Directions: Group Portrait Work

Group portrait task

In class we were asked to get into groups and create a 2-4 minute portrait video. This task was meant to allow us to experiment with different ideas and approaches to making a portrait. 

I found this task to be fun but not only that, the people I worked with made it easy for everyone to put their own ideas forward which we were then able to bounce off of each other. First we brainstormed and came up with a few ideas; mentioning a variety of things from montages to time lapses in order to illustrate the movement of time. We mentioned how we wanted to incorporate the idea of different personalities which then branched off into illustrating how different people reacted against time. We thought it would be a good idea to incorporate visuals and have a time lapse to heighten the time passing element, we wanted to show how each of us reacted and thought it would be a good idea to have a variety of shots, all the different parts of us that makes us unique.

 We all took it in turns to record each other so we all had a decent and equal amount of practice. It was important for us to get it in focus and have it really clear so we made use of the Zebra and Peaking feature. Shooting went smoothly as we chose a room with lots of natural light and blank backgrounds. This also helped enhance the focus point on us only as opposed to doing it outside with moving backgrounds. 


Editing the video was the most interesting part because all the ideas we thought we had and all the different stylistic approaches we had basically flew out of the window but we felt it worked even better than we originally intended. For example. When trying to create the faces with all four of our faces, we initially thought it would've been equal proportions but later realised that because we shot each other at different distances and angles (med shot/close up etc) when scaling the image to create a face, black space was created, giving a less neat look, almost like a puzzle but In my opinion it worked even better and created a more jumbled style, further enhancing the differences between each other.

We liked this and decided to use this to our advantage. We then begun to play around with our various shot types, trying to put contrasting ones together to create a more obscure look to the overall video which worked really well. Our video ended up taking a more lighthearted feel than we originally intended, it had the feeling of some sort of fashion promo, especially with the music that we chose. 

One thing that was brought to my attention after simon's feedback was when he said that he didn't quite get the time part. I must agree on that one as we really wanted to put the part with the watch in because we really liked the shot but instead of fully continuing with the direction of our new idea, we still tried to hold onto elements of our previous idea even though it didn't work and so now I realise the importance of letting things take the course that it needs to take, even if that isn't the original idea that you wanted because it could end up better. By us continuing to throw in the shot with the watch almost disrupted the flow of it and I can't help but think that it wasn't necessary in the end. I will keep this in mind for all my productions.

I really liked the idea of putting all the different faces together to make one. I think this is something that I would like to incorporate with my own portrait production as I find it really interesting.