I really stepped up the production value with this project. I’ve begun to implement new techniques, like rack focus, single light, timelapse and symmetrical framing. The video is broken up into 3 parts. The project was intended as a promotional piece, so the techniques I employed are very similar to real estate or corporate videos I watched while researching this project. Features like sweeping establishing shots, speed-ramping and timelapse.
- The 1st part establishes the city of Reading, the accommodation, and the general feeling of life there.
- The 2nd part is based around showing the dorms, each room, the toiletries, the bed and the desk.
- The 3rd part shows the kitchen in the dorms.
In preparation for the final project, I experimented with new compositions and locations, with a wide variety of different structures, rather than focusing on one particular theme or idea. I focused on interactions of light in the rain. I used lines in my cinematography to create more engaging shots. Most of my shots only have one clearly defined vanishing point. The bulk of the shots were unusable for the final film.
I spent a lot of time choosing music, it was important to me to find a rhythm to edit. The piece I found had a calm, positive tone. It fit the cinematography well. The piece I chose had a somewhat corporate feel while still having enough character to generate emotion.
One of my focus areas for the original video was timelapse, I did a series of tests with the phone, running it for longer and longer, eventually I filmed a day-to-night shot that took 3 hours and 32 minutes.
In the video I then reversed the footage, making it appear as a night-to-day shot, which tied into the theme of the video. I scrapped this concept, but I definitely learned a lot, which helped bring the final video to the standard I wanted.
