Experimental Video Evaluation

After making my experimental video, there was parts i was really pleased with and parts i wasn't so pleased with and would have done differently. I also got feedback from those who watched during my exhibition.

Overall i was pleased with how things went during the process of making my experimental video. The thing i was pleased with the most was during post-production and being able to emphasise the lights on the car by using a video effect on Final Cut. This is what i hope to have happened in my video as when i got my idea from watching Koyanisqatsi, the lights on the cars there were like red and white lasers so i tried to get an effect like that. I also thought the music went well with the video as it was relaxing and set a calm mood.

My video turned out differently to what i had orignally planned. The first part of my video was planned but the second part i had to change due to not having the people to help me. I would have liked to pull of my originl plan as i think it would have looked good with a person walking really slowly so that when i sped it up in post production, the peron would be walking normal speed with the cars going fast.

After exhibiting my experimental video, i looked at the feedback that i received from my questionnaire and was pretty pleased with the reaction that i received. The thing most people enjoyed about the video was the music and the lights. I was pleased that people enjoyed the music as it took a while for me to come up with something that i thought would make the video enjoyable and relaxing to watch. When asked what you would change about the video, some people suggested that i should change the location of the 2nd shot which was fair enough as that was the shot i had not originally planned. Other than that, the audience's reading of the video was one i intended as most of the people understood the meaning and the context of my experimental video.

If i was to do my experimental video again, i would try and stick to my original plan as i think it would have been better, also i might have tried to film over a motorway as there would be more cars and also it would be a lot faster.

Exhibition Plan

I have chosen to show my experimental video in my car. I will show it on my drive way at night because it is relevant to my video and the people viewing it might get a feel for the video if they're inside the car.

Diary Entry - Post Production

On the 16th of November 2009, i started to import my footage onto iMovie on the Mac's. As i had 2 hours of footage, it would take a while for the video to import. Whilst waiting for it to import, i started to make my soundtrack using Garageband. After having just over half of my footage imported, i encountered a problem. There wasn't enough free space on the drive to keep my footage as it was around 16gb. I then decided i wasn't really comfortable using iMovie so asked if i could work on Final Cut after having previous experiences with it.

On the 17th November 2009, i had to find a way of getting my footage onto another Mac so i borrowed an external hardrive to store my work. It would seem a lot easier to just work off the external hard drive. Once i transferred my work onto Final Cut i could finish off importing the rest of the video i captured. Now i had my footage imported, i could finally start to edit my experimental video.I started off by speeding up my footage to 10,000% which turned 2 hours video into about 2 minutes. After i had done this, i added fades to join the 2 clips together and put in a visual effect that would emphasise the lights on the cars. I had to play around a bit to make it look as effective as possible.

On the 23rd November 2009, i had pretty much finished editing my experimental video and all that was left to do was to finish off my soundtrack on Garageband and import it onto Final Cut to go with my video. After that was complete, i burnt my experimental video onto a DVD.

Diary Entry - Production

Entry 1 - On the 5th November 2009 i started my first piece of video footage for my experimental video. At the end of the day i set up a camera in room T41 by the window and set up the shot to look over the main road outside the college. Once i set up the camera, i asked John to just press record on the camera as he was last to leave the room and then the lights in the room would be off, and would be starting to get dark outside. The camera would then record for about an hour as that's how long the battery would last for. The next morning i went to go check the footage i captured and whether it would be good enough for what i needed, which it was so i was happy.

Entry 2 - On the 15th November 2009 i had to go shoot the 2nd piece of footage for my experimental video. Unfortunately i had to change my original plans due to my friend dropping out. I had to come up with something quick so decided to do something similar to my first piece of footage and just record the road. This time i was at the side of the road and parked my car in a lay by. I set up the camera next to my car and recorded the traffic for about an hour. Once i got home i checked the footage i captured and was relatively pleased with what i caught. It could have been better if there was more traffic and also at times the camera started going out of focus but hopefully it wouldn't be so noticeable once i speed it up in post production.