Smile Video final cut and Evaluation

My video is finally finished. I am very happy with the outcome of the video and the story that it tells.

The product: 

The video is meant to show how a young person has gone from being sad and lonely, to then being happy and smiling due to the fact that they went for a walk to see the sunrise. I chose to do this due to the fact that the audience will be lower in the social grade due to the fact they are at college / Uni. The video aimes to show how no money is needed in order to make yourself smile and be happy. I have chose to make the video very simplistic in the sense of storytelling and technical skill. Controversy to most filming techniques i decided not to include movement within the camera itself. 

Action sequences are full of camera movement in order to heighten and keep the flow of action. The movement is usually used in order to make the audience feel as if they are there with the people in the action sequence. They are feeling each punch. I don't want my audience to feel like they are in a sequence with the character. Usually people don't know what they are meant to do when someone is sad/ upset. People usually feel awkward. At the beginning I wanted to give my audience a feeling of awkwardness and uncomfortability. By making the audience stare at the character and have no movement to deter them from the character, the audience sense the seriousness and the sadness within the character. 

The basic hard cuts are used to show how the characters day feels. There is no masking transitions or cross dissolves transitions. the hard cuts make the audience constantly have a clear view of the character. Using a hard cut gives no time for the audience to process what is happening. For example, if I used a dip to black transition, the audience would have a few seconds of not knowing what was quite happening in the scene.  This would have a completely different effect on the audience compared to a hard cut. By using a hard cut, the audience are able to quickly see the morning routine of this person. The beginning of the advert, in the house, is very dark and gloomy. The audience know what a  morning routine consists of but by showing multiple clips of this routine, the audience begin to feel bored. They can instantly see what is happening due to the hard cuts, but I let the clips run longer. By letting the clips run longer, the audience will begin to feel like what they are watching is boring and uninteresting. I want the audience to feel this. By making the audience feel this, they will be able to realise that the start to their day is always boring. They will see how the character relates to them and their morning struggle. By boring the audience, I have been able to create a personal relationship with them and the audience now understand the characters emotions.

To make cuts less noticeable, I decided to cut the clips to the music audio. This satisfies the audience anyway due to the fact that sound and sight are matching. For the audio I wanted something that was slow, had noticeable drops and that matched the emotion in the video. I began to look for audio on epidemic sound. Most audio clips had many instruments playing at once. For me I felt like this didn't match my video as it was too distracting. Finally I found my audio. It was a piano. It was deep toned and I believed that the pace matched what I was looking for. 

The clips in the house were color graded in order to look like early morning. The clips were recorded, as shown in my recording diary, during the day in order to retain details in the shadows. I decided to make the colors blue in order to represent the tones that are found during the night. I used a color grade that was slightly green in order to give a sickly feeling which would reinforce the emotions that are paired with getting up early for the demographic.

From leaving the house the clips progress in the same way with only a slow decrease in the color grade. I then had the 'turning point' in the video which uses color, time and audio in order to show the changes in mood. That is discussed more in my post production diary.

Soon after this my editing techniques changed into cross dissolves. By using cross dissolves the character seems relaxed. He is no longer in the boring, dark house. He is now relaxing in the bright and colorful sunrise. The cross dissolves signify how the character flows into his area of relaxation. The cross dissolves also make the audience have to pay attention and makes them wait to see the sunrise. They have been forced to watch the horrible routine, but forced to wait to see the sunrise. This will hopefully make that audience feel jealous that the character has been able to see it before the audience. Although we know nothing about this person, he is being used as a two-step flow for the audience. The audience, as we know from my research, find it hard to get up and out. By showing them the outcomes and possibilities by pushing through, my character will hopefully act as a role model and inspire the demographic to push through their struggles.

Finally we see the character standing alone as a silhouette watching the sun rise. In this moment the audience are transfixed. The outcome of the process has been revealed. We have seen this character go from a dull room, to a warm and bright surrounding. In this shot we don't see any details of the character, nor do we see any communication with the camera. The audience feel like they are watching someone change for the best. Due to the fact that details of the character are not visible, the audience can picture the silhouette being them. 

So far the audience has created a personal relationship with the character, by having the same morning issues. They have been informed on a possible way to change their emotions, by visually seeing the process. They have been able to escape and see a beautiful sunrise from their screen. Now the audience have created a personal identity to the character by imagining that that could be them. It could be them that is happy. It could be them  that is relaxed, it could be them that has persevered. The audience by now should feel empowered and inspired by the video in order to get themselves out early in the morning in order to change themselves for the good.

Reflection:

My feedback really assured me on my video as I took a big risk with having a static camera and not a high usage of technical skill. Sometimes people believe that if something is their to use, use it. As shown by my video, I believe that sometimes it is good to break them beliefs and bend the rules to your own. creativity comes with risks. Art is subjective to many people. There is never a right or wrong answer. However, in order to tell my story, I believe that I chose the right amount of techniques and skills at my disposal in order to tell my simple, but effective story. My video is a good representation of what my original idea was. As stated in my recording diary, I had issues with recording some footage as I didn't have enough time. I did not see the point in reusing footage to try and stretch the video. Therefore I took this problem and tried to figure a way around it. By shortening the time of the journey to the coast, the audience realise that the journey isn't what made the character happy. He was happy due to his perseverance and what he was able to witness at the end of his endeavour. 

The text at the end of the video tells people to do something that makes them happy. As already said the audience feel inspired and now they are being told to do something that makes them happy. This meets the brief of the project in order to 'create a creative outcome that will make people smile' for 'my own community'. I have definitely completed that brief. Not only have I gave people a way to smile. But, due to the fact that the place I recorded at is a well known landmark, many people in my community could do the exact same venture and feel the happiness that is displayed in the video.

Identification:

Throughout this project I have learnt many professional and working standards. Having already been used to using cameras and video equipment, the physical act of recording and editing was not new to me. However the research and professional practice was very new.

The research element gave me a great insight into how important it is when understanding a client. In the beginning I believed that I could do the video how I wanted and that was the perfect way. However, when it came to the planning process, I had a clear understanding of what to create and why I was creating it. I wasn't puzzled on the reasons why I was doing something. Understanding the client gave a great help as I knew the vibe and tone that I needed to go for. By researching deeply into the audience, I was able to understand their needs which made up the actual storyline of the video itself. Without understanding the audience the project would have most likely fallen through. Another part of research that was a great help to my video was the fact of looking at pre-existing media. The idea of using a static camera came from the research of the comic relief video. The tone and seriousness of the video came off well due to the  static camera and I adopted that in my video.

I found the pre-production stages difficult at first as I had never done one before however, I now feel confident in doing planning and I understand how it can help with the speed and efficiency of production. 

In the future I wish to be more in depth with my pre production stages as this gives the foundation to the whole outcome. From the project as a whole I have struggled with being on time and mostly found myself getting the work done at a good speed. I also found myself doubting my own work and the outcome that it will create. From this project I have gained more confidence in my own work and now understand the importance of time and belief.