- How did you author (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
This video is of some branches with red leaves (I couldn’t find any flowers) being placed into a mid 1970’s Italian glass vase. I chose this due to the simplistic nature of its design and how self explanatory the design itself is. The function is obvious and there is only one possible way to carry out that function.
To capture this video I used the rear camera of my iPhone 7, I held the camera in one hand while I placed the branches in with the other. I found this rather frustrating, it was my original intent to have the phone standing stationary using a small tripod however I was not aware of Instagram’s requirement to hold down the record button continuously to capture the shot, due to that I had to rethink my approach. I rather liked the square frame format for this video and was able to create some interesting angles and shapes within the frame. It was shot with a white tiled background and I placed a square piece of travertine marble underneath the vase to give the video some extra dimensions. I did not use the cameras built in flash for this video instead I utilised the over bench lighting that was there, additionally I applied the Amaro filter to the footage, this made the purple in the vase and the red of the leave slightly more vibrant and added a very slight amount of vignetting. I did not cut or alter the duration of the clip and allowed the audio to remain, I did chose a particular frame which should serve as the cover image as I felt that it looked more appealing stirring with the foliage in the vase.
Comparing this process within Instagram to other video processors, Again I found this to be quite restrictive. when capturing video using my iPhone there are many more options for manipulation, additionally when I need to take higher quality or more cinematic footage I use my Sony mirrorless system which has a multitude of setting allowing me to customise my shot accordingly.
- How did you publish (the photo or video) you recorded for upload to Instagram?
Before I came up with my final product I had a few trail and errors but the subject remained the same. I experimented with different angles, lighting and position as well as various ways in which the camera was positioned. I geo-tagged the location where the footage was taken and a caption describing the video. The video is configured to play once it has been clicked on, the only reason for this is simply because I wasn’t aware that there was another option however it is something I will explore for my next video potentially.
- How did you distribute (the photo or video) you published on Instagram to other social media services?
While going through the process of uploading this video to Instagram I opted to have it linked and distributed to Twitter and Tumbler as well, I did this by selecting which social media sites I wished to distribute it too via a list that Instagram offers when publishing and activating the corresponding switches to the ones that I desired. They appeared on both accounts however a point to note is that only the associated caption was made visible on Twitter and not the video whereas Tumbler published both the footage and caption. This was done to extend the reach of the post and increase its exposure to the intended audience.
Additionally, I included several hash tags within the caption, these were selected by their association to the vase and serve to facilitate further intertextuality between pages of common themes and concepts.