This video work was inspired by a sound that has a very different connotation during a global pandemic, a sniff. As we discussed the idea of, ‘beyond our everyday life’ the word escapism was brought up multiple times and the thought of going to a concert/club was something that we agreed was beyond our current everyday life.
This is a reminiscent video, to times that you could lose yourself in a night club, to times that you could dance for hours on end, to times where no one was watching you but instead just having fun. I wanted to highlight and enhance the clubbing experience and take the viewer into this environment, allowing them to also feel as if they were in the club early on a Sunday morning. Something, that now, seems like a dream.
What did you learn from the authoring and publishing process?
In the authoring process of this video, I learnt so much about creating something to a professional standard with the use of very limited/amateur materials. I learnt that with a little imagination and problem solving, you can simulate professional creative practices from the confines of your walk-in wardrobe. I originally wanted to create a club like environment with the use of scenes that would usually be seen in a club, (drinks being poured, flashing lights, cigarettes) but without being able to actually captured this footage, it was going to be difficult to create an immersive experience. I decided that I would attempt to emulate the feeling of being in a club instead and learnt that this is sometimes more captivating and enticing than something more linear and literal.
During the publishing process, I learnt/experienced a similar issue that I did in week 3. When working in premiere pro, you are editing with dark settings but when you publish to Instagram, there is a light, white setting for the video. Because my video was so dark, the white contrast when viewing it on Instagram made my video almost too dark, almost like when you are watching a dark scene in a movie during the day time. I deleted my original post and adjusted the brightness of the video slightly before reposting but still then I found it was almost still too dark. The video is best watched in the gallery app or when using dark mode on Instagram. This is something that I need to be careful of in future creation and publishing for Instagram video.
What went well?
For me, the emulation of that almost euphoric, dreamlike, warped reality-esque, environment of being in a club was translated well. I thought the video was intimate enough to capture my personal experiences, but not too personal that it felt as if the viewer was seeing me in a club. I felt as if the ‘vibe’ was created well which allowed the viewer to almost see themselves as the character. The video was very experimental for me, editing wise and I thought this worked out quite well and even added to the chaos of it.
I also think what went well was my creative process, I was so unsure of how I was going to make this video because I didn’t know how to create a club environment without an actual club but the idea just kind of came to me and I ran with it and decided that I would experiment with the footage in premiere pro. As I said before, everything was extremely experimental and I didn’t have any preconceived ideas of how the video should look I just knew how it should feel. This was something I feel went well as it opened up a whole new way of creation for myself and allowed me to push my own boundaries while still staying true to my creative style.
What did not go well?
What didn’t go so well was my response to the creative brief ‘Space and time for contemplation beyond our everyday life.’ The idea of ‘beyond’ our everyday life was focussed on but I kind of neglected the ideas of space and time which I felt were such big inspirations for my first assignment. This is something that in the coming weeks I will try to focus on as I know it will be extremely beneficial when we are working with the client as they will not be themes that I am new to exploring and publishing work from
What could you do better?
I definitely think I could a lot more within this video which would have come from further experimentation and more footage, I found that with only three clips, I was seeing the same thing over and over. I think this repetition worked really well because it brought that intimacy and almost dragged out the time of the piece to make it feel more infinite but I would have loved to see what I could have created with more footage to create more of a chaotic, jumbled piece.
The other thing I think could have been improved on was the colouring and the exposure of the video. Again, this is something that I think worked in my favour, but from a viewers perspective I think could have been a downfall of the piece. The piece, as mentioned, was quite dark which made it slightly difficult to watch and decipher; as a viewer, I felt as if I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking at sometimes. But I think this just further enhanced that disorientated, club like experience where everything is dark and you’re not really sure whats going on.
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?
The studio prompt is something that each week you discover more about and learn how to use these affordances in your favour when authoring video content for Instagram. An insight that I have previously mentioned in previous weeks was something that I encountered again this week, with the light are dark modes of Instagram affecting how my video was being viewed. The usual time and aspect ratio affordances were considered when authoring the piece and all of the ‘obvious’ affordances were all kind of wrapped up in the authoring process unconsciously.
The inability to edit a post once posted was something that affected my authoring process this week. When posting to Instagram, everything within the post needs to be finalised (excluding the caption etc) before you post. I had forgotten to chose a cover image for my video and did not realise the video would be too dark. I had to delete my original post and make some adjustments before reposting. Now – for me, this was not a big deal but for profiles that have a larger following base, this could become a major issue as engagement with the post may decrease. If followers interact with the original post and it then gets reposted to fix some errors, the followers will most likely not interact with it again.