To begin our year of moving image this year, we focused on recreation and what that really means. It’s not about being influenced, its not about being inspired. It’s re-enacting something, recreating it, paying attention to each detail.

During this unit, we re-created two separate videos. The first one was chosen by Ms.Willemse, we were split into groups of 3-4, my group included, Marshall and Jessie. The video we had to create first was called “catch”.

The first step to re-create this video was to study it. Study the shots, the props, the wardrobe the lines and the angles. Personally I think this was the most time consuming part of the making of the video, watching the video over and over, scene after scene, making sketches and writing notes on each and every detail. The storyboard I made wasn’t as helpful as I hoped it would be. It was messy and hard to understand, if I did it again I would, leave all the lines on the actual script and focus on the shots, angles and expressions.

While I finished their storyboard, Jessie and Marshall focused on the props and wardrobe and made a list of what we needed.

 

Then it was time to film. We had two designated filming days, half of the video was filmed on the first day and the second half was followed up on the second day. 

As we filmed, we discovered how difficult it can be to re-enact every movement that each character makes. Which arm they throw with, which way they lean, how they’re standing. These details seemed very “over the top” at first but if you don’t pay attention to them, it shows in the final product.

After re-creating a video of Ms. Willemse’s choice, we had the opportunity to choose our own. The one we chose as a group is called “Don’t Touch My Sandwich”, with simple settings and minimal lines this video was set out to be pretty simple to replicate.

So once again, we drew out a storyboard, props list and a story diagram to prepare for our filming day.

 

 Somthing that made the process of this video much easier to film was the fact that we filmed all of Jessie’s lines in a row and then all of Marshall’s, which ended up being much easier to film. 

I’m very proud of the opening shot of the sandwich making, at first we though we’d never get it to work but in their end it looked almost identical.

After going through the process of both videos I learned a couple of things that could make videos like this much better.

I realized how important lighting is, and how it is usually overlooked. By thinking about how the lighting is going to look in camera can make a video go from at 2/10 to a 7/10.

 

 

 

Another addition that would’ve made both of the videos seem more professional, would be using mic’s. If the audio doesn’t sound good then the quality of the whole video goes down.

 

 

In conclusion, I appreciate that my teacher gave us all a chance to really focus on video making in a way that we never have before. I feel as though I will be paying attention to smaller details while filming much more now and learn from my experiences throughout these two projects.