Your pet cat, dog, turtle, snake [fill in name of pet here] spends a lot of time with you, do you imagine what they are thinking about? Create a series of video sequences of them that show them in contemplative mode, then record over that the narration of what they might be saying to themselves. Pad with an fun opening title, ost to YouTube, and wait for fame and fortune to come your way.
Inspired by Stand-Up Dog: Open Mic
Find a theme from TV and/or movies (e.g. monsters, cowboys, romance, planes, beaches) and edit a video sequence with a song track from a pop song that matches it. The more short cuts the better!
Inspired by Leerone’s cover of the Donovan song Season of the Witch with famous witch characters from film and television.
Alfred Hitchcock, the legendary master of suspense, shares a brief 90-second lesson on how a simple change in a three-shot edit can result in evoking a completely different response from the viewing audience. Can you do the Hitch Cut? Make two versions of a short three-shot video — in each instance maintaining the first and third shots, but changing out the second shot in each. Can you get a completely different result from your viewer?
Virtual Bonus Points for attempting this assignment with something different from just the changing face of a character as in Hitch’s example.
Create a video that critiques a classic movie (preferably a movie that hasn’t aged well) in a funny manner! The idea here is to find a film from your childhood and apply your adult sensibilities to it. Point out the shallow writing, lousy effects, etc. Editing in effects and getting into character are a must! Be over the top, over critical, INSANE!
Inspired by the AWESOME Nostalgia Critic: GO WATCH THESE VIDEOS!
Inspired by the animation series, Mysteries of the Vernacular:
http://mysteriesofvernacular.com/
Tell the story of the history of a favorite word. Mysteries of the Vernacular uses animation, but feel free to use any form of media to tell your word’s story.
While an iconic of the silent film era, Charlie Chaplin’s movies never got the audio oomph of THX. Here is your chance to make the silent era come alive by adding foley sound effects to a movie lacking them. Select a clip from the Annotated Filmography of Charlie Chaplin. Turn the sound all the way down, and study the action to identify places where you could add sound effects using every day objects around you, or even just your own ability to mimic sounds. These should not be recordings of sounds on your computer, you must make them in real time.
Play the movie back with the audio turned down, and then record your own audio with the sound effects. Make a new video with your sound effects replacing the original.
Learn more about Foley Artists and watch examples (1, 2) of them in action.
For this assignment I want you to find a video clip with at least two people in it, it can be from a movie, newscast, music video, etc. and I want you to be the voice for one of the people. So find a way to mute or edit out one of the voices and then I want you to add in your own voice. Make it funny and have fun with it, don’t just simply repeat the dialogue!
Create a supercut montage of overused dialogue, themes, motifs, filmmaking techniques, etc. for a particular character, tv show, film, and/or public figure. A supercut is a “fast-paced montage of short video clips that obsessively isolates a single element from its source, usually a word, phrase, or cliche from film and TV. Supercut.org collects every known example of the video remix meme.” For examples and descriptions of supercuts visit:
Make a five second film. Try to keep it funny! This assignment was inspired by 5secondfilms.com.
I suggest you draw from your own life experiences of strange but funny moments.
You know on That 70’s Show, when they’d all sit in a circle and smoke weed and talk about dumb shit? Yeah, me too. It was hilarious! But it was also filmed really creatively, with the camera focusing on each person’s face. Sit in a circle and film a conversation with your friends in the same style. Don’t get high for this (or do) because drugs are bad (but fun). If you need an example of the style, here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJPvTNRCLxM
