Project: Video Jockey - Evaluation

New projects, new theme. That theme is music and as the title of the project suggests, we were assigned the task to create a music video for a song of our choosing. However, there were some restrictions as to what song we could pick because rather than create a music video that conveyed a specific meaning or message, our videos had to convey a feeling or emotion. Basically, an abstract music video.

I decided, due to technical complications, to create my video using stop-motion techniques. This is the song I chose because whenever I think of stop-motion styled videos I think of quirky, strange, happy little things and this song is all kinds of strange. The video itself displays a typical morning routine with some not-so-typical magical powers.

As I said before, the song is quite a quirky and upbeat tune. I was unsure of whether to use this 'morning routine' idea as it didn't seem abstract enough to follow the criteria of the project brief. But I feel like it manages to convey that sense of silly happy-go-luckiness easily without getting into anything too specific (except that mornings would be a lot simpler if you had magical powers).

Animated imagery is not normally something I do personally, so my audience would be able to see this as a bit of variety in my work. As part of my audience are those who would interview me for a job or a spot in university, having variety is very useful to have in my portfolio to show that I can do a bit of everything if it's needed. Those who I work with are also my audience as they actually see the process of creation throughout and we sometimes give feedback to each other which means that if I take their criticism on board then I am catering my designs partly towards their needs, making them my audience.

I tried two different methods of recording footage. I briefly used a video camera College provided, but I thought about how much of a hassle it would be having to constantly rent it out and lugging the huge thing about so I decided to scrap using that and as I had none of my own I went with the alternative. A 'photo' camera in which I can create a stop-motion video. That's when the real experimentation began as I had to try different angles and positions to see which would be the easiest spot to consistently take photos at without any disruptions or inconveniences. As for materials I didn't really have to go through much due to the simplistic nature of the video.

By using the little *poofs* to signify an object vanishing it creates this sort of fun happy atmosphere because of it's popular association with cartoons as well as the little *poof* clouds being clouds which are quite soft fluffy looking things. The same goes for all the little *clicks* and *alarms* in the sense that words popping up in correspondence to the sounds brings a comical effect to the scenes.

Throughout this project I never really 'managed' my time in the sense I planned it out. I simply did it whenever possible. It's just a good thing that "whenever possible" happens to be most of the time. When it came to actually creating the video things started to get a little hectic as I had to change my idea near the end of the project which cost me a fair bit of time that could have been spent refining any little bits in my work. I liked that last minute change though because I had previously wanted to make a stop-motion video but I thought that didn't fit into the outline of the brief where I thought we had to use the video cameras to create our footage. To be honest though I my time management became rather poor when it came to the creation of the video as I left it til last minute because of my fascination with the other project. At least it's something to improve upon though.

Stop-motion requires a lot of patience and motivation. Patience is definitely one of my strong points as I have to constantly wait around to get anywhere as well as what little experience I have with stop-motion. I also happen to really like the results of such techniques so being able to get through all the mistakes and having to do it all over again because the camera tilted VERY SLIGHTLY to the left.

Even though I actually liked my last minute change of idea, I really could have done with having my own video camera. That way I could have stuck with my original idea, saved a lot of time, and still be able to record footage whenever I wanted without asking College for permission.

I believe my improvements are most needed in my research now. I feel like I'm lacking in variety and quantity for it. I'd also like to improve how my sketchbook actually looks as well. After all, it's a creative course and I should be showing that I am also creative in everything I do. It may make the difference in whether I pass an interview or not :). Oh, and I feel like my video lacked quite a bit in content. The fact I had to resort to looping says it all. All of this just comes down to managing my time better though which I can be sure of doing so in future.