CRACKS AND GROWTH
Here is my final Cracks and Growth video. It was successful in terms of portraying skin textures in a creative way but in all honesty this is my least favourite of all my videos. I think it could have been executed better by having a more colourful spectrum in it, and having the hand move in different ways with multiple camera angles. Its a good starting point but there is room for this to be explored further in video format, and this version doesn't differ much from the draft except that it is cleaner and a bit neater.
SILVER LINES
The hardest thing about making and editing this video was applying the right mood. This came mainly down to music. Most royalty free music either had a very sombre tone or a very jaunty, almost comical tone. I have found that sombre tones tend to make videos seem more professional, but it wasn't right for this video in portraying what I want to portray - I wanted the model to be showing off his skin, to be happy in the emphasised silver lines of his hands and have the video as a sort of appreciation of differences in skin, but the somber tone put a negative spin on the whole thing.
After finding the visual effects that I wanted to use I found a mystical tune that I think fits really well with the tone of the film. Its bright, but not comical while still giving an emotional serge in a positive way.
This is my favourite of all my videos. I love the colour spectrum and I think the whole thing works nicely. It makes for an interesting watch because there are video effects as well as a model moving appropriately. There are some bits that could have been edited in a smoother way, but overall this video makes me proud of my process in video editing and Final Cut Pro, all of which was self taught.
IDENTITY
I've been in two minds about this video ever since I shot it. Im still undecided as to whether this portrays my idea of identity or not. The shoot was Susann's idea and was the reason we started to have creative differences, because I felt that it didn't really relate to my project.
However we found the mannequin and I really liked the idea of incorporating this smooth, perfect porcelain idea of a human being in comparison to the flaws and lines that real skin has. I think the idea is good, but here are a lot of ways that it could have been portrayed better. Down to getting the material so late from Susann, I wasn't sure that this video would even ever happen and decided to work with it given the time that I had left by the time I received the raw clips.
HUMAN CONDITION
This was another video that I thought was successful. It succeeds in creating an emotional response in the audience and I really like the aesthetic of the makeup application to the odes chest sand torso. I made the conscious decision to have the male topless in order to exhibit and emphasise the motion of his breathing, and also to because I thought it would be fresh and clean when exposing the skin in its naked form.
Some shooting and editing could have been carried out in a more professional way but overall, with all the ups and downs that the videos gave me and not knowing if they would even get made, I'm really quite happy with how they turned out. I was able to fit music that fit the one of the piece and inserted breathing sound effects, which I was able to slow down or speed up, depending on the mood that I wanted the model to portray. This breathing effect, which we also completed in shooting with exaggerated movements for camera, ties up the whole video and puts some meaning behind the perspiration.
The video allows the audience to come to their own conclusions about why the male is perspiring and breathing heavily. Is he scared? Has he exercised? Is it sexual? The skins reaction is the same and video is successful in portraying the relationship between emotions states and their physical response. If I were to re-do the video I think I would have liked to really exaggerate the perspiration and go all out with it, perhaps adding a spray to the body to show a gleam on the skin that compliments the larger beads of sweat that were made with gel. That being said, however, I do really like the contrast between the brands of sweat and the models matte skin so it would be hard to pinpoint which would work better aesthetically.
