Post-Production

Pre-Filming

It’s extremely difficult filming a video about your self, and even more difficult to collaborate the video with two other peers. Not only did all our films have to flow together, but also a portion of the film had to display the three of us collectively on-screen. Throughout my college career I have had several film projects, but none compared to this one. As with any group project, no members have the same availability, so we worked in class to decided what direction we wanted to go in. Provided the theme: politics, personally I had no clue what I could bring to the table. I soon discovered the feelings were mutual among my partners, after the first meeting.  I had come up with a central idea of what I thought politics consisted of: money, power and respect.

 Since a share of the film had to go towards a set group time, we wanted to get a gist of the visual path we were going to take. Since our individual projects could be done on our own time, we wanted to complete our group portion as soon as possible.

The next group meeting was nothing but confusing. I thought that we all had an understanding of the “money, power, and respect” idea, but Katie didn’t see how that related to politics. After spending over an hour trying to bring everyone on the same page, we decided misunderstandings’ are indeed part of politics; from this point the structure of the film was decided. The thought process existed from what we had been doing for the entire meeting, trying to explain what politics meant without really understanding ourselves. Our film would be about two students teaching another student what politics are. Still using money for my focus, and power for Matt, we would use abstract words relating to the topics and our personal video’s to demonstrate.

Our first filming gathering took place inside of a study room in the library. The room had a dry-erase marker which was perfect for the classroom environment we were looking for. Our first footage displayed Matt and I writing different words on the board pertaining to politics. Different color markers, fancy script, and symbols were used to make the writing seem not only fun, but also time consuming. The footage was going to be fast-forwarded, so what actually took 15minutes will be viewed in 2! Matt and I used this system for our individual topics, as well as Katie drawing a huge question mark; that would conclude the film. We shot footage of Katie inside the room looking confused; we would use this footage for cuts, to give the viewers the impression that we were real students trying to teach a lesson.

 Filming was stress-free, and didn’t take long at all. We each had an understanding of our roles, but we still helped each other by giving words for the board or critiquing acting.  We filmed all of our introduction, and crediting with-in this meeting. To keep the same setting we wrote our credits on the board just as we had done for the topic, and subtopic. We walked out of the library with our assignment a third completed, and feeling good!

For inspiration the class was encouraged to look at other students take on the project, but none of them helped with theme content. However the videos’ did show several effective ways I could convey a message visually.  What I took most from the films’ were the different scene shots; weird angles, focus’, and music where all elements that I would use to put the abstract into my film.

I wanted to show not only how I spent money, but how society perceives money as well. I did not want my subject matter to be obvious; I wanted the viewers to come up with their own conclusion of how money should be spent. I looked for friends for inspiration; they are always good at throwing ideas in my head. After an hour of discussion, we concluded our reasoning on why people spend money: to be relevant. I ran with this idea, and decided to base my portion of the film on what makes me relevant.

Before presenting what I spend my money on I want to show viewers where my money was coming from. Using my iPhone, I shot footage of me working, leaving work, and picking up my check. I was hesitant about putting my check on film but I wanted viewers to see how very little money was coming in. Next I wanted to show what I did with my money. Shoes, clothes, jewelry, car, phone bill, name brands, all superficial things that I spend my hard earned money buying. Since a lot of the materials were in my room I didnt have a hard time filming. What I did have a hard time with, trying different angels and techniques to make my film seem as cool as the examples my professor had provided. My iPhone only allowed me to do so much, holding a phone physically doesn’t give you lots of options. To make up for my lack on video equipment, I would use editing to exaggerate and make fancy.  The final shots were to be the ridiculous overpricing throughout our campus. I got hassled at the bookstore but I was not leaving until I got my final footage! I wanted to show how most necessities cost ridiculous prices, but we still buy them to be relevant.

 I thought the storm was over and it was smooth sailing after my footage was done; WRONG! At the start of our next class, we were told that the project had been pushed back a week. I thought this was great, seeing that I was the only person in my group who had their footage completed. When the week had finally come to start editing our footage, I was the only person who had it forage to work on. For two classes I alone had worked on editing my portion of the film. This project had been assignment a month ago and I was tired of it being dragged along. What upset me the most was instead of completing the topic there were complaints about the topic! Regardless it still needed to be completed, and I felt like I had been dragged along when it could have been done a class before it was actually due. The final class before it was due not only did we have to piece the whole project together, we found that the introduction and credits footage had been erased. Thankfully we were given another day to complete it, we had to re-shoot the classroom footage and finally piece it together. By the final editing you can tell were annoyed with each other, but the project was complete and that’s all I cared about.

The end result turned out great! You couldn’t tell the project was extensive and hectic in binding the production, but displayed was an visual narrative of how three college students trying to interpret politics.