Introduce your video work in relation to responding to the conceptual brief and the guidelines on form.
This week’s video was a tricky one to come up with. Given the new conceptual brief, I had an evident creative block. I, like everybody else, struggled to come up with an idea of what is beyond our everyday life.
When adhering to this week’s guidelines on the form, I had to base this week’s video around audio. I used my iPhone voice recording app and started to record every sound possible around my apartment in hopes of getting a breakthrough idea for this week’s video. Since we have been stuck in quarantine since early 2020, we have been placed into a standstill everyday routine at home. That was when it hit me… Music! While I was sitting on my bed thinking of what I could do, I was listening to music. I realised that music is such an integral part of our routined everyday lives, i.e. we listen to music when washing the dishes, when doing work, when showering but it is uncommon for us (well for me) to just sit down and PROPERLY listen to music itself.
After prioritising a full hour to myself to listen to a few of my favourite songs, I came across a particular song which reminded me of a unique memory of something beyond my everyday life. It was a song by Rich Brian called “Glow Like Dat” which took me back to 2019 when I went to his concert in Melbourne; oh how times were more fun before COVID hit.
What did you learn from the authoring and publishing process?
This week I learnt to always have multiple sketches available to you, and to also not give up when plans don’t work out. When authoring this week’s video, I started with obvious actions of listening to music, and then expanded it to what it meant to me spiritually.
Before coming up with the final concept, I had another concept for the guidelines this week in case I did not like the outcome of the final concept. The concept for this video was similar to the final video; I wanted to portray the use of music (in this case Rich Brian’s song) to be a focal point about a memory that was beyond my everyday routine.
I shot on my iPhone XS Max again, using the rear camera in 4K at 24fps. It was mostly stationary shots using my tripod, filming different angles of the same action, i.e. me walking over to the couch and listening to the song.
For the Dolly Shot I had one of those Eureka moments when I saw that my gym weights could smoothly slide across the carpet. I basically placed my iPhone that was attached to the tripod on top of the weights and asked my girlfriend to slowly drag the weights across.
I had the idea of creating a green screen compromising of a couple A3 green papers. When I found out that most shops were out of Green A3 paper or did not supply them during COVID, I came up with the idea of screenshotting a particular scene in the video and removing the background and adding a “green screen” over Adobe Photoshop.
I then uploaded it onto Final Cut Pro and used the “Keyer” effect to replace the green screen with the clip of the concert (which I shot last year). Though it was not what I imagined it to be, it was a good learning curve that taught me that it isn’t the end of the world, and there is always room for adapting and expanding the ideas and approach of my video. Other than that, I had no major issues with the authoring process on Final Cut Pro.
In the retrospect of publishing the video, I learnt that adding the letterbox effect onto my video (to give a sort of cinematic aesthetic) did not go well with the Instagram aesthetic. In terms of the visual aesthetic on the Instagram profile feed, the letterbox creates an offsetting black border next to the other videos posted on my profile. While it does look cinematic when the video is played, I learnt that the black borders do not look visually pleasing when potential clients/followers view your Instagram profile for the first time.
What went well?
I personally felt that the filming process went smoothly as I knew what shots I wanted to include in the video. I was especially pleased with the Dolly Shot as it was something new which I tried with the equipment I have available with me.
Furthermore, I was pleased with the audio used in the video. I wanted to create the effect of a muffled noise of the song (portraying the song coming out from the earphones rather than me just overlaying the clips with the original song). To me, it presented an authentic vibe of listening to music; a third-person view of yourself listening to music. While it is not loud through the eyes of someone else looking at you, it is the only focus for you. The transition from the soft earphone-liked version of the song to the loud concert audio (accompanied with the video in the background) was used to portray that the music has transported me to another world.
What did not go well?
The thing that did not go well was the scene where the background was replaced with the concert video. It felt rather awkward (if you look at it closely) that I wasn’t moving throughout the rest of the clip. This was because the last clip was a screenshot and not a video of me sitting down anymore. I tried to hide it by closing my eyes, to narrate that I am conversed with the music, and to also hide the fact that it is a screenshot.
Another thing which did not go well had to do with the audio itself. I was not able to find if I could use Rich Brian’s song in my video as it might have not been copyright-free. Either way, I attributed his song in the caption for the Instagram post.
What could you do better?
Only finding out after I had posted my video, I could have done the approach of drawing a ‘mask’ on Final Cut Pro, frame-by-frame to make the scene with the concert look better. Though the process might be time-consuming, it would have given me the opportunity to use my video with the concert clip, rather than a still shot of me sitting down.
If I still had chosen the approach with the screenshot, I should have played with the colour grading to mix the colours of the concert with my video to create a more authentic and natural scene. I could have also played with lighting, i.e. when the concert lights were moving, I could have added the light flares onto the photo of me sitting down; not two separate clips, but one clip.
Respond to the studio prompt question ‘How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way video content is authored?‘ What insights can you add in response to this question?
One of the affordances Instagram has on the way video content is authored is through the time length of its videos. Instagram’s main feed only allows a video up to 60 seconds, whereas Instagram’s ‘IGTV’ can go as long as 60 minutes; Instagram ‘Story’ and ‘Reels’ are set at 15 seconds. This affects the way Videos can be displayed on Instagram. Creators must be aware of the length of their video, as to where they want to upload the video on.
This affordance allows creators to have different versions of their video. For example, the main feed could be used for them to upload a 1-minute snippet of their long video, or upload a individual short video; IGTV allows them to upload a short film up to 1-hour, or upload their video spanning longer than 1-minute. Instagram Story and Reel allows them to upload a 15-second snippet of their video or upload a trailer promoting the audience to click on their video on the feed or IGTV. This puts a test to creators on the different ways they could use these affordances to increase engagement for their videos, or the intended purpose of the video.