Introduce your video work in relation to responding to the conceptual brief and the guidelines on form.Â
My video idea began from an audio recording. This being an atmospheric sound of birds chirping, as well as cicadas making sounds. These atmospheric sounds grew into my idea of contemplation beyond everyday life during sunset. Although the sun sets daily, the action of watching the sunset and embracing it, is one that is not experienced everyday. Many people like me live very busy, lives and taking a moment to watch the sunset is not something that is done everyday. For me, watching the sunset allows for a moment of contemplation that is able to take me beyond everyday life.
When adhering to the guidelines on form, I ensured that my idea began from a sound. This being the sounds of nature that are present during sunset and the time of dusk. I also began my video piece with hearing these sounds and slowly introduced visual aspects to add to the piece. I intend this video to focus on the sound rather than the visual components which is why I tried to have a focus on the sounds, and layering the visual components slowly.
What did you learn from the authoring and publishing process?
In terms of authoring my video, I filmed a time lapse during sunset on my Canon G7X camera. I filmed the previous videos on my phone. For these next tasks, I wanted to use a different device to experience a different authoring mode. The time lapse took 300 shots. From using my camera to film the time lapse, I found it pretty difficult to control other camera functions and this limited the control I had over the quality over the video. From the authoring process, I learned that filming a time lapse on my camera was quite limited. However, this may be because I couldn’t work out how to set other camera functions when the camera was in time lapse mode. When editing my video, I decided that due to the angle I had shot the footage on, there were aspects at the bottom of the shot that I did not want to be included in the shot. To achieve this, I added ‘cinematic black bars’ with a 12.2% crop at the top and bottom of the shot, using an adjustment layer on Premiere Pro to achieve this.
In terms of publishing my video, I achieved this without any notable struggles. However, since I added the black bars at the top and bottom of my video, this doesn’t look the best on my Instagram account’s profile page. Although the video looks acceptable when played and seen in an Instagram feed, viewing it from the account page that it is posted on, doesn’t give the account an aesthetically pleasing aspect. Therefore, I have learnt that adding these black bars may not be the best option when publishing the video to Instagram. In the future, I would need to ensure I frame the shot correctly when authoring my video, rather than attempting to ‘fix’ the shot in post-production.
What went well?
When editing my video together, I was very satisfied with the end result. I believe my idea that came together as I went turned out quite well. This being my layering of visual components to enhance the atmospheric sound that described my conceptual idea in response to the given prompt. Instead of recording the tone of the sounds of nature myself, I used a ‘copyright free’ youtube sound to achieve this. Youtube Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygcx6w9Nfi0
I did this because I thought the quality of the sounds would be more accurate rather than if I try to record them myself. I also wanted to illustrate the sounds visually. I did this by beginning with a black screen and the atmospheric sounds, then adding a green screen fireflies effect on top to show the sounds. Although fireflies are not an accurate depiction of the sound, I used the fireflies in a metaphoric way to appropriately present the sounds visually. I also downloaded this fireflies green screen effect from Youtube and it is stated in the description of the video that the effect is able to be downloaded for use. Fireflies green screen effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eo-SPDnVBo&t=23s
What did not go well?
When searching Youtube for a sound effect to use in my video, I forgot to look for one that was obviously copyright free. The track that I ended up downloading and using in my video did not have anywhere stated on the channel or description of that particular video that the video could not be used. However, it didn’t have written anywhere that it was able to be used freely (or under Creative Commons) either. When I realised this, I had already exported my final video and I was unsure if this was okay to use or not. I decided that to save any complications, I would search for a new sound that had written permission to use, indicating that it was copyright free. I found a new sound, and changed the audio to the new one in Premiere Pro, and exported the video for a second time. When searching for a new sound to use, I found it quite difficult as I couldn’t find a sound as accurate to what I had envisioned as the previous sound I was unsure about using.
What could you do better?
Next time I am producing a similar video, I will need to actively keep in mind the copyright free nature of the audio which I use. As this is a very important issue, I intend to search for sites other than Youtube which provides creators with free sound effects/audio. I found this quite difficult at the moment as a lot of websites charge to gain the ability to access and use their sounds. Although this is fair enough, as I am a university student with a limited income, I would much prefer to find access to audio tracks that are free to use if possible. I intend to do some research on this to improve my range of available audio tracks and therefore improve my future content.
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 affordances of Instagram provide users with a specific format and ratio that must be adhered to when uploading video content to ensure the entirety of the video is visible to the Instagram audience. This directly impacts on the way the video is filmed. Creators will need to keep in mind the format Instagram allows and film their video in a way that allows the creator to maximise these affordances. Instagram allows horizontal and vertical video to be published to the Instagram feed. However, posting a horizontal video means the video will be shown on a smaller portion of the screen, rather than if the video was vertical. This can directly impact a creator’s engagement levels with their Instagram page. This is due to a vertical video taking up more space on the Instagram feed and therefore allows the audience to engage with it more as it draws the audience’s eye. These affordances on Instagram need to be taken into consideration when producing such video content. The videos I have published to Instagram as part of this studio’s assignment have been filmed and published as horizontal. At this point in the studio, the aim of our work is not to create a large amount of engagement with our page. Therefore, I have not worried about filming and publishing vertical videos to my Instagram feed. Although, I do believe vertical videos create higher levels of engagement for users due to Instagram’s affordances.