Boy oh boy was this a tough one.
For this assignment, the group had to produce five videos. Each of the three members had to create a one-minute personal video, then the three collaborated on a three-minute group video and a subsequent teaser for that group video. Altogether, there were five videos to produce, each with their own set of requirements.
Quickly, the group got together to discuss how the assigned theme of “abstract.” At first, the group considered making the message of the video about internal conflict, displaying personal struggles with abstract visuals and compelling music use. After watching previous class submissions however, the group decided to take itself less seriously. The idea was changed to have each of us film and edit footage of each member interacting with an evil version of themselves. For comedic effect, the “evil uses” were all dressed in black with paper facial hair and a variety of silly garbs such as eye patches, stetsons, and hoods. At the end of the filming and editing process, the group had a flawed but funny video.
The video shows what the group intended on doing. It’s hard to imagine it going any better. The video is funny, punchy, and abstract as hell. There’s clear inspiration from programs like Jordan Peele’s Us and NBC’s Community, but with the class requirements, and the group’s sense of humor, it became a thing all its own.
What proved to be more difficult was making the personal video.
With a full schedule and no quality equipment, the only hope in handing in something was to take footage from the original group shoot and repurpose it for the personal video. Luckily, the deadline was pushed, and it became viable to shoot and edit a personal video from the ground up. Knowing it had to be a minute and no longer, about the individual, and abstract, ideas began to arise.
The primary inspiration for the video was Colossians chapter 3 verses 12 to 14. The passage is as follows:
“ Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
Aside from religious convictions and Christianity, the passage is appealing to most anybody. It’s about seeing the best humanity has to offer and knowingly putting it on. “Put On” quickly became the title for the video. Earlier in Colossians, the apostle Paul writes that as God’s chosen people, Christians should take off hate, malice, etc. The idea harkens to the idea of the phoenix. Something that is born, lives, dies, and is born again from the ashes. At the turn of the decade, people can all look back and see how different they are from the people they once were. We are all different people all through our lives. Growth is essential and inevitable, what’s important is deciding to grow towards something higher. Growing in what’s good on this Earth and in Heaven alike.
Filming the video was a challenge since there was no help available. With use of the tripod, filming and performing were a one-man operation. Like the last video, it was essential to keep a light-hearted tone and to embrace the inherent camp and cringe of a one-man video project for class.
The one minute run time required a fast pace, which required the use of a fast-paced rap song to keep things escalating. In the end, though, there were about two minutes of set up material and expanded action cut from the final product to meet the requirement.
There needed to be a quick trip to the old nest to use Dad’s old video editing software.
A couple of funny jump cuts, and plenty of cut content later, and there was a neat little video about reinventing yourself in an abstract and funny way.
Overall it was a challenging project. But I feel like I learned a lot. Oh crap, I said “I”. Oh man I did it again! Can we start over?!
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