My project is on climate change, but more specifically on the debate about climate change. I took the requirement of 3 iterations not as 3 steps in a progression for one video, but as a chance to express 3 different points of view on the same subject, using all the same source material. I gathered video and images from archive.org and wikipedia commons and music from my friend Joe Kennerly. All of this material is under a creative commons or freeware license of some kind and is listed and credited on my project website. Also, all my videos have been attached with a Creative Commons Public Domain License, as stated in the About This Page section.
http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~csumsky3/remixSite.html
I started off by gathering a wide variety of material, from nature videos to climate documentaries to debate sound clips. I barely had any experience with Avid and so spent a good 3 hours or so playing around with it, reading some tutorials, and just getting a solid feel for the software. After that I made my first iteration, which was sympathetic towards the theory on climate change. This movie says people need to be aware that this is happening and mocks the idea that it is simply a natural cycle that is not affected by humans. My second iteration went the other way, almost making fun of anyone who would believe climate change is happening. It states that the earth systems are acting naturally and that the idea of climate change is merely a fear tactic to control. The final iteration combined audio from both, overlaying them on top of each other much of the time. The idea for this iteration was to be the outsider, the undecided world citizen. To these people much of the debate seems not thought and based on speculation for both sides and much of the time discussions get nowhere with both parties thinking they are right and not willing to compromise at all. Towards the end the video is jumbled and claustrophobic, almost asking how anyone is supposed to decipher facts from such a stalemate of a debate.
Once I taught myself some basic Avid functions I really didn't have any problem with the editing side. I have used Final Cut Pro for years and the difference in software wasn't too much of an obstacle. I picked up all the tools as I went along. The real issue I ran in to was website design, as I have never had to do website design before. I understand that it is a required class here but at my school in the states I am not required to take any sort of web design. So I had to do a lot of reading and googling to learn a little about html and Flash. Most of the sites are quite simple with minimalist approach, but I am pretty proud of how my home page turned out with the interactive changing squares.
But the biggest problem I had was not design, but on the technical side. I didn't know how to embed a video properly onto a page that I had designed and ended up having to link to an isolated page that the video will play on. While not the prettiest solution in the world, it works and doesn't look ugly. I'll attribute it to the minimalist design again.
So, all in all, I'm very happy with how the project turned out. The videos do what I wanted them to do, express the appropriate point of view and mood. The website, while maybe simple and bare, fits into a neutral stance on the climate change debate. I learned much about Flash and html that will help me in future classes and projects, and I finally got around to really learning Avid, which is something I've been wanting to do for awhile. While I didn't fulfill the blogging requirement throughout the project, this was mainly do to lack of communication and understand of my new surroundings. This won't be a problem in the future and, while this doesn't really fill the place of a continuing project notebook, I hope this entry sheds some light on my original ideas, the approaches I took to get there, and the issues I hit along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment