Group video 

 

For my individual video, see below. 

design

The idea for our video came through our discussion last Tuesday, where we discussed the types of scenery we liked to see, experience, and watch. We discussed the differences/similarities between 自然 (nature) and 人事 (people), particularly noting the abundance of 360 videos that capture nature, such as the example video of the beach. I considered how capturing a video of something that felt more organic, with people, objects, cityscapes, and architecture could be just as immersive, without intentionally trying to. The organic movement of subjects, sounds, and visuals of this type of video, could ironically feel more ‘natural,’ and thus be easier for the viewer to imagine themselves ‘being there’.

Discussing these ideas within our team, I decided to capture a simple video at a cafe, an activity that anyone would do in their everyday. A cafe, which is not too exciting of a place in terms of visuals or possibilities for an action packed 360 video, I thought that it would be able to capture so many different subjects and their activities. In this way, the video could almost recreate the experience of going to a cafe, sitting down, people watching, listening to the conversations around you, and so on.

shooting process

Prior to shooting at the cafe, I did a few test shoots with the camera on campus and on the street. I found it sometimes difficult to remain connected to the wifi, while also being away from campus, considering it did not work on a vpn. From my test videos, I noticed how distracting it was to have the camera being held in hand, and I checked out an additional mini tripod to avoid this.

At the cafe, I chose a spot that was as close to the center of the space as I could, placing the camera about two feet in front of me. I took a total of three videos, each being about 1.5 minutes. I experimented with different angles, moving in and out of the camera’s view to make it seem as natural as possible. Still, it was difficult while shooting to not be tempted to look at the camera.

After collecting my own footage (for reasons I explain in my email), my group members offered that they would also shoot their own clips in line with our theme as a compromise to missing the initial shooting.

post-production

The editing process of Neo, Lucas, and my footage was performed by Neo, where he stitched our parts one after the other, clipping each section to be around 1 minute. The title of our project on YouTube is ‘A Saturday Alone’, which aims to capture the day in the life of an average student, spending some time alone, and yet still engaged in rather lively, very *un-*alone environments.

My own footage edited into the 360 video is also provided in the drive and below:

reflections

I had never used a 360 camera before, but I really enjoyed experimenting with it, especially the photo aspect of the camera, which felt moving by the way I could move the screen around to different parts of the photo, even though it was technically still.

For the project, I think the most challenging part of it , despite the lack of cooperation and leadership from my group members, was answering to the prompt. From the initial assignment description, I had the impression that we just needed to create a video considering how we can make decisions to make the 360 aspect feel intentional and immersive. It wasn’t until later that I understood that this was not supposed to be a multi-scene video or that it should have any ‘story’ at all. In the professor’s words: “The goal for this project is to make immersive video…not general movie with a story”. However, this confused me, because I don’t see how an immersive video, and a movie with a story, are mutually exclusive elements? For the purpose of this exercise, I can see the importance of not creating something too complex, but I would argue that we should explore more experimental ways we can integrate these types of cameras with traditional filmmaking and storytelling.