Happy group of kids.jpg happy jump.jpg Power shot.jpg

One of the MAIN PURPOSES of working with video is to communicate some visual message to the viewers. Look at the above images and think to yourself what message each could be sending. For the most part it is easy to visually convey emotions like happiness, sadness and anger. But there are subtle techniques you can use to convey emotions and feelings like doubt, depression, power, envy, fear, confidence and uneasiness. In time you will learn how to use these techniques to communicate messages and create emotions in those who watch your videos.

In order to create whatever messages and/or emotions you want to send, you will use a variety of audio, clothing and/or makeup, special effects, dialogue and camera angles and movements.

AUDIO

Unfortunately we are not going to talk a lot about audio, sound effects or music etc. The main thing you need to know about audio is that it is essential in creating emotion; meaning setting the mood, communicating how/what the characters are feeling and to move the audience in some way. Listen to the following clips with different types of audio and see what we mean. This is not a hard concept to understand, however, it can take a long time to find something that works well with your video.

Lion King: Melodramatic

Pirates of the Caribbean: Effect of different soundtracks

Costume Design

We are seriously doing costume design an injustice by not talking about it more, but we have neither the time nor resources to talk about it more than this section. However, if you can add some sort of costume design into your videos, you will have more fun making them and they will be better than those who don't include them.

"Along with the script, actors and music, the clothing and various costumes worn throughout a film have a very important role to fulfill. They can make the characters interesting and believable, sad or funny, good or evil, and they can greatly influence-sometimes at a subconscious level-how the audience sees the characters that wear them." - Examiner.com

The dynamics and the art of costume design is a huge part of video production. Just look at the credits of the next movie you go to and see how many jobs and roles there are that deal with costume design. Without costume design, the movie doesn't take us anywhere different than where we are everyday. Certain messages aren't communicated well if costume design is done poorly.

AGAIN, we don't have to go into much detail for you to get this concept...but just take a minute and appreciate what people have gone through to make the clothes people where, the makeup and the message being communicated through the costume and makeup in video production.

Becoming an Orc - Carolyn Williams.mp4

SPECIAL EFFECTS

Special effects these days are essential to making big money in the box office. It is pretty rare to see any action movie/commercial without the use of special effects. Specialists and professionals have become so good at creating special effects that sometimes the audience can't tell the difference-and we think, "WOW, that was EPIC!...Totally awesome!!!... Blew my mind!...How did they do that?"; in other cases, it is very obvious. In either case, the intended message is still communicated (sometimes that message is just to get you to remember the brand, to laugh, or to get an image or song stuck in your mind). We don't think you need examples, but they are fun to watch anyway.

(These videos are from Youtube, so you may need to watch them with your teacher if your school does not allow youtube)

Old Spice:

See if you can identify what was real and not real.

Stay Cool | Old Spice

Take a minute as a class to say what was real and what was special effects...

Now watch the next one.

Avengers: THE HULK

Notice when they talk about keyframe animation, which is something you can do in your own videos in this assignment

Jurassic World:

Best for last - STAR WARS: The Force Awakens

Dialogue

As you would guess, without dialogue (what is said by the actors/voices) in video, there is much left to interpretation. Good dialogue is not too predictable, its meaningful and engages the audience. You have probably seen videos where it is difficult to hear the voices, videos where you can predict exactly what is going to be said, cliché and overdramatic/cheesy. Typically you want to avoid this.

However, there are videos that are very popular that make fun of serious dramatic movies and these can be very entertaining. They definitely have a place in video production. Feel free to go where you like with your videos. Do the best you can to communicate your messages whichever way you choose and you shouldn't go wrong.

Go to the next page for camera shots and movements