Molly, Emily, Scott Movie COM 336

Separation: A Topic That Is Hard to Keep Together on Film

One of the first and most important tools communication majors are taught is the importance of communicating a message. This is one of the most basic ways to connect and identify with other human beings. Communicating a message is also a way of sharing your thoughts/fears/ideas/views to others who may or may not understand them otherwise. In addition to those teachings, communication majors are taught the best ways of communicating that message. The most common ways to do so are through writing, photographs, and video. Sometimes these three things can be combined in different ways, but the three listed above are the purest forms of communication today. For this project, video became the medium for projecting a message. Why video, you may ask? With video, you are combining oral communication with visual communication, giving you the best way to communicate your message. Video is an effective way of communicating a message.

The topics for this project were broad enough to be able to make it your own, but difficult enough so that they could only be portrayed through a film project. This project was split into two parts. The first part of the project was a self-video, void of any topic or restrictions besides the fact that it had to include credits and be 45 seconds long. While this made the project broad and easy to accomplish, the self video would be easier to accomplish if it was grouped with the second part. Part two of this project was a group film with a bit more restrictions. For the project, the class was broken up into 4 teams, each with a different theme. The four themes given by Professor Pabico were: Abstract, Politics, Time, & Separation. Other than being related to the themes, the project was relatively wide open in terms of content. The Abstract group seemed a little perplexed by their topic, but blew their project out of the water. The Politics group were unsure of what direction to take their project in, but picked a topic near and dear to all individuals. The Time group, arguably the easiest topic of the four, struggled to remain in their own category as well as providing content that is fresh and exciting. The final group was separation. The definition of separation is: the action or state of moving or being moved apart. Separation is what happens when your parents are no longer together. Separation is literally going in two different directions. Separation is very easy to identify as well as easy to showcase to someone, especially in a visual communication format. However, how are you able to show and easily identify separation without it being a total cliche?

The first assignment worked on for this project was the self-portrait video. For most of the groups, each member’s self-portrait video would be from a part of their contribution to the group video. However, the difficulty of this idea was remembering to include a depiction of yourself in addition to the depiction of your theme. Depending on the topic, this wouldn’t be a difficult task. Separation was not one of those topics. First off, being the topic of separation makes it unusually difficult to communicate what it is. For separation, you must show people/places/things going in different directions or moving apart. How can you show that while still managing to show aspects of yourself in the video?

As a group, it was decided that the topic of the video, besides the theme of separation, had to be something that allowed us to reflect qualities of each member throughout the video. The exact topic picked for the video, which would also be applied to the group video, would be the topic of your public persona versus your private persona. Specifically, this topic would reflect on the separation of how you act while doing certain behaviors in public versus in private. Some examples of actions reflected in the self-videos as well as the group videos include (but are not limited to): eating, listening to music, looking in the mirror/getting ready, sitting, and sneezing. Recording the self-portrait videos, especially ones that are related to the actual topic/theme of the group video, is a strenuous task. Not only is it necessary for the topic to be reflective of the group’s topic, but it also has to be reflective of the individual. Once filming for the self-portrait video began, it became painfully obvious that it would be awkward, difficult, and long to do. Some of the shots needed were not easily accessible or achievable shots, since most of the filming was required to be captured by each student, who was usually the actor for the scene. In addition, some of the shots became uncomfortable to film since it required filming in a public environment. Some of the topics were easily filmed in public, such as listening to music, but things like eating became a bit more awkward for all to film. However, the group was committed to having these videos completed so they could craft a well-thought-out and well-done group video project.

The group project is where most of the roadblocks in shooting/editing/sharing the video arose. Crafting the self-portrait videos around the subject of the group video seemed like a good idea, since it allowed for more film to be used and finished product to work off of. However, there were also problems that arose from this as well. In some cases, groups had too much/too little film in relation to their group project. Having too much film is ideal, since you can almost always find the shot that you were looking for. Having too little film, however, makes the group have to work with what they have or scramble for more film. Editing film as an individual versus in a group setting is definitely a change as well. Working with multiple people editing one project can be tricky, since you have to incorporate everyone’s ideas and opinions into a 2:45 spot. While sometimes egos must be squashed and ideas compromised, editing as a group can allow for the most cohesive and group-approved assignment. When it comes to sharing the video, other than exporting the video from iMovie being a total pain, it has not been an issue thus far (this will more than likely change.)

Video is an effective way to communicate a complex message, and any other method would not have made sense for this project. This group video project has been a grueling and strenuous process to successfully finish as well be fully satisfied with the end result. Separation is a complex topic, and one that did not reflect into the group dynamic. The subject of separation initially had seemed difficult to portray without being cliche, but it ended up working out in the favor of the group.