3 Perspectives Video

 For our video on three perspectives, I immediately had the idea to try and construct a memory through video art. I had a lot of pictures and videos from my time studying abroad in Mexico and I wanted to add them all together in an artistic way to produce a messy version of what it is like to remember a moment. 

My plan was to record myself talking about my experience in Mexico, and then have friends talk about my experience in Mexico. With these videos, and the preexisting ones from the semester there, I was going to separate the video from the audio to use them independently. That way I had pictures, the audio from my videos, the videos without sound, and audio recordings from the city in Mexico or from my friends there who have sent me voice messages. At the beginning of my video I wanted to have all these different forms of media played one at a time. I would have had pictures play for 3 seconds, and videos play without audio, and audio played with a black screen. My idea was to then mix and match these media forms; pairing them randomly. For example, I could have had a voice message audio play with a picture of our classroom, or the sounds of dancing in the city played with the video of one of my friends explaining my experience. I would continue pairing more and more media together until reaching an overwhelming mix of audios and videos that show how remembering is often difficult, and there will always be gaps in our memories that we will never be able to fill. 

I ran into a few problems while trying to execute this plan, the main one being in trying to recount my entire experience from Mexico, I was having to go through way too much of my camera roll to find things to use, and as I started editing I realized that focusing on an entire semester, instead of a small moment, was too confusing to try and tie together in the video. I also realized early on that I did not have the editing skills to make my vision a reality. Video art is not a medium I had used much before, and I became upset that I wasn't going to be able to accurately portray and communicate what I wanted to with this project. 

I decided to change my plans, focusing on only my memories of dancing in Mexico. I still had enough content to fill the  5-7 minutes required of the project, but now there would be a clearer connection between everything included. I recorded myself talking, my friend talking, myself dancing and teaching others to dance, and planned to mix them together in a simpler way. This way I could maintain the initial intention behind the video, but have my ideas more in line with my editing skills.

I was happy with how the video turned out but thought it could have been better if it had smoother editing. Still, I think it communicated what I feel when I try to remember Mexico. When I showed it in class I was happy to hear that it made others who had been on the program happy, and longing to go back to Mexico to dance. There were many observations made about the effect of the video that I hadn't noticed myself, so it was cool showing this personal experience with others.