Our objective for this artefact was to show off the city of York to potential travelers and tourists. Since another group member and I were studying abroad in York for a semester, we talked about with our group what stood out to us most about York. For the style of the video, we took inspiration from the ‘York – the Original City Adventure’ video we were shown in-class – many beautiful shots showing off various locales within the city, but we also decided to add a voice-over explaining things to do in the locations. The Minster, Shambles, Museum Garden, and St. Mary’s Abbey were first and foremost on our list of places to show off, but through much deliberation we managed to come up with interesting topics involving each location like the street performers near the Shambles.
Pre-production and production were problematic. We’re a group of 7 people and we’re trying to all focus on one vision, which was tough because everyone had their own visions for the video. The conversation kept having ideas added to it as opposed to developing the ideas that we already had. By the time we were set to shoot, no one had a clear idea of what was being filmed and what roles everyone was taking, which was stressful for me as I hate going into a project without goals or clear ideas set. All we really knew were what locations we were shooting at. On-set, there weren’t enough roles for everyone, as operating the camera was pretty much a one-person job, so many of us were sitting around as shots were being filmed. To try and prevent a monopoly of camera-operating, I asked anyone if they had shots they wanted to film after I filmed what I wanted to, which seemed to satisfy everyone’s creativity.
One of the main concepts we tried to apply was the use of movement in our video. We booked the dolly and some track which we took out and used extensively in the Museum Gardens. I loved the quality it gave the images – making them look that much more professional than without it. We also tried to use pans and tilts to fit more into a single shot and keep the energy of the video alive. Mixing movement of the camera with static shots of people moving allowed us to develop a flow for the video that keeps it interesting for the whole length.
One of the main things I learned from this project was how to use the dolly effectively to make an otherwise okay shot into something incredible. Some of my favorite shots (and I must brag that they were my idea *wink*) are the dolly shot looking in the Garden with the flowers in the foreground and the city wall in the background and the extreme low-angle shot of St. Mary’s Abbey. I’ll keep in mind the dolly for future projects that I work on.
Links to the videos:
3 minute version:
1 minute version on Instagram: