This is a series of behind the scene stories I'd like to share with you, also serves as a memoir of the making of my recent videos.
------------------------------------
Watch it here:
It was July 13, 2016, a sunny Wednesday with some wind. Summer school at Venice International University, Program: Coping with sea level rise, collaborated with Duke University.
Three days into the summer school, I was just about to get familiar with the awesome people in my class, my pace of making friends out of my classmates wasn't slow, yet this field trip was the real turning point, if say I was trying to blend in small groups of people in the first two days, then after this field trip, after my video shooting and making I found myself suddenly exposed in the entire class's warm friendship.
Before I even started, actually when I was applying for the summer school a month before, I already decided to make some videos out of these field trips and I already foreseen these videos would be better than my usual videos. When the day of field trip really comes it is extra sweet, it is more amazing than I could ever imagine.
The day before field trip, I carefully charged all batteries of my Sony a7 and Canon Legria Mini, I had no idea how the marsh would turn out to be, but I knew whatever it is like, I'd get some good footage from it.
Got on the "island", actually marsh land, it was exciting and a little confusing in the beginning. There were 4 professors/lecturers leading the project and we were divided into two groups to do different tasks: digging holes, burying teabag, taking sample mud, measuring temperature and pressure, set up tracking app etc. I tried my best to capture every single task, my time was tight, I had to do enough work so that people won't think that I was goofing around, in the meantime I had to swiftly capture the footage or photo of whatever best showcases the tasks we were doing.
I thought of making a full documentary of the entire activity, with every single detail, every explanation of professors, every motion and action of students, but it was impossible considering my limited battery capacity. Nonetheless I did shoot some lengthy footage and made the final video into two versions: one is condensed for showcasing what we did as well as serving as a vlog for me myself and everybody who attended that day; the other is an almost uncut version of the most relevant footage I got, it is 21 minutes long, a lot of talking by the professors.
It was a super fun day and it was the very day that we all showed each other our true self, there never had been another day that more vividly, accurately demonstrated each of our personality, manner, heart, strength and mind. It was that day that we truly started knowing each other.
A little side story, I got stuck in the mud, it was pretty moist and pretty much like quick sand, it absorbs my foot as my weight press on, I tried to pull the foot out, only made the other foot also sink into the mud. It wasn't one of my classmates dropped his stuff and gave me his hand and eventually pulled me out. It was pretty amusing, exciting and slightly embarrassing.
Another classmate made of video of the entire incident, I laughed so hard watching it, and what I didn't notice was the two Japanese girls also trapped in the mud right next to me, I didn't even notice them because my full attention was on how to get the hell out of it.
So in the end I got a whole bunch of photos and a lot of video clips, piling up in front of me, it was a little overwhelming to be honest, but I enjoyed the field trip so much and I couldn't wait long to edit it out and put it up on the internet.
I cannot remember if I edited it the very same day night or if I waited till the next day, anyway I spent a lot of time editing it, pretty much my days were like going to school in the day time, come home in the evening and edit video till midnight. That didn't help with my sleepiness problem in the class at all!
I chose some nice landscape scenes as opening after my vlogging-like "Day three"..."is all about"..."about field trip" statement, there started my video. Threw the photos I took after the opening scene, make it a quick flash, each photo stays only 3 frames on screen, sync it with the uplifting of the tune of the music, created a synchronized nice open scene for the vlog. Then it comes to the main content of the film. First I left the funny scene in there, first was me stuck in the mud, then one guy trying to build a bridge with a large log and another guy wearing "self-made boots", these scenes created a light-hearted atmosphere and tone for the entire film, people won't feel stressed watching it because it is a video documenting serious scientific study, instead people will know this is not only educational, documentational but also entertaining and fun. Then I just put the clips in chronological order and cut to the very essence of every tasks we do, very quick and accurate, only show the key steps of each of the task. Also I took into consideration to include as many people in the video as I can. However, as much as I don't want to bias, it is very natural that some got more attention than others only because they were more active on the field than the others.
In the end we came back to the campus and rest, drinking and chatting, later we also had to carry the dirt all the way to Piazzale Roma, quite a trip.
Here to express my admiration to one of my classmates who not only did most of the hard physical work, also he drowned his phone while attempting to build the wooden bridge for us. Thank you sir!
The film premiered on the presentation day on Saturday, I think people liked it and there I began my "grand journey" as a film maker, for real finally.
--------------------
Is there anything else you want to know about the making of the video and the behind the scene stories? Let me know by leaving a comment or send me an email to solarpowervenice@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment