Video Screening Critique

Interpretations:

1. One piece that I enjoyed interpreting was Cadence’s video Cards. To me, the piece encompassed the passage of time and the entirety of a lifespan all just through images of fragments of cards. It made me think about the value and the importance we put into a card to signify these big life events.
2. A second piece that I enjoyed thinking about was Karissa’s video Flatiron Reservoir. To me, this piece signified the genuine human intimacy and interactions that people are able to have. It was very lighthearted and it made me feel connected to the people in the video because I enjoyed watching them have a good time.
3. Another piece that was a bit more self-explanatory was Dave’s piece A Squirrel Life which followed the personalities of squirrels on his porch. He voiced over the actions of the squirrels and his intentions for wanting to show how they’re personable animals. This piece made me think about the personality that all animals have that just haven’t been seen yet.
4. Yven’s video The Birth of a Modern Day Warfighter also made me reflect a lot. I think the purpose of this was to show how much is at stake when people go into the military– the video itself was a deluge of photos ranging from funerary precessions to silly pictures of “warfighters” together. It made me reflect on how much goes into the people in the military, and the pictures themselves went by so quickly that I felt that I’d miss something even if I blinked; maybe that was on purpose to symbolize the fast pace of the military.
5. Another video that made me think was Victoria’s piece Decay. It was very fitting for October because it showed the decay of a pumpkin, and I think the meaning was very literal– time is measurable in this case by the rate of decay. It made me a little nervous just because it made me think about the element of time and how there’s no way of slowing that down or even slowing down our own decay.

Suggestions:

1. One video that I wish we saw more of was Shane’s piece The Life of Shane. It was very entertaining to watch and was composed of very relatable humor. It was only a few minutes long and I felt like that was too short to get the full experience of the life of Shane. It would have been interesting to see the documentation of his life over the course of multiple days each in the same level of depth, including even the most mundane scenes.
2. A second piece that I wanted to see more of was Geoff’s video No Puedo. The quality of the video was overall very good, and it felt as if it were an established silent film. The ending was intense; however, I don’t think that the video built up enough to give that intensity justice. I would have liked to see faster repetition of frames that lead up to the final scene of laying in your own grave. I think that doing that would emphasizes the abruptness and intensity of the last frame.
3. Another video that I have a suggestion for is Roman’s piece My Friend & I Play Magic. I think that in order to improve this piece, there could have been more focus on the audio and making sure that it was filmed at an audible level. I also think that some of the video transitions could have been a little smoother because without the element of sound, the transitions felt more abrupt than I think they were intended to be.
4. Deborah’s video Refuge was also very fun to watch because of the utilization of sound and how it was visualized. I think that the transitions between urban and rural scenes were a little bit intense in the way that the transition presets were used. The overall video would have benefited if the visual transitions took a more subtle approach.
5. Lastly, I had a suggestion for Kodi’s video Changing Seasons. The painting that she created was beautiful and very well done; however, it wasn’t initially obvious that she was painting the different seasons. I think that there could have been more specific indications of each season that would have emphasized the idea of painting through the seasons. When I watched the video, the only seasons I was able to pinpoint were winter and spring. Maybe those were the only two she painted, but I expected to see the changing of all of the seasons just based off of the title.