Presentation
December 11, 2008
- What have I made? Where the ideas come from?
I have made three Video artefacts. The first one representing theme of spectacle. In this artefact, I’m tell a story about a man who can dream his future and what he dreams will all happened in his real life. This idea come up to me after I watched a film called <Minority Report>. In that movie, there’re three people sho can dream the alibi which would happen in reality. And people call them predictor. So I created my protagonist who is similar with the predictors. But what he dreams is not the abili, but is his death.
The second artefact is the theme of memory, and I made a documentary about the history of Coventry. Actually is the Coventry in the second WW. I interviewed two passerby and one of them is an old lady, she was born in Coventry and went through the bombs. I start to film this documentary because at the time, I always saw lots of people have a small red flower. From my curiosity, I asked a man who stood in front of starbucks and sell the flowers. He told me the reason. Then, I googled some information about Coventry in the second WW, and I want to film it.
The third artifact is the theme of power. To the artifact, I don’t wanna film the big things to represent the theme. Because it’s easy to find out some truth in a very tiny thing in our live. And one day, when I played the piano, I suddenly thing the hand could be filmed. And also, you can research that our human civilization and social civilization are all created by people’s hand, like the Great Wall, the Pyramid.
l What did I experiment with?
Shooting—Z1
Editing—Adobe Premiere Pro CS3/After Effect
With my artefacts, I have experimented with shooting and editing. Before I came to Coventry, I knew nothing about them. Because my major in China was bilingual broadcasting. So during the time I had English courses in August, I leanrt the skills of editing from my friends. It’s really hard for me, but I enjoy the process. During the process of editing, I could always find some new technologies I have never met before. And using the new one, may make my artefact much better. And also, I should sort a lot problems out during the process. It’s just like a challenge and very interesting.
l What has gone wrong? What have I learnt?
Before starting to film, you should make a plan about the scene. Take my experience of the first artefact for example. The first day I brought Z1 and went out, I suddenly don’t know what to shoot. Because I didn’t make a plan. So I went home and make a detailed plan. In this plan, I devide my story into several parts. Fro instance, in the first scene, I list the place, the character, and action, the shooting eagle and all the details. The plan just like a cue card, and make sure that I shoot ruly for every scene.
l What will I develop?
1. I will practice my editing
2. watching some documentaries.
