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.

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.

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.

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:-

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...

Sights and Places from Helen Nutter on Vimeo.

Initial experiment version of 'Lost'

So I made the first version of my idea for the 'Lost' theme. I've embedded it below.

Things I like about it:- I think the use of the sat nav sound is very effective. Layering it up and causing the confusion because you're hearing it say three or four instructions at once is very confusing and it gets annoying. I deliberately left in a cough of annoyance on one instruction from the sat nav and this also builds up.

The way the sound is cut and the changing of the video means that it builds up tension and almost starts to form a rhythm. I think it does generally achieve confusion because you can never really tell whereabouts you are on the road and although signs flash up, they're for different places. I made sure there were no landmarks or recognisable places in the editing, just ambiguous landscapes and stretches of road and I think it helps add to the idea of being lost.

Things that I think could be improved:- I think the sat nav voice works, but I think it needs to be built up and the tension achieved more gradually. Obviously I still want to keep it around the same timeframe, 40 seconds and so I need to think about this and how to achieve it.

Perhaps to start the video, the sat nav could be saying something along the lines of 'You have reached your destination' or 'route guidance had been cancelled' as that always sounds very snappy and frustrated. It would also help break the video in. The opening clip could do with being different too. It's open road and I like the ambiguity but if it was something different, a faster edit or two, perhaps that would make it better.

So now I'm going to work on the other two first and then go back and rework this video and also the subconcious driving video too.

Lost from Helen Nutter on Vimeo.

Narrowing down the ideas

In a tutorial a few weeks ago, it was discussed that perhaps the idea of doing one 2-3 minute video was perhaps too much. For the various ideas and themes I wanted to put in it it may overload it and lose the point, or end up being too long.

So the idea to create 4 or 5 shorter videos that each explore one theme in full was suggested and seemed a very good idea. So that is what I shall be working with. The idea is to create them at around 30 seconds in length which builds up the time I need to submit them as a group for a final piece. Whether or not any are longer, I'm not sure yet.

The themes for them are going to be:-

The subconcious level of driving:- I've already done an experimental version of this one below. It's looking at the lack of concentration on the road, that usually there are other things on your mind, lots of different thoughts running through your head and usually none about how you're driving. To analyse the version I've already done I'd say I like it, but I think it needs some work to really achieve what I want from it.

Lost:- The idea of being lost on a journey, having taken a wrong turn. Something I want to achieve is the tension that is apparent in a car when you're lost, it almost gets awkward and arguments usually start. It gets almost desperate if you can't find where you want and sometimes a sat nav isn't always useful. For the soundtrack, I want the sat nav to build up and get very confusing and annoying.

Sights and places:- This is a theme I really want to explore because it's the whole reason I've made virtually all of the journeys that have contributed for this project. It's a chance to mix still images into it as well. The soundscape for this one is probably most awkward. I had initial ideas to use some commentary from the various football games, but I can't get hold of any that's not copyrighted. However, the sound is slightly less important on this one because I want the emphasis to be on the sights and the places.

Time:- How time passes in a journey, how it can seem so fast then suddenly so slow. How traffic jams or queues or weather factor into it. How we as people pass time on journeys. However, I don't want it to get too much like the subconcious one and so I will avoid putting thoughts in and instead will try and make it work with the timing of edits as well as the speed of the video.

Other ideas should any of these not work include:-

Weather- I have experienced so much, everything except fog and it could be worth putting all the various clips together just to see how it looks!

The car- Looking at how it takes on a persona of its own, how much people value it.

Video Experiment

In a previous post, I talked about experimenting with a shorter video that explores one specific theme. After doing the theory and research on subconcious levels of driving, I made this shorter video based on that.

I'm reasonably happy with how it's turned out. I was originally going to have it shorter and so that is something that can be looked at as it's around 50 seconds when I was aiming for 30, however it has a beginning and an end which are important.

The sound is quite simple for this particular one as it's supposed to lull you into a sense of not paying as much attention and get you into that subconcious level of watching but not concentrating as much at first (just like driving) and I'm hoping the flashes of text are brief enough to make you pay more attention and have to think about it more.

Something I considered was putting effects on the video, like in one I looked at in my research. The effects would give a hazy look to certain parts of it, perhaps showing the person falling into that state of subconcious driving, but so far I haven't tried that as I thought it might be a little too much. It's something I can discuss in my tutorial later this week.

Below is the experiment version of this anyway.

Subconcious driving from Helen Nutter on Vimeo.

Research

While the theory was interesting and gave me a good idea or two, it doesn't help me when it comes to thinking about the filming and editing process. While I've already shot a lot of the footage I need, the most important part is editing and so I'm continuing to look at the work of others.

For this one, the embedded video is at the bottom and the screen shots from it are among the writing.

The only problem with the research is it isn't done by well known names, but it's been hard to find that sort of stuff and a lot of the amateur made videos are equally interesting and helpful. This one is shot through the windscreen of a car carrier and one of the more original ones I've come across.

The limited perspective and view you get is very realistic and as it's shot from the person's eyeline you feel as though you're there. Because you're not seeing much it's interesting and creates a different viewpoint on the screen.
Ignoring the music which really doesn't fit with the visuals and is actually rather annoying, I did quite like the editing. The way it cut together between the different places and the rather, hazy, dreamy effect felt like the subconcious state you slip into and gives me something else to experiment with for the odd time in my video that i feel that sort of transition would be necessary.


There was a lot of ambiguity with where you were in the video. The landscape changes so much that you know the video is made over a large period of miles, but the lack of signs or really recognisable places leaves you wondering exactly where you're going and also what the point of the journey is as this is never discussed and doesn't become obvious at any point.

Research

As one of the things I was interested in while creating this video is the subconcious level of concentration people have while driving, I thought it might be useful and interesting to try and do some more theoretical research into this to back up the more visual research i've been doing.

I came across an article which is actually to do with a book by a hypnotherapist where he talks about driving. The opening quote caught my eye really:- "Most people hypnotised while driving their cars". The article also has a quote which is something I've experienced as a driver and I'm sure many others have. "It does not take a hypnotist to induce a hypnotic state of mind. In fact, we are all constantly moving in and out of these fluid hypnotic states as we engage in normal daily activities, such as day dreaming, studying, watching television, and even driving our cars. These transitions are so natural that they usually go undetected, except at times when we are startled to discover that we have driven 50 miles past our destination on the freeway."

I've never driven past my destination, but I have suddenly snapped out of whatever trance I'm in and realised I've driven a lot further than I thought and that my junction is actually the next one, meaning I've gone past many others without actually noticing. Last week, I drove from Kent to Huddersfield in one straight journey which due to various delays took 7 hours. Towards the end, the M1 was becoming a blur and I lost track of the junctions between 30 and the one I needed, 38, nearly missing it until my passenger pointed it out.

The article goes on to say "Let's take that driving example further. Think about it for a moment. When you drive, you are in many ways driving subconsciously. If you were to consciously think about all of the dangers associated with your driving, you would immediately stop the car and leap out of the vehicle! Your heart would be pounding fiercely and you would break out in a cold sweat. Driving is the most dangerous activity we engage in, and yet we do it every day, scarcely giving a second thought to the daring high-speed maneuvers we execute in our attempts to be the first to get where we want to go." The danger aspect is one I hadn't really considered while thinking about this work and making it. It makes a very good point. Sometimes you wonder how there are far less crashes than there are.

While danger isn't exactly something I want to cover in my video, it does raise an interesting point and something I hadn't thought about in my video was putting text either at the beginning, in between clips or at the end. It could be another way to achieve what I want. The video may read differently though, or seem like I'm preaching something instead. However, I could just use more simple text that explains the destinations, the miles covered and then how many of those miles were done subconciously. It gives me something else to think about.

"The subconscious is quite skilled at driving, just as it is at walking, swimming, or riding a bike. Once it knows how to do something, it just does it; it doesn't need to think about it again. When you drive, your subconscious mind handles most of the driving while your conscious mind entertains higher cognitive functions such as contemplating your golf score, anticipating your evening date, or deciding what you will have for dinner." - This particular quote from the article really gave me an idea of something I want to try.

One of the ideas that was raised in a tutorial was perhaps making shorter videos, maybe 5 or 6 videos that are only 30 seconds each, but each explore a different theme. The quote above gave me a very good idea for the subconcious driving one. In a previous video I made, the edits were so quick at the end that they were nearly at the speed for subliminal messaging and this is something to think about. I could still have the 30 seconds of sound and video needed, but in between clips flash up words, thoughts I was having at the time, things that were on my mind. It'd snap the viewer into having to concentrate more and break them out of the subconcious level of viewing which would add to my point.

I plan to edit together a 30 second video that experiments with this tomorrow, so fingers crossed I'll be able to upload it and put it on here tomorrow as well.

Research

Similarly to the previous post, I found this video in the same place. This one followed the presenter driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas in a much more classic American car, a Mustang (which he also named, referred to as his girlfriend in a joking way and tret more like a friend than a car that he's just driving) and I found it a little more relevant.
It was shot more like a road trip video than the previous one, even if the concept of using the internet and visiting places was still more of the theme than the journey itself. Again, I couldn't embed it, so I settled on screen shots instead.


There was much more emphasis on what they were seeing out of the car and more adventurous angles that included shooting through the rear window which worked well as well as filming the presenter from the passenger side. The interesting thing about that angle is that the car was a convertable and the top was down meaning you got to see a lot more of what was going past while he was talking which kept it visually interesting while you had dialogue to cover the sound aspect.

They just made much better use of the various shots and landscapes available to them than the previous video. All aspects were covered and it was interesting to be given several more ideas. Something they did was using the focus, so changing from out of focus blurry lights which looked soft and enchanting to the harsh headlights of cars once fully in focus.

Research

As I move into the last stages of the project, I am beginning to have very clear ideas of what I want and where to take the video, however it is always good to continue researching others and see if there is anything I am missing or that could work better. I find it helpful to see what sort of stuff is out there.

I stumbled across this article (http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/drive-smart/road-trip/article/265/) with a simple google search for 'roadtrip videos' having got a little stuck doing research. The person was doing the trip for Yahoo! Cars and did a 500 mile trip from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, filming it and also taking still photographs at places of interest or things that caught his eye. The idea was the only thing available to guide him of where to go and what to do, would be the internet.

Something that stood out in the article was the sentence 'Take a ride with travel presenter Mark Durden-Smith, and his companion Jeff the Jeep'. It goes back to previous research and ideas I looked at where the car becomes more than just a metal shell used for getting from A to B. Here, the car almost takes on the role of a person. It has a name and is referred to as a companion before the word 'Jeep' is mentioned. It suggests a relationship with the car, that it is more personal and something treasured.

I'm unable to embed the video, but have taken a few screen shots of it instead. The video itself was interesting, the presenter was very annoying and it generally swung me away from wanting to use people and voices as much in my video, but I'll get to that later. The video uses a lot of quickly cut panning shots where you see a variety of landscapes and locations which keeps it visually more interesting as it's forcing you to take notice and look at it all.

While the purpose of the video is obviously to show you the various locations as well as the experiences he undergoes I did find it helpful just to see a different approach to the concept of road trips, it was quite spontaneous and he let google control a lot of the places he went by seeing where it told him to go when looking for things.

The main shots the video consists of are ones that show the presenter driving to add the dialogue, ones that set the places and the weathers (panning shots, from the window, through the windscreen, of the sky) and also of the experiences he undergoes. There are also a fair few shots of the car itself which is something I have generally avoided in a bid not to be too obvious.

However, I did like this one particular shot which would have been achieved by hanging the camera out of the back window. Not the safest thing, but it gives a different and interesting angle and view of the road as the yellow lines ticks by.