writing with a camera

Video 3: Experimental Video Production Project (Group Work)

Overview

Working in assigned teams, you’ll produce a three to five-minute experimental video. Your challenge is to effectively convey an idea or concept or reflect on the unique characteristics of video. The work will be evaluated based on conceptual sophistication, technical craft, and productive collaboration.

Mode

Your video must be experimental. Refer to the Experimental Moving Image Works handout for an explanation of experimental moving image works and examples. Consider orchestrating a theoretical inquiry conducted through material practice and perceptual experience that investigates the fundamental properties of video, including temporality, materiality, perception, and consciousness as Direct Theory1 rather than representation.

Preparation

The Experimental Video Workshop will introduce this project and help your team prepare for this project. Additional reading and viewing will be assigned. In addition, your team will perform ideation and creative research that will result in identifying your own works to view and articles to read in preparation for this project.

Structure and Approach

The video your team produces must be structured as a video with three distinct chapters that are tied together by a common theme, question, or concern. Each team member will be responsible for the creative research, ideation, planning, production, and editing of their chapter. The final deliverable will be one video consisting of three chapters. Team members are expected to help each other and share ideas, and collaborate on the overall theme, question, or concern.

Guidelines

  • You’ll be working in assigned teams. During your first meeting with your team in class, work out communication norms and potential meeting times, and make a preliminary schedule that considers everyone’s scheduling issues. Consider using Google Docs to share information and keep everyone on the same page.
  • The work must consist of original visual and audio elements explicitly created for this project. You may make limited use of sound effects, music tracks, found footage, and archival footage.
  • If you incorporate copyrighted materials without explicit permission, your use must be transformative, following the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video, published by the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University (CMSI) . Refer to the CMSI Fair Use Library to learn more about fair use, the right given in U.S. copyright law to use copyrighted material without payment or permission under some circumstances.
  • Your work will be evaluated based on conceptual sophistication, technical craft (camerawork, sound recording, editing, sound mix, color grading) and effective collaboration.
  • All images must be treated using color grading tools as your vision for the project demands. You are expected to use the Lumetri Tools in Premiere Pro for color correction and color grading. The work should have a distinctive look.
  • You are expected to do a minimum of two separate shooting sessions for each chapter. In many cases, a third shoot for pick-ups will improve your work, so plan for iteration over time.

Deliverables and How to Submit

The project consists of four deliverables in four phases outlined below; deadlines are specified on the syllabus and in Canvas.

1. Project Plan

The project plan document must be submitted as a response to the assignment in Canvas as single PDF document.

The Project Plan should include (but need not be limited to) the components listed below; each section should have its own section header. Do not copy and paste the prompts, write as if you are writing a proposal in the “real world” and not a class assignment.

  • Working title.
  • The team members’ names, the class, the assignment, and the date.
  • Theme. What’s the idea under the surface that your work will convey? The best themes are delicate, subjective, and never stated explicitly in your work.
  • Logline. A one or two-sentence description of your video encapsulates the premise (starting point) while encapsulating the theme’s essence without spelling it out.
  • Chapters. Provide an individual description of each chapter and identify the artist whose chapter it is. It would be interesting if each chapter takes a different approach to addressing a common theme, but how each chapter connects with other chapters is up to your team.
  • Research. What sources have you/will you draw upon to inform your work? Process documentation covering your ideation and creative research must be included in your Production Book so start collecting documentation as you go from the start of the project.
  • Resources needed. What resources will you need to complete the project? Keep in mind that you have access to the Media Studio staff for help determining the resources you need in addition to your peers and instructor.
  • Timeline and significant milestones. Share your preliminary timeline for the project and include at least two distinct and separate shoots, along with some time for pick-ups if needed after you cut together a rough assembly.

2. Rough Cut

Submit a rough cut by uploading it to Video 3: Experimental Video (Rough Cut) folder on our shared server ahead of the deadline in Canvas. Your instructor will provide feedback to your group. Using the feedback from a rough-cut feedback increases the chances of the work being assessed as complete during the screening and critique session. In addition, requesting feedback from peers during the rough-cut phase is highly recommended.

3. Fine Cut

Submit your final cut by uploading it to Project 3. Experimental Video (Final Cut) folder on the shared server. before the deadline in Canvas. This video must meet the file layout and export guidelines outlined in the Deliverable specs document. This cut will be screened and critiqued in class.

4. Production Book

Your team will share process documentation and reflection in the form of a Production Book. Sections one and two must be completed before the production phase. The production book must include the following sections:

I. Statement of Objectives and Creative Research

Summarize the idea for the video and the stylistic approach in several sentences. Include your creative research notes in preparation for the work, including the videos you watched, articles, blog posts, etc., and your responses to these works.

II. Treatment, Shot List, Sketches, Notes

For the overall work, and then for each chapter, this consists of an outline of your plan for the shoot. Include the materials you prepared before the shoot and used on set. You don’t need to draw well; you can be creative with this, but something must be written and sketched by your hand before production. This will be authored collaboratively, with individual sections for each chapter.

III. Evaluation of the Shoot

This is the part of the production book that you write after you have finished editing. In a few short paragraphs, explain how the finished video did or did not accomplish what you had in mind at the start and why. Don’t make excuses, but do learn from your mistakes. Write about what you discovered while shooting that amplified your idea, for example. This will be authored collaboratively.

IV. Final Evaluation

Were you able to effectively convey an idea or concept or reflect on the unique characteristics of video? What went well? What went wrong? What did you learn for next time? How was the audience drawn into your work? What did you learn from the comments and questions made during the screening and critique? This will be authored collaboratively.

Assessment Criteria

Each of the following components of this project will be assessed as four separate components and each component will be assessed on a complete/incomplete basis. The criteria outlined below must be met to earn a complete for each phase of the project:

  • Project Plan is thoughtfully prepared and demonstrates originality. It includes all components outlined in this document and is submitted via Canvas before the deadline as a single PDF document (no other formats are acceptable).
  • Rough Cut demonstrates technical and aesthetic proficiency in all aspects of video production, e.g., shots are appropriately composed, appropriately exposed, and appropriately white balanced, camera movement is intentional and not excessively shaky, unless intentional, etc.;
  • Fine Cut demonstrates the qualities of the rough cut and effective execution of the proposed concept. It reflects significant improvement over the rough cut, especially in terms of picture editing, sound editing, color grading, and sound mixing; the video file must comply with the specifications and guidelines in the Deliverable specs document.
  • Production Book meets the guidelines outlined in this document and is upload to Canvas as a single PDF document before the deadline.

Rework

If the any component of this project is assessed as incomplete, you may request a rework following the procedures described in the syllabus. If the rework is submitted before the rework deadline and meets the assessment criteria listed above, the assessment will be changed from incomplete to complete.

Footnotes

  1. In his book Direct Theory: Experimental Film/Video as Major Genre (2nd ed., Southern Illinois University Press, 2013) Edward S. Small argues that experimental film/video constitutes theory. It does this through formal operations, making arguments about perception, temporality, consciousness, and the ontology of moving image art through material practice rather than verbal discourse. Small’s framework helps explain several key characteristics of experimental film/video: 1. Self-reflexivity as content (experimental work foregrounds its own construction as its central theoretical concern); 2. The viewer as co-theorist (the viewer must actively construct understanding through perceptual engagement, the viewer’s consciousness becomes part of the theoretical apparatus); 3. Medium specificity as inquiry (the work is fundamentally about the specific properties of the medium); 4. Temporality and structure (theoretical experiments to understand fundamental operations). With video, Direct Theory takes on additional dimensions: 5. Real-time processing (simultaneity, broadcasting, closed-circuits, electronic signal processing); 6. Glitch aesthetics (digital materiality and compression artifacts). ↩

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