Skip to main content

Investigation 2/15: THON Factor Education

Over the past few days I have been working on a variety of different videos for THON factor this upcoming Friday. Working on these different types of videos has taught me some new things that I might not have learned through only working on personal films. Here is a few interesting things that I've learned over the past week.

Editing To Music

With most of my previous films, music has really just been something that I added in towards the end of post production. While editing the promo video for THON factor, I selected the music prior to working on the visuals. This put me in a different situation as I would now have to make the visuals fit with the music. The only previous experience I had of this was with editing last year's Mini-THON recap video on the night of. The music track was prepared prior to editing and Tech Chair Georgea Hall had mentioned the importance of cutting on musical beats to add emphasis. After editing the promo video, I think I did a fair job at taking this into account. I made sure to have text change on beats of the music in order to create emphasis. I also tried to add relevant visuals (Guitar, Drums, Etc) in the background to further support the music track. Overall, I think that the promo ended up fairly well. The promo video can be found here: THON Factor Promo Video

Formal Interview

In the past, I filmed a sort-of "interview" for my film The Game VS The World. That interview was meant to be joke-ish and the only thought put into it was really just to hit record in front of a backdrop. When I was asked to help film an interview with Four Diamonds Kid/THON Factor Contestant Nathan Smelser, I was excited to give interviews another try. While shooting, I made sure to have Nathan sit away from the backdrop in order to create more depth within the shot. This should in some ways hopefully make the interview feel less like "someone talking about some thing" and more like a real interview. I also used a lavalier microphone as well as my camera's internal microphone to record audio, with each microphone recording to either the left or right channel. Doing this gave me a back-up track incase the lavalier's audio ended up bad. Even though the interview was only filmed in a classroom, Nathan's story and the way it is presented make the whole video feel formal and heartwarming.

Music Videos

In the few years that I have been creating films, music videos haven't been something that has come up for me. For THON factor I have had the opportunity to both shoot and edit music videos. From working on these videos I've learned a few important things to keep in mind with music videos. First is that the music is always more important than the video. While the aim of making a music video is to make a video for music, the main form of entertainment is the music being played. A video doesn't need to necessarily look beautiful as long as the performance is what is highlighted. Another thing is that syncing video with your audio track is critical to the video's success. Being able to see the words being sung from the mouth of a singer help the audience to realize what they are singing. If the words being mouthed by your singer don't match what is being sung within the music, the audience will likely be confused. Lastly, having multiple takes of your talent performing creates more opportunities in editing. By having multiple takes, you will always have something to fall back on should one of your clips not work with the edit. Multiple takes also allows you to have more things to cut in-between, creating more visual variety within the video. If you are interested in watching the music videos I worked on and more, you can watch THON Factor Friday February 19th at 4 p.m. live on Cumberland Valley Mini-THON's YouTube channel.

Work Log

  • 2/8 - No Work
  • 2/9 - Began work on THON Factor promo
  • 2/10 - Shot Nathan Smelser's music video
  • 2/11 - Finished THON Factor promo
  • 2/12 - Shot interview
  • 2/13 - Began editing THON Factor music videos
  • 2/14 - Finished editing 2 THON Factor music videos
  • 2/15 - Edited 2 additional THON Factor videos

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Investigation 3/1: The Tools Of Camera Stability

One of the most important aspects of cinematography that goes commonly unnoticed is having the camera steady. Even a slight amount of movement within a shot can pull the audience away from the film, so it is important to attempt to have shots. There are multiple different ways that you can use to stabilize your camera, some of which are more effective than others. Tripod Using a tripod is the easiest way to stabilize the camera while filming. By having three points of contact with the ground, a tripod keeps the camera extremely stable. The camera would likely only move due to very large movements on the ground or strong winds. The one downside to using a tripod is that it has to remain stationary. If the required shot involves moving around, a tripod can likely not be used. Overall, the tripod is the easiest, simplest, and cheapest way to keep your camera steady. (Image Source) Shoulder Rig A shoulder mount is one way to keep the camera stable while also being able to mov...

Investigation 4/19: Feature Length Or Series; Which Better Fits Your Story?

Feature length films and television series are both different outlets that a filmmaker is able to use to express their stories. The lengths of both formats have their own strengths and weaknesses for a filmmaker to be aware of. I have done some investigating in order to compare both formats in order to determine which to consider writing for. Series Writing a story as a television or streaming series allows for longer and more detailed stories to be told. An episode of a series will usually be anywhere from thirty to sixty minutes long. While at first this limited amount of time may seem like a hindrance, splitting your story into multiple episodes allows for more time overall to go into detail and tell your story. An example that I have observed of shorter episodes benefiting storytelling can be seen in the differences between the fourth season of the anime series  Jojo's Bizarre Adventure  and its film adaptation Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter...

Digital Portfolio Finale