to make a video, to ending up with four shorter videos that form more of a collection. As a collection I am happy with them, but I do prefer three of them whereas as 'Time' isn't my favourite. Ultimately, I couldn't get it to do what I wanted and on the whole found it frustrating. It just isn't as powerful and doesn't achieve its purpose as much.
The only problem I picked up with any of them is that the aspect ratio in 'Time' changes as I used clips from two different cameras that had different sizes. I hadn't thought about this until I came to edit and forgot it would be a problem. It doesn't ruin the video as per say, but it is noticeable. However, it was too late to reshoot footage and I wanted those specific clips so I'm coping with it.
Overall, I'm very happy with how things have turned out. If this was a longer project I'd try and do more road trips to collect more footage to give a different look, but it's still gone well and I do have a variety.
Overall, I'm very happy with how the project has turned out. It's been good to try something different and to experiment some more with video which has always taken a backseat to photography. I had fun putting the project together and it's a personal one to me as I go undertake journeys a lot and editing the footage or the photographs reminded me of journeys, or of events that happened on them or once I'd reached the destination.
Since I started the project way back last year, it has changed a lot and the idea has pretty much done a turn from being all about stills to wanting to make a video, to ending up with four shorter videos that form more of a collection. As a collection I am happy with them, but I do prefer three of them whereas as 'Time' isn't my favourite. Ultimately, I couldn't get it to do what I wanted and on the whole found it frustrating. It just isn't as powerful and doesn't achieve its purpose as much.
The only problem I picked up with any of them is that the aspect ratio in 'Time' changes as I used clips from two different cameras that had different sizes. I hadn't thought about this until I came to edit and forgot it would be a problem. It doesn't ruin the video as per say, but it is noticeable. However, it was too late to reshoot footage and I wanted those specific clips so I'm coping with it.
Overall, I'm very happy with how things have turned out. If this was a longer project I'd try and do more road trips to collect more footage to give a different look, but it's still gone well and I do have a variety.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Final Version of Time
This is the video that I struggled with the most. I had an idea of what I wanted it to look and sound like in my head, but no matter how many edits I tried, I couldn't get it exactly right and I think tried too hard. By the time I got to this version I had five completed edits that I thought were rubbish and three unfinished ones that just totally lost their way halfway through.
Considering the original idea was to keep all four of them around 40 seconds, I've not managed it on any of them and this one turned out to be the longest. However, to achieve what I wanted it would have been near impossible to cut it to a shorter length.
I found this one the most challenging to make because I needed it to be independant and different from the other three but time on a journey is sometimes awkward to illustrate unless the viewer has had that experience. To try and demonstrate the point that how fast the journey goes changes, as does how much you notice and the repition of ultimately repeating actions or getting that deja vu feeling that you've seen that before or driven around that roundabout before were important. I also wanted to try and use footage that hasn't appeared in any of the other videos.
Thinking of what to do with sound was again, an awkward one. I think one of the issues is that when I was filming, I didn't think about sound as much as I should have and originally, I planned to use a lot more of the conversation that went on during the journeys. However, once I sat down and went through the footage, I decided that I didn't really want to use the conversation as it almost made it too personal and quite a lot of it was talking about personal or family issues or football and I didn't feel it interesting or relevant enough.
Something I added in to try and keep that flicking feel as you realise a lot of time has passed (sometimes so much that you're on an entirely different road) was to use fade in, fade outs as transitions between certain clips. I also took advantage of the speed of clips, starting off slowly as the car left a starting point (in this case a service station) and gradually getting faster and then changing a couple more times in rhythm until the slow, frustrating traffic jam in the evening after an already long journey.
While I don't hate this video, I don't feel it gets its point across anywhere near as well as the previous three and it was generally frustrating because even though I left it several times and came back to it, it didn't help.
For now, unless I suddenly gain inspiration or vision of things to improve it, it will be my final piece, meaning I now have four videos that explore four different themes of my original theme:- journeys/road trips.
Considering the original idea was to keep all four of them around 40 seconds, I've not managed it on any of them and this one turned out to be the longest. However, to achieve what I wanted it would have been near impossible to cut it to a shorter length.
I found this one the most challenging to make because I needed it to be independant and different from the other three but time on a journey is sometimes awkward to illustrate unless the viewer has had that experience. To try and demonstrate the point that how fast the journey goes changes, as does how much you notice and the repition of ultimately repeating actions or getting that deja vu feeling that you've seen that before or driven around that roundabout before were important. I also wanted to try and use footage that hasn't appeared in any of the other videos.
Thinking of what to do with sound was again, an awkward one. I think one of the issues is that when I was filming, I didn't think about sound as much as I should have and originally, I planned to use a lot more of the conversation that went on during the journeys. However, once I sat down and went through the footage, I decided that I didn't really want to use the conversation as it almost made it too personal and quite a lot of it was talking about personal or family issues or football and I didn't feel it interesting or relevant enough.
Something I added in to try and keep that flicking feel as you realise a lot of time has passed (sometimes so much that you're on an entirely different road) was to use fade in, fade outs as transitions between certain clips. I also took advantage of the speed of clips, starting off slowly as the car left a starting point (in this case a service station) and gradually getting faster and then changing a couple more times in rhythm until the slow, frustrating traffic jam in the evening after an already long journey.
While I don't hate this video, I don't feel it gets its point across anywhere near as well as the previous three and it was generally frustrating because even though I left it several times and came back to it, it didn't help.
For now, unless I suddenly gain inspiration or vision of things to improve it, it will be my final piece, meaning I now have four videos that explore four different themes of my original theme:- journeys/road trips.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Final Version Of Sights And Places
The experimental version of this was very, very rough as I still didn't know exactly where I was going with it on both video and sound levels, so it's nice to formulate and get a final piece finished.
The major changes I made were to get rid of the white text on black screen that introduced each places. I thought that as in some of the pictures you can read what it says and work out where it is, that perhaps the inclusion of the text that preluded each one was a bit too much and slowed down the rhythm. It would flow better and give people something more to concentrate on if the pictures just followed one another.
Sound was something I was worried about for this video but as it's more about the visuals, the idea to just put the monotonous sound of the road behind them all was appropriate. It kept the theme of the road trip going and suggested the means of travel as well as keeping viewers in the frame of mind. This video was all about demonstrating that if it wasn't for being a football fan and these places, that the journeys wouldn't have been done, the miles wouldn't have been covered and I'd have had nothing to record and so keeping the dull tones of the road behind the visuals was important.
Something else I added was the inclusion of two other clips that featured radio in them. I didn't have as many radio clips as I'd have liked but these two add something different that none of my other videos have because it's a different soundscape and it's the only video that really gives insight into conversation in the car.
Also, I added more pictures into the video that followed of various sights or places that I photographed while making the journeys. For the weather one it helped illustrate and prove I had and some of the images are literally a flicker on the screen and force you to try and snap into gear and work out what it was.
Generally, I'm very pleased with this video and feel it works. It might have a calmer, less in your face feel than the others (particularly Lost) but it does what I intended and is a much more personal insight into the purpose of journeys and why I spend hours driving around and what makes it all worthwhile.
The major changes I made were to get rid of the white text on black screen that introduced each places. I thought that as in some of the pictures you can read what it says and work out where it is, that perhaps the inclusion of the text that preluded each one was a bit too much and slowed down the rhythm. It would flow better and give people something more to concentrate on if the pictures just followed one another.
Sound was something I was worried about for this video but as it's more about the visuals, the idea to just put the monotonous sound of the road behind them all was appropriate. It kept the theme of the road trip going and suggested the means of travel as well as keeping viewers in the frame of mind. This video was all about demonstrating that if it wasn't for being a football fan and these places, that the journeys wouldn't have been done, the miles wouldn't have been covered and I'd have had nothing to record and so keeping the dull tones of the road behind the visuals was important.
Something else I added was the inclusion of two other clips that featured radio in them. I didn't have as many radio clips as I'd have liked but these two add something different that none of my other videos have because it's a different soundscape and it's the only video that really gives insight into conversation in the car.
Also, I added more pictures into the video that followed of various sights or places that I photographed while making the journeys. For the weather one it helped illustrate and prove I had and some of the images are literally a flicker on the screen and force you to try and snap into gear and work out what it was.
Generally, I'm very pleased with this video and feel it works. It might have a calmer, less in your face feel than the others (particularly Lost) but it does what I intended and is a much more personal insight into the purpose of journeys and why I spend hours driving around and what makes it all worthwhile.
Final Version Of Lost
While I liked the experimental version of 'Lost', I felt like it could use some work, particularly on the sound front and also trying to make the video flow more in time with the soundscape. There were a couple of things I wanted to change especially.
In the experimental piece, I deliberately left in a cough on one of the sat nav instructions. The effect it created was one of annoyance, you wanted the person to shuttup and it got more annoying as the video went on. While I was going for being annoying and building up that level of tension, the cough began to annoy me and so taking that out or only using it very sporadically was important.
Sound isn't my strongest point on video and so it was important to really try and work on the soundscape since in this video, it's as important as the visuals. It was decided that building up the tension and gradually increasing the different instructions going on as well as the volume would help build that tension and get more annoying and overwhelming as the video progresses. I think this final version achieves that and to check it did what I wanted, I had my house mates watch it.
Now when watching it, the video isn't edited down to a tee to go in time with the sound, but it does have more of a rhythm and does fit more in time with it than the experimental version. To try and reflect the confused, frustrated feel of being lost, I upped the pace of the cuts, so the scene changes more. I also tried to blend in more road signs that add to the confusion and went through all my footage to find two more sat nav sounds that I had used to give the video a better beginning and an ending that resolves the issue of being lost.
I'm very happy with this video because by the time it was done, I'd got up to 20 sounds layers on several parts and it was getting rather confusing for someone not used to editing video. I don't think I need to touch anything up on this video and so I have one of my final pieces.
In the experimental piece, I deliberately left in a cough on one of the sat nav instructions. The effect it created was one of annoyance, you wanted the person to shuttup and it got more annoying as the video went on. While I was going for being annoying and building up that level of tension, the cough began to annoy me and so taking that out or only using it very sporadically was important.
Sound isn't my strongest point on video and so it was important to really try and work on the soundscape since in this video, it's as important as the visuals. It was decided that building up the tension and gradually increasing the different instructions going on as well as the volume would help build that tension and get more annoying and overwhelming as the video progresses. I think this final version achieves that and to check it did what I wanted, I had my house mates watch it.
Now when watching it, the video isn't edited down to a tee to go in time with the sound, but it does have more of a rhythm and does fit more in time with it than the experimental version. To try and reflect the confused, frustrated feel of being lost, I upped the pace of the cuts, so the scene changes more. I also tried to blend in more road signs that add to the confusion and went through all my footage to find two more sat nav sounds that I had used to give the video a better beginning and an ending that resolves the issue of being lost.
I'm very happy with this video because by the time it was done, I'd got up to 20 sounds layers on several parts and it was getting rather confusing for someone not used to editing video. I don't think I need to touch anything up on this video and so I have one of my final pieces.
Monday, 26 April 2010
Final Version Of Subconcious Driving
After a very helpful tutorial which left me to go away and think about all of the videos and where I was going with them, I decided to sit down straight away and work out the final way I wanted the videos to look.
I started with the subconcious driving one and have now come up with what will be used as part of my final piece unless I suddenly decide any of it needs a tweak. The main things I changed were instead of having a black screen with white writing flash up (that represented the things on my mind instead of the road), I used images of the objects or things related to my thoughts. It did require some tweaks because for some of the text, there were no direct photos I could use and so I got more creative and substituted some things like 'tutorial Monday' for something else that I had an image of.
On the experimental video, some of the sound that involved the sat nav voice had got accidentally sped up and sounded like a chipmunk and so I corrected this and smoothed out a couple of bumps in the audio that made it sound uneven and jerky. This is the only real change I made to the sound because the monotaneous drone of the road leads you to that subconcious, not paying attention state that I wanted and with a simpl, plain soundtrack there's nothing to detract from the visuals which are the key thing.
I'm generally happy with how it's turned out. To try and give me an opinion and perspective on it, I had my house mate watch it and tell me what he thought I was trying to achieve as well as his opinion. He understood what I was trying to achieve and also liked it, so hopefully, it does what I want it to.
Below is the final (for now) version:-
I started with the subconcious driving one and have now come up with what will be used as part of my final piece unless I suddenly decide any of it needs a tweak. The main things I changed were instead of having a black screen with white writing flash up (that represented the things on my mind instead of the road), I used images of the objects or things related to my thoughts. It did require some tweaks because for some of the text, there were no direct photos I could use and so I got more creative and substituted some things like 'tutorial Monday' for something else that I had an image of.
On the experimental video, some of the sound that involved the sat nav voice had got accidentally sped up and sounded like a chipmunk and so I corrected this and smoothed out a couple of bumps in the audio that made it sound uneven and jerky. This is the only real change I made to the sound because the monotaneous drone of the road leads you to that subconcious, not paying attention state that I wanted and with a simpl, plain soundtrack there's nothing to detract from the visuals which are the key thing.
I'm generally happy with how it's turned out. To try and give me an opinion and perspective on it, I had my house mate watch it and tell me what he thought I was trying to achieve as well as his opinion. He understood what I was trying to achieve and also liked it, so hopefully, it does what I want it to.
Below is the final (for now) version:-
Subconcious Final from Helen Nutter on Vimeo.
Initial experiment version of 'Sights and Places'
The 'Sights and Places' one was probably the one I was most looking forward to because it really sums up the point of my project. I enjoy the travelling, don't get me wrong, but it's the sights and the places that I do it for and namely football.
I worked out how many different places I've been since August in the name of supporting Leicester City and it came to 22 individual places, but some places I've been to twice due to cup games and this isn't counting the 11 other football games I've undertaken. I worked out that since August 8th I've travelled over 4000 miles and that wasn't counting the trip to Preston (again) this weekend. 1000 of those miles came in two weeks thanks to trips to Blackpool, Bristol and Plymouth.
Analysis? The idea of the video is to document some of these sights and places. I've mixed still media with video and I think it works quite well. I like that the editing is relatively quickly, but not too quick that you don't get a glance at the places. However, I did try an initial edit where you got longer looks but felt it slowed the video down and you get the general idea anyway since several in a row might just be stadiums.
Some things to consider for moving it on? It doesn't have a completed soundscape as I needed to upload the spot sound for the birds at the beginning (I couldn't take it at the direct time because the service station car park was so loud you couldn't hear the birds, so i recorded a spot sound in my garden back in Grimsby) and then I wasn't sure what sounds to put with the still media yet.
However, after a talk and thinking about it, I've decided that since the sound of the road, that lumbering, constantly going sound that has its own sort of rhythm and is present in both of my other videos (and will be in the next one) that it could do with featuring here too. Perhaps not as loud as the other videos, but at an underlying rhythm.
Although the sound isn't the most important part of this video, I still need there to be some to enhance the video and complete it, so I will have to really think about it. Currently I also have a radio clip and some talking to compliment the end of the video, so it may be a case of mixing various sounds.
Here is the initial experimental version of the video...
I worked out how many different places I've been since August in the name of supporting Leicester City and it came to 22 individual places, but some places I've been to twice due to cup games and this isn't counting the 11 other football games I've undertaken. I worked out that since August 8th I've travelled over 4000 miles and that wasn't counting the trip to Preston (again) this weekend. 1000 of those miles came in two weeks thanks to trips to Blackpool, Bristol and Plymouth.
Analysis? The idea of the video is to document some of these sights and places. I've mixed still media with video and I think it works quite well. I like that the editing is relatively quickly, but not too quick that you don't get a glance at the places. However, I did try an initial edit where you got longer looks but felt it slowed the video down and you get the general idea anyway since several in a row might just be stadiums.
Some things to consider for moving it on? It doesn't have a completed soundscape as I needed to upload the spot sound for the birds at the beginning (I couldn't take it at the direct time because the service station car park was so loud you couldn't hear the birds, so i recorded a spot sound in my garden back in Grimsby) and then I wasn't sure what sounds to put with the still media yet.
However, after a talk and thinking about it, I've decided that since the sound of the road, that lumbering, constantly going sound that has its own sort of rhythm and is present in both of my other videos (and will be in the next one) that it could do with featuring here too. Perhaps not as loud as the other videos, but at an underlying rhythm.
Although the sound isn't the most important part of this video, I still need there to be some to enhance the video and complete it, so I will have to really think about it. Currently I also have a radio clip and some talking to compliment the end of the video, so it may be a case of mixing various sounds.
Here is the initial experimental version of the video...
Sights and Places from Helen Nutter on Vimeo.
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