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Video Week Assignments:

1. Reading A Movie
2. Analyze A Movie Clip
3. My Story
4. Ebert Eye
5. Every Hour Vlog

Video Summary

What did you learn?

I learned about camera angles and what they might mean. Things like zooming in/out, over the shoulder shots, low/high angles, etc., all have different meanings. Each one tells a story to the viewer even if the viewer isn’t quite aware of it. The newest concept for me was the rule of thirds. I’ve heard of this before in photography but had no idea that it pertained to movies as well.

Check out this article on the rule of thirds to learn more.

What was harder than you thought it would be?

The video assignments in the assignment bank were all pretty difficult and time consuming. I wasn’t excited to do any of them. Editing is fairly easy. It’s just slow. Sometimes it took a lot of processing power. My poor laptop was running hot for some time while I completed these assignments.

The Every Hour Vlog I did took nearly an hour to process. I didn’t even add sound or effects to it due to the long process time. With more time and a better computer, I would have liked to add sound to it.

What was easier?

The easiest part was editing videos. I like editing videos. I just don’t like creating them.

What drove you crazy? Why?

Recording my life drove me crazy. I want to be a content creator, but I don’t necessarily want to be on the screen. I would like to be behind the camera, maybe narrating or something. The Every Hour Vlog was really not fun. I kept forgetting to record. And when I did remember, my schedule didn’t allow for stopping a recording. Plus, I spend 1/4 of my day driving, so the driving clips are longer than everything else.

What did you enjoy? Why?

I enjoyed analyzing movie clips according to Ebert’s theories. I found this quite fun, actually. In the future, I might just do this while watching tv shows and such to see what I can learn. I don’t think I gain any new information from doing this, but I do understand why I am getting certain thoughts about whatever I’m watching. I’m definitely being influenced by camera angles, lighting, dialogue, sound effects, etc.

In case you missed it, here is the video where I tried my hand at reading a video clip from American Psycho.

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Prompt: After reading Roger Ebert’s “How to Read a Movie”, find a clip or picture from a movie and record a video of yourself analyzing your choice.  Pay attention to the details about where the characters are, and what role they play in the scene.  Look at how the characters are portrayed, and if their positions fit their portrayal.  Use an Ebert eye to look at it.

This is a 4 star assignment.

#VideoAssignments #VideoAssignments1723

At night, I often sleep to Agatha Christie mysteries or M.C. Beaton’s Agatha Raisin series. My hearing is so sensitive that I cannot sleep without something playing in my ears. Otherwise, I hear every thump and bump in the house and I stay up all night. During the day, I listen to the Chilluminati podcast. On this podcast, they discuss all of my favorite mysterious things. Plus, the guys are just funny.

You can check them out here:

I am a lover of true crime, unsolved mysteries, paranormal investigations, alien conspiracies, government conspiracies…any conspiracies, really. So, when I saw this assignment and the change to evaluate American Psycho, I had to do it. This video did have some music in it, so hopefully it doesn’t get removed for copyright. I did try to give the appropriate credits and follow the copyright rules.

To understand the methods for analyzing, check out Roger Ebert’s article, “How to Read a Movie.” I reference this article several times in the recording, so make sure you are familiar with the techniques before watching the clip below.

And now….a warning. This video has adult themes and strong imagery. Not recommended for anyone under age 18.

For this assignment I decided to analyze a scene from the 2017 film “Baby Driver”, which, as I state at the beginning of the video,  was my favorite film of last year. Full warning, the video I created and posted below is far from my nest work. As I have stated numerous times over the course of this class, I have a particular issue with figuring out how to properly use and work with new computer programs, and this was no different. Admittedly, movie maker is far easier to get the hang of than some of the other programs we have used so far this semester,  but I still had a fair amount of trouble with things such as audio mixing. Because of that, my voice over below came out extremely stilted and awkward, however I do still think I made some good points, and hopefully you can see past my awful voice over to notice them.

Following by Example

For my first assignment this week, I chose the Ebert’s Analysis assignment for four stars. Finding a movie clip to analyze was the easiest part of the assignment.  I have spent many evenings at the local Sheetz and have half-watched many movies on the soundless television there while working on my assignments. One movie that played last week was The Dark Knight Rises, the final movie in the Batman series starring Christian Bale. My favorite movie in recent years is the second movie, The Dark Knight, starring Heath Ledger as the Joker. This movie focuses a lot on snippets of crafted dialogue and contrast to move the audience. I chose to analyze the clip where Commissioner Gordon and Batman interrogate the Joker about the location of the missing Harvey Dent.

To the Bat Cave!

I found the most delightful new place to work this week. During my midnight hunt for the green-screen at the Hurley Convergence Center, I stumbled across a recording booth in the basement. I believe the screen was in the next room over, but that was locked, and I was able to enter the recording booth with my student ID. Once inside, I closed the door and was surrounded by blissful silence. I suppose it would have creeped other people out, working at two AM in a dark recording booth in a dark rook in a dark basement, but I thoroughly enjoyed the lack of distractions. Also, recording my assignment was a breeze; I did not have to worry about the furnace coming on or my cat deciding she wanted to play.

Cinema Interruptus

How it All Came to Be

I made a tutorial video on how to create this analysis video on Mac. The tutorial can be viewed on Youtube or via my tutorial post.

The Dark Villain (Tutorial)