Assignment
Concentrating on common everyday activities, create a video (120-300 seconds in duration) that primarily uses sequencing, pacing, editing and shot rather than dialogue, action, or music to construct a narrative that gives the activities poetic, visual and/or metaphoric impact to communicate something that is not directly expressed. Consider the idea of a pregnant pause which is a a meaningful lull in a conversation, or a delay in speech used to give time to consider the consequences of a statement. In this project focus on the kinds of common, generally unnoticed activities that exist between the “big” memorable events of our lives. Also, I am asking you to primarily rely on editing your video to create meaning (as opposed to dialogue or plot). Editing creates a “third meaning” that exists in the spaces between shots. You may choose to have audio or not but NO MUSIC OR DIALOG so you can use ambient (actual sound).
Process
My first idea had the same plot concept of losing a friend, instead it was told with a mug that was gifted from said friend. I decided against the idea because there were some scenes that were just unrealistic for me to accomplish. So, I pivoted to the final concept that put emphasis on the friendship necklace seen throughout the film and highlighted at the end.
I wish I was able to get more clips for the best friend montage in the beginning but I couldn’t I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have a person to film so I had to prop up my phone every time, but it was incredibly hard to set up the camera for each clip. Then there comes a point where you can’t get a variety of clips like you want because there’s only so many things you can set your phone up on. So that’s why I use different clips from the same scene and mix it in with the others. If I had a tripod I believe I could have accomplished all the scenes like I had drawn out.
Something I struggled with was with having no music. At the end I did have slight ambient music in the background but tried to have it very quiet and not have it be the main focus. I only did this because I had scene that didn’t have any sound and there was no way around it. So, I had a choice between having awkward silence or elevator music. The scene that really presented this problem was the scene where we’re both on the floor talking. We. had actually be talking about something because our acting was horrendously awkward. Obviously, no one wants to hear the family drama we were discussing so that’s why I chose to have music and keep it in other scenes for consistency’s sake.
Final Product
One thing I would alter in my short film would be the amount of scenes where people are the main subject. There’s only a couple senes where the person is not the main subject of that frame. I did keep this is mind while brainstorming and filming but just couldn’t come up with any scenes. Even now, I’m not sure what scenes I would add where objects and space alone could tell a story. This is something I think I need to work on because even in my 2D art which I’m more experienced in, I usually use people to tell the story for me, whether that be from action or body language. Although, I think if I tried using the space and objects around the people more to my advantage I can better articulate a story or feeling while making the piece more dynamic. So this strategy is going to be something I try to improve moving forward.
Something I think worked well in this short film was the black out fade. I used this technique to show that something had happened behind the scenes. Especially with the different type of clip that follows it, delivers the point I was trying to convey well. I also think my use of angles and playing around with different sized scales worked to my advantage and provided diversity in my scenes.
Overall I think I did fine with assignment but would have done better with the materials I needed.
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