While filming our video, my two partners, Brianna and Mallory, and I were challenged to convey the word "pressure" without the use of dialogue or any sound apart from the music over the film. Along with this challenge, we also faced other issues when shooting this film. The first day of filming we had to come together and decide which shots we wanted to take and want angles we wanted to use. This was a collaborative effort as we had to organize the scenes prior to filming so we would have a concrete plan. We has some difficulty is agreeing on what we wanted to do for each scene is terms of different angles, shots, and how we wanted tho portray the word through the acting of our main character, Brianna. Figuring out how to portray this word was especially difficult given that we could not use any sound or dialogue, so all meaning relied on how we felt and the body language of Brianna. This required us to be more creative and think on a more imaginative level.
As we were contemplating on which word to choose we discussed what was relative in our lives, and decided that we had all been facing issues in the rigor of our academic courses. This gave us the idea to use the word "pressure" in the sense of academic or school related pressure. We also felt that the portrayal of this word would be relatable to our peers as many of us are currently struggling the transition back to school after summer. Further, once we had our word selected and mapped our what we wanted each scene to look like, we got to filming. This posed some difficulty for us as no one in my group had any film experience, however we were able to gather some assistance from our classmates who had prior experience in filming and video creation.
Throughout our film we overcome the challenge of using no dialogue by helping Brianna to accurately or realistically express emotions that would convey the word "pressure" well. We had her act throughout the various shots as though she was defeated and overly stressed. In order to portray the school related aspect to our word, we also used many shots that added context.
The first or establishing shot is of Brianna walking through the school doors. This is to allow readers to understand where this is taking place and the reason for her behavior. This also establishes that it is the beginning of her school day, and the rest of the film is shot chronologically as it takes you through the school day with Brianna. This shot is also a tracking shot as it follows the subject, Brianna, through the front doors and the main office as she walks into school. This signifies the beginning of the story as she starts her day, but the viewers do not fully know the "pressure" she is under until the following clips.
Following this clip we use a series of pan shots to show Brianna as she walks through the school halls and towards her locker. In the first pan shot we include another student, played by myself, studying to create a space where academies is of importance or the main focus of the students. Additionally, to film the pan shots, we held our camera in a single spot so that it was static, and followed Brianna moving the camera slightly to the left so that she stayed in frame and the focus remained on her as she walked further away. We ensured that Brianna remained looking sadder and as if she did not enjoy being at the school, so that it would become clear through the following shots that she was under academic "pressure." We next used an over-the-shoulder shot that allowed the viewers to see Brianna as she scrolled through her calendar with all of her school assignments. This helped contribute to the context behind her behavior at school.
This shot is then followed by a series of shots where Brianna is taking a test with me and our third partner is the teacher distributing the test. We show Mallory handing out the test by using a pan shot that shifts focus from her to her hand passing the test to Brianna, and finally focuses on both me and Brianna as we take the test. We ensure in all these clips to use the rule of thirds, and keep the main subject of each clip, Brianna, in the left top of the frame, so that the viewers eyes naturally focus on her and are drawn to her face. Continuously, we follow this shot with a zoom shot where we adjusted the camera's lens to bring the timer into closer view. This placed emphasis on the fact that Brianna had only few minutes left to finish her test and needed to hurry. By including the aspect of the timed test we added to the "pressure" that the character felt to finish.
Following this we include a point of view shot to show Brianna as she struggles figuring out what to write on the test. This shot is followed directly by a tracking shot where the camera is very close the paper as it is exchanged from the hands of the teacher to the hands of the student, Brianna. This is done to emphasize the grade on the paper, which is an F, written in red pen. As Brianna grabs hold of the paper, the camera pans upward to show her face as she shakes her had at the grade she received. This shot is a close up as Brianna's head takes up majority of the scene, and you can see her distress through her facial expressions. There is another point of view shot as we see Brianna texting her mom, and can read the texts which discuss her feeling as though she is not smart enough.
The last shot is a medium shot of Brianna as she walks through the guidance office. The camera follows Brianna as she steps in the the office, and rather than follow her into the office, the camera zooms on the name written outside the office's door. This is done to emphasize that Brianna is visiting her guidance counselor as she is struggling academically. We felt that this scene was a good way to conclude the story portrayed.
Lastly, we spent time in class editing and piecing all of the shots together to make a cohesive video. We then added music over the entire video. While the editing did not take long it was challenging navigating the site at first as we all had no experience editing videos. Despite these challenges I feel as though the project went well. I do thunk that we could have portrayed the word slightly better in terms of our acting, yet I still feel as though we emphasized the word well in the context we wanted it to be in. Overall, I enjoyed working on this film and feel as though we produced an engaging video, which makes me excited for the next project to come.
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