Video 4: Sweet Potato Burgers

This was a quick video I made where I wanted to focus on a few things, simplicity being one of them, this includes simplicity of the recipe as well as simplicity of the shots and film techniques. Majority of this video is filmed in 1 take on a screen that shows the mixing bowl surrounded by all of the ingredients. I thought the technique of a 1 bowl cook would appeal to audiences, especially those who are time poor and want to whip up a quick and easy meal. In this video I also wanted to use some different angles and shots and move away from the video entirely in a birds eye, aerial format. Filming the food side on would give a new perspective and maybe bring the process and final product back to reality a bit because we never really cook or eat at a completely parallel angle to our food. In this video I used a recipe with healthy ingredients but something that still produces a filling and satisfying meal. I’m interested to see how people respond to a healthier video as apposed to the high sugar/high fat ones. Other considerations for these videos have included the use of text and font. I wanted a font that was bold enough to make an impact but also to not take over from the film. I tried to choose something that was classic enough to be timeless and not get out dated without being boring and reminding audiences of written documents and files. The colour of the text provided another issue. Overlaying the text on top of photographs with contrasting colours made it challenging to decide on the colour of font. I didn’t have the technical skills to make the text 3D, or blend colours and create outlines e.c.t. so I ended up making my text black or white. Sometimes the text would then get lost in the highlights or shadows of the background. Music was another questionable element of my films. I needed to have some element such as music to provide extra aspect and area of interest to the film. It concerned me though that the music became comedic and almost childish. I was worried that the music undermined the footage, it removed an element of sophistication and made the films more cartoony. This was not ideal but I think the format of the short, sharp snappy videos made this more acceptable. Colour match was another challenge. When the lighting and colour tone changed due to sunlight e.c.t I struggled to match the colour exactly. I later discovered that I should have merged the clips into one so then the edit to colour tone would look exactly the same rather then varying from clip to clip and ruining the fluidity. Sometimes the elliptical editing also had a jarring effect on the film as things would move in shot e.g the food would melt, the spoon would move from one side of the bowl to the other, the colour would change after cooking e.c.t This video was the only video where I didn’t put a photo of the final product at the beginning and end of the film. I should have done this because this helps hook audiences at the start as it prepares them for what they are going to be making. Then the ending shot concludes the cooking process and provides a tangible result. This aids the audience by providing a visual form of gratification as a result of watching the video. This visual gratification represents the edible gratification that would be experienced as a reward for going to the trouble of actually cooking this dish.

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