The original genesis of this project was in the poetry of spoken of words. I wanted to create my own mash up of slam poetry, make my own poem out of pieces of other’s poems. However, something I did not take into account was the fact that slam poetry is about the spoken word. It is about the performance of the words, what inflection they have and how their sounds fit together. The problem with that is that when I isolated the words from the videos, they did not fit together. Each word sounded garbled when removed from its original context. From the critique I gained a little bit of insight into the making of videos (particularly mash ups). I learned that the audio of a video, with a consistent beat behind it, can sounds cohesive. I was reminded to keep it simple and I learned that I needed to watch wayyy more FinalCut tutorials.
From there I started to do a little bit of research. It was suggested that I consider the poetry of visuals. When I thought of short video clip with impactful images, I thought about UnderArmour ads. This was most likely due to the fact that I was in the process of applying for a couple different ones, but it gave me a direction for my research. I started looking into the various creative directors of UnderArmour videos and advertisements. While the artist research was helpful, what was more helpful was looking at and watching dozens of successful commercials and music videos. Studying the minutia that made them successful helped me to figure out what elements needed to be present in my own work. The rapid succession of high contrast images was important, but what really made the brand stand out were the shots of athletes in motion that were then slowed down.
That being said, my vision and process did not fully come together until a friend of mine sat down to see what I had made so far and, after watching the convoluted mess that was my video (at that point) asked me the crucial question, “What is your vision?” I realized, in that moment, that I had not fully stopped to consider what I was doing before I started mashing together different clips. I had started with a video about an ultramarathoner who had completed multiple one hundred mile races (running!). The video started out with the sound of a normal heart beat (about 70 bmp) and then gave his (approx. 35 bpm). It flashed between posed pictures of him and as he started talking about his philosophy for running, it showed him (but mostly his extremely muscular calves) running up the hill. To be honest, the visuals of the first movie didn’t match the power and inspiration of his words. I put an electric violin song behind his words, and played with the volume of what he was saying. The music and his voice alternated. It was not simple, it was pretty distracting and I definitely did not have an alternate plan for the weak visual component. So, I brainstormed.
For me, this project was about learning FinalCut Pro. I needed to learn the basics of the program for future use and to execute concepts that I had actual come up with myself. Throughout my experimentations with the program, I was learning the different tools but the clip that I had, at that point, did not communicate that new knowledge because of its randomness and disjointed composition. I scrapped the video and started fresh. I solidified my idea: combining the visuals from a multitude of UnderArmour ads, cutting the voice from one and creating a new concept. I figured I could put a pumped up song behind the words and make it work with the visuals. From that point forward, my process involved a lot of downloading videos and matching image progression and changes to the music and the voice, to both of those. I tried mashing together a variety of athletic videos, expanding outside of just UnderArmour. However, the various styles of image quality and type of shoot reminded me of the different voices in my slam clip. It looked messy and disconnected and felt awkward and uncomfortable. So I removed them. I stuck with just the voices and shots from UnderArmour clips but rearranged everything and cut a lot of video and voice out to make my own narrative. Ideally, I wanted to make an advertisement showing the power of humanity but based on the feedback I received in my critique, the UnderArmour label was prominent to the point of distraction. While it was meant to be an ad, it was not successful in how it was conveyed.
The point of this project, for me, was learning Final Cut Pro. As such, I was successful. I learned the program and became proficient at the basics. The point of this project, from other’s point of view, was the communication of the meaning behind my piece. For me, this project was a success. While the conveyance of the meaning of the piece was a little rough, the technical composition of the clip was pretty good. The audio and images matched and the style was not significantly jarring in any way. I managed to edit everything to create a cohesive story and even if the meaning was a little rough, the piece flowed.
As far as the work that I put into this piece? It was hard to remember at times that I was working on it, as I just watched a lot of YouTube videos and took notes on the elements I liked. I think that I budgeted my time very well with this project and was very pleased with the result. I had to watch a lot of videos for this project and I helped myself work through the program by constantly looking up tutorials. In essence, I taught myself the program. Even though we went over many of the elements during class, I had to look them up and walk through them in the actual program to learn them. I saved a lot of “test” files. For this project, I worked a lot in my free time and the only part that I regret was that when it came down to my final revision edits (something I nearly never do) I was not able to focus very well and so I got distracted easily and they took me a little longer to complete.
Looking at this from a far, I would say that my strongest characteristic was the cohesiveness of the piece and the one that I could work on more was the transition between the images. Some of them were not cut quite as cleanly as I would have wished. It would be cool to experiment with what people had asked, about slowing down other shots and speeding the slowed shots up, but I wonder how the video quality would fair. I feel that at some point, it will seem fragmented and jolting if I slow it down too much. In any case, I will have to try to experiment with it.
I changed my idea entirely during the course of this project. While I followed a very commercial route in execution, I also moved radically from the execution of my first piece. My final project was not merely a revision of the first one but a completely different piece. I think that I deserve at least an A- on this project. I put a lot of time and effort in and, although disappointing that I did not challenge any political meaning or represent my idea as well as I hoped, I learned the program and created a piece that worked as a whole.
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