06/09 - How to Video!

Our home work task for our first lesson was to search youtube and find a video which interested us which we thought was a good example of a "How to..." video, here is my chosen video. This video also involves a major passion of mine dance:

6th september

In todays double lesson we began by talking about what the course for this year would contain and discussed both the coursework and exam aspects. The first hour was then consumed with decision making for our first task which was going to be shooting a how to video. We chose our groups and then got to work with creating ideas. After a while my partner and i decided upon making a "HOW TO... not drown when you cant swim". The rest of the lesson was then taken up by creating story boards of our ideas and sharing them with the class.

The second hour of the double lesson involved moving to another classroom with TV facilities in which we then watched two short documentaries each of about 10 minutes and discussed the similarities and differences of the videos.

The first of the two clips was "the urban savannah" directed by matthew cook, vincent luna. Which was created in UK 2004.

We then assessed the features which were clearly in the video and how the clip aimed to Inform, entertain and educate. The clip involved analysing the lives of two different social groups as the documentary puts it the townies and the skaters.

The features we noticed were commonly used within documentaries were:

1)Explanatory Narrators/Commentators

2)Experts (academics)

3)Observational view (fly on the wall)

4)Dramatic events

The aspects of the video which aimed to INFORM were the voice over or commentator who narrated throughout the clip. and through the way the narrator used formal language and included specialist terms such as "the dominant male".

The aspects of the video which aimed to ENTERTAIN were the way in which the director aimed to used a comedic approach and attack the humour of the audience in the way he represented the teenagers as animals.

Finally the video aimed to EDUCATE by the use of specialist experts to explain aspects of the video.

The second of the two videos were "i love my nails" a short video directed by Katherine Freeman created in UK 2004.

This clip did contain the use of more informal language and often had periods of silence due to lack of commentary. The filming was still an observational view even though unlike most documentaries the filming was more close up and personal as the clips involved question and answer sessions with those who were involved. The clip did no contain a sense of a dramatic event except for the revealing of the ladies nails when they'd finally finished being decorated in a sense the "tada!" moment. The clip wasn't necessary educational however was rather bizarre.