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Watch my final product here!

The Workshop

In this workshop, we explored a more non-linear video making style. The basis of our videos was a haiku that we had to bring into class. I chose to just look one up online. The one I picked was by Robert Lee Haycock and is as follows:

Waiting silently A castle where my heart lies Be it ever so

Personally, I really wanted to explore the concept of home. It opens with a video of water which symbolizes rebirth and cleansing. For me, home is not any one place, and I find that each time I move to a new location, its like a rebirth. Whenever you find yourself in a new location it can be scary, but the opportunities are endless, and that's just how I feel when I look at water: scared but curious. It's therapeutic in a sense. Also, the video was taken in my trip to the Philippines which is the home of my mother and all of her ancestors. Therefore, I wanted to start the video off there, just as I feel I have started there. The video then cuts straight into a clip from Washington, DC from a bike ride with a friend. That is where my "original" home is because that's where I was born. It then cuts to a video from a documentary on Jean-Michel Basquiat that I watched recently at home. The next clip shows me and one of the little kids that lived with us in the Philippines. A large contributor to what makes "home" in my opinion is the people you meet and emotional bonds you make. That little boy was a big part in making me feel at home in the Philippines, even though we aren't related or speak the same language. The next couple of clips again explore water and videos from other instances in my life that made me feel at home.

I got to play around with the length, speed, and placement of the videos. I even used filters to try to make the piece feel more unified, rather than separate pieces. In the workshop, Tacie showed us cool ways to merge and cut videos together; however, because the software gave me issues on my laptop, I ended up just using the Video Editor App on my laptop.

Image Source: howtogeek.com

As you can see in the image above, the capabilities are really limited on the software I used. Next time, I will try to use a better software with greater capabilities like what Tacie showed us so that I can merge and flip videos into one.

Applications

When I thought of video as a medium, my mind immediately thought of Pipilotti Rist's Ever is Over All. I, like many others, stumbled upon this piece after seeing Beyoncé's "Hold Up" music video from her Lemonade album. Because of the context of the Beyoncé song, I relate this piece to relationships and breakups. I don't know if that's necessarily the case in this piece. It more so seems like the woman is just extremely happy and confident, as if she just got over something tragic, like a breakup, but it doesn't have to be that. Maybe she just told off her boss at work, or finally moved out an feels liberated. However, that same feeling of liberation is prominent, no matter what it is that she's being liberated from. It's that feeling that makes this piece resonate with others, not the context, which is why I love it so much.

I think that all types of art has that power of making the audience feel something. However, video has the ability to show multiple frames at a time and includes sound and movement. Therefore you can watch her body language and see the changing emotions on her face.

Source: publicdelivery.org

Pipilotti Rist's Sip My Ocean is more similar to the style of work that we used in our workshop. The dual screens help give this piece a more "trippy" vibe as the images are mirrored against another. There is a cool kaleidoscope vibe in the piece as well which makes it harder to differentiate objects and makes it feel more abstract.

I like how she edits the video so that you never really feel like you know what you're looking at. The images almost blend with another so you constantly feel like you're trying to make out what you're seeing.

What I find most interesting about these videos is how the editing really impacts how you feel and what you take away from it. When I was editing my videos, I wanted there to be a lot more open ended questions and thoughts for the viewer, and since my videos are so plain, I really had

Source: guggheim.com

to work with the editing and cutting to get it how I wanted. Even now, it's not perfect, but I'm happy that I did the best I could.