Video Assignments

Alt Ending

Find a movie that you can create an alternate ending for- make a video, recreating the scene and the characters, that plays out a different way the movie could end.

As an example, see these re-filmed endings for Rear Window or Braveheart

As a reference, including either a clip of the original film or a screenshot.

Opening Credits Redux

In film, the design of opening credits can be an art unto itself. For this assignment, take an existing movie’s opening credits, and redo it in an alternate style that still honors the plot and style of the movie– or make it radically different.

See examples of the redone credits for The Good The Bad and The Ugly and Hitchock’s Rear Window.

Include in your blog post a clip or screenshots of the original credits to show the difference between that and what you create.

A Day in Your Life: Make it Constanza Decent

On Seinfeld, the astute George Castanza noted “If you take everything I’ve ever done in my entire life and condense it down into one day….it looks decent.” — if you take everything you have done in a day and condense it down to a video… it looks decent (or better).

Create a video that shows your entire day that compresses your day into a video no more than 10 minutes long (bonus points for making it 5). Capture bits of your day in video or still photo form, and edit as a movie. Include titles, time stamps, and background music. Try your hand at speeding things up.

For some examples so ones created by Dean Shareski and Jabiz Raisdana

Vintage Educational Video

Video was the new frontier for teaching in the 1950s and you can find rich (and funny) examples of educational videos of that era. In this assignment make a 5 minute or less video of a modern topic in the vintage style of these films. Include elements like cheesy music, titles, cut out graphics, booming voice to make something educational.

As an example see How to Be Cool: an educational film

Make a Tutorial for you Mom

Make a short tutorial showing someone who is not very familiar with computers or asks you to do something for them all the time because they don’t know how. It doesn’t have to be for your mom, it can be for grandpa, sister, etc. This example is pretty long (I didn’t make it, I just found it), but it doesn’t need to be this long, and it can be showing how to do one thing and not every thing.

Facebook Narrative

Our generation has been using social networking for quite some time now. Take a moment to reflect. Look back at who you were, what you’ve done, and what this all means in those years now frozen in photographs on Facebook. Using anything that is published on a social networking site, such as photographs, video clips, and things you’ve wrote or tweeted, tell a narrative about yourself (example)

Return to the Silent Era

The dawn of cinema had no audio; silent movies created an atmosphere with music and the use of cue cards. Take a 3-5 minute trailer of a modern movie and render it in the form os the silent era- convert to black and white, add effects to make it look antiquated, replace the audio with a musical sound track, and add title cards for the dialogue. As a prime example, see Silent Star Wars.

One of the best sources for music is Incompetech or the Internet Archive. For the title cards, try a google image search

Remembrances of Things Past

Recall an important childhood location or scenario. Build a representative replica out of small, available materials such as a sandbox or Legos, or even a drawn map. Make a short, narrated video that tells the story of that world and its features and what happened there. Be passionate, be specific. Don’t be afraid to express the honorable emotions of nostalgia, anger, bewilderment, wonder… (example)

Cooking Show

Do you love cooking? Why not make your favourite recipe in front of the camera? Host a cooking show in your own kitchen and show us how it’s done. We’re not all Jamie Oliver, but we can try (see how he does it)

Vision of the future

What will life be like when apps such as Layar or Google Goggles are no longer applications in a handheld device, but hardwired into our brains? Layer some 'augmented' reality style effects on top of the video in an attempt to show what life will be like once we are cybernetically linked to technologies such as Layar or Google Goggles. It could be like the view that the Terminator sees through his robotic eyes, or something more down to earth like a price comparison app that appears as you do your shopping. Make it funny, make it serious or speculate about how this technology might be used for good or bad. Check out an example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MeaaCwBW28