I really loved the deformation assignment. I feel like it was the first time I realized that video essays can be more artistic and experiential instead of just straight up analytical. I liked getting to play around with Point Break, one of my all time movies, and just seeing how I could deform it to change the audience’s experience watching it. This deformation in particular I really liked because in my reading of the film Johnny Utah is gay for Bodhi and this scene is right before Utah first meets Bodhi when he is surfing with his ‘real’ love interest Tyler. I thought splitting the screen and flipping one half of it was really interesting because then it shows their divergence and really highlights their incompatibility. I think this assignment really changed my style for the rest of the semester (and for my thesis as well). I just really liked thinking about video essays as experimental art. I think it really helped me get away from the more traditional podcast type video essay style.
This particular assignment was probably one of my most frustrating this whole semester. I just could not get the text box to scroll the way I wanted it to and I had yet to really figure out fonts. But not being able to do what I wanted to do made me have to get more creative with the way I presented the text and I think it turned out pretty good. Again I think it helped me get out of the box of what I thought a video essay was and helped me think about not just the visuals but the text also being art. I can see a pretty direct influence of this assignment on my final video essay, not just with the red text and the weird placement but also the importance of timing. I also realized with this assignment that in a more exploratory and less analytical essay the words themselves don’t even really matter because its the symbiosis with the words and video and audio that actually matters.
I was quite proud of my pecha kucha. Off the bat I knew exactly what I was doing my super cut on and I had no clue at all about the pecha kucha. And then, I chose all my clips before even thinking about what audio I was going to use and really struggled to find a good and long enough clip to use. But then the audio I finally chose ended up syncing really well, especially at the end with the hand cuff clip. Looking back there are definitely some things I would do differently. I initially just chose clips to kind of try to present the actual plot of the movie and then I rearranged them to make more sense. So if you watch the video it does kind of illustrate the arc of Utah and Bodhi’s friendship even though it is not in chronological order at all. If I did it again I don’t think I would try to give it any kind of plot or story at all. Watching it now, I am proud of it but I also don’t think it makes much sense if you haven’t seen the movie and I would love to be able to let it go and have this video be able to function by itself.
I had wanted to have a bit more of an analytical section to actually unpack the relationship of the women to the show but anytime I tried it just changed the whole tone of the video and made it much more serious instead of being silly and fun, plus it just didn’t come out well in the desktop format, it was just too wordy and boring. I’m also a bit disappointed that it didn’t come out more universal, like I don’t think any audience that isn’t intimately acquainted with Trailer Park Boys would get it (although my roommates who love Trailer Park Boys really enjoyed it). I think if I had leaned more into the analytical that wouldn’t have been a problem, but it being so personal and experiential it really matters if the audience is familiar with the original media.
I am really proud of my final video essay. It really does feel like an accumulation of all the skills I have learned over the course of the semester. I also think it is a great example of my own personal style. I think some elements of my style are obvious in my response video as well, lots of black screens, quite silly and unserious, and much more experiential than analytical, but I think they really shine here. When we showed our trailers for the final project I remember Jason saying that I had a very unfinished aesthetic but that it was good because it came across as purposeful. I feel like I really took that and ran with it. I feel very proud because I don’t know if it’s really all that good but I genuinely don’t think anyone else could have ever made it. It is just completely my voice and my style so I think that is pretty awesome.
I am also happy with the mix of exploratory and analytical. I had struggled making the analytical parts fun and interesting in other assignments but I think I made good analytical and comparative points here while keeping it very lighthearted and fun. I also think I did a pretty good job at managing audiences attention. I feel like it’s fairly obvious what the viewer is supposed to be focusing on at any point in the video which both makes it (hopefully) not confusing but also I think helps keep up the silly tone throughout even the slightly more serious parts of the video. This is probably the only project where I don’t think there’s anything I would really do differently, except maybe messing with the timing a bit more, like I think it says exactly what I want to be saying exactly the way I want to be saying it.
My only big criticism of this project is that I think it’s a bit too late for it. The tide has shifted on the Keanu question and I don’t think he really needs to be defended these days. It was quite difficult to find quotes criticizing him, even some of the ones I ended up using go on to say that regardless of his “wooden” acting he has a movie star quality that makes him awesome. So kind of the whole concept of this video is flawed because there are very few haters these days so my take is really not very exciting. If only I could have made this in 1995, then it could have maybe been relevant. Oh well.
Richard Linklater: Moments in Time
This video essay by Dream Dimension Productions is one of the coolest video essays I’ve seen recently. The whole video is a mixture between clips of Richard Linklater movies and interviews with Linklater himself. There is no other VoiceOver, text, or explanation behind the clips besides these interviews. Linklater talks about how he sees movies as moments and the plot is only the vehicle to express those moments. He discusses how everything is inherently autobiographical because life is also just a series of moments and cycles so all art draws from those moments and experiences and that is what makes movies so enjoyable to watch. Essentially his argument is that movies are about emotions and those emotions are prompted by certain moments that remind us of our own lives and not really the plot itself.
I think the use of the Linklater interviews as the main explanatory function of the video essay is super cool. Dream Dimension Productions does a really good job of finding moments from Linklater movies that work well with the overarching interviews and show the autobiographical elements of his movies. He includes a clip from Before Midnight where Ethan Hawkes character discusses how everything is autobiographical, a clip from Slacker where Linklater himself explains how every moment and decision of your life is crucial. It just does such a good job at illustrating the unifying themes within Linklater’s body of work while using his own voice to do it. It’s just awesome. I think the best part of this video essay is the way the tone mimics that of a Linklater movie, with the background music and all the clips, the viewer feels all the emotional weight. It almost feels like the 10 second flashing before your eyes of your life before you die, which is exactly how a Linklater movie is supposed to feel, like a series of moments.