SUSTAINABILITY VIDEO
Our brief during this workshop was to create a film that portrayed a deeper message, a message about aspects such as social or political. As a group we decided to focus on sustainability this being a current issue that will affect the future but not many people have a lot of knowledge on this. We wanted our short film to be knowledgeable as well as aesthetically pleasing. So with this in mind we chose the locations of abandoned car parks and quiet eerie streets, as we wanted to express how not being sustainable during these present times will have a massive negative effect on the world we will be living in. As it will force urban decay, so to show this we consciously picked dark, dreary settings to express how it will be a miserable world to live in if we don’t care for it. Therefore we wanted to promote how important sustainability is to prevent urban decay. And we styled the shoot by just wearing our own individual style and clothes to represent how it will affect every normal individual. We completed a range of shots to try and make location and individual look as lonely and isolated as possible. This consisted of a lot of establishing shots, long shots, and panning shots. During the editing process we wanted quite jumpy transitions and fast pace clips, to show how fast we have to change. We also flicked back to the location when the sign said “beware” like a warning. Additionally with the music we didn’t want to go mainstream we wanted something quite abstract that just consisted of instrumental, no singing, as we added narration. We added a voice over by using a speech of a Ted talk that expressed key and straight to the point facts about sustainability in fashion. As the film's purpose was to express a message, therefore this was a better technique to communicate this.
Reflection
The aspects I feel we did well was creating the tone for the film, as the music choice (from the Black Mirror series) created tension and suited the vibe we were going for.
Additionally another aspect we completed well was the location choice, as it really reflected urban decay and how we need sustainability to save us.
The aspects I would of improved for this video was completing the narration ourselves, as we got the speech from the Ted X talk, as this would have made it feel more personal and the audience may have been able to connect more, rather than just throwing facts at them.
Also I would of improved the fact that the video came to quite an abrupt end, therefore in the future films I will focus on fading out the visuals and music gradually. As time constraints of the workshop prevented us from creating a more gradual ending.
Additionally maybe in the future to improve we could of use some relevant text as well.
Additionally whilst reflecting during the process I realised that this was more of a fashion film, than a campaign video, as It's almost like a flick to the future, allowing the audience to follow the individuals a long and see the devastation of the world and the emotionless faces they have. As this fashion film allows the audience to understand the story being told.
I learnt how hard it is to express a certain message without having to explain it. Therefore it’s important to pick relevant locations and complete the right style of filming and editing.
Therefore are film is quite similar to the fashion film created by Dazed Magazine called "The love which I was" which is about Harley Weir visiting India. The film uses the same sort of abstract music to set the scene, and tries to capture the true sense of India, which is what we wanted to do with sustainability.
Development
As my development piece I created another fashion film but about body image, this time I interviewed the individuals participating on camera to express their views on the social issue. I wanted to keep it simple and stripped back so it seemed very personal. Therefore the styling of the video is very minimal and simple, as it consisted of all individuals wearing a vest top. I wanted to include different generations to see if their answers varied, as I wanted the fashion film to capture how living in different generations have given them different thoughts on their body due to the societies having different standards. The way I came up with this concept was due to my research, as body image is a big conversational point at the moment and all brands and individuals are very aware of this making this a big influence on their decisions. Additionally the style of my film was influenced by Wrens "first kiss" which debuted in March 2014 as a part of Style.com's video fashion week series. As this video is very raw, personal and has a sense of vulnerability (as they were put in an awkward situation). Therefore it felt very real, and this is the effect I want my video to create.
Additionally I added very quiet, slow and piano orientated song to the background, to allow it to become more emotional. I used the song "lost without you" by Freya Ridings but an instrumental version. Therefore I used an instrumental as I didn't want it to distract the viewer from the interview itself, as I wanted their replies to the questions to be the main focus point.