Britain In A Day & The Self Image
November 21, 2011
On the 12th November 2011, people across Britain were filming their lives for the Britain In A Day project. The idea was that some of the submitted footage would be edited into a film to document the life of the country on one particular day. This is a sequel to the previous film Life In A Day, which was based on footage from across the globe.
On this particular day I was choosing my Top 50 photographs from The Self Image project, with the hope of setting up an exhibition of the work. As both projects are works of self portraiture, I decided to submit a video.
This is what I submitted: http://youtu.be/3btS-zmOU3Q
Just filming and submitting the two minute video proved to be somewhat of a challenge in itself!
1) I initially took several attempts to get the words right (the words 'computer manipulation' seemed to be particular easy for me to stubble on)
2) After the first attempts, I watched the video and realised that the light from the window was so bright I could not be seen. So I had to wait for the daylight to change.
3) Recording the next decent version, the video stopped as the camera memory card was full.
4) Next the battery went mid recording, so I had to wait till the battery had recharged.
5) With the battery recharged, I was just about record when my landlord started to sing Karaoke, very loudly! (The first time this had happened.)
6) When the music had eventually quietened down, I tried again and then watched the result to find that the sound quality on the camera was unlistenable! (My solution was to record the sound separately on my Olympus digital dictaphone, then synch the video and sound together afterwards on Logic Pro.)
7) Now late in the day, when I watched a new version of the video, I could see that the image on the screen was too bright, was blurred and the camera kept trying to refocus itself.
8) So I had to experiment to get the video in the right position. Although this problem was never completely fixed, finally I got the video recorded.
The drama did not end with the video recording being finished.
1) First the video would not upload to You Tube, as my internet is much too slow.
2) It eventually worked after I tried a new mobile connection I'd bought, so I submitted the video to Britain In A Day.
3) As I was finishing, I spotted an option to polish the video on YouTube. I was deciding what to adjust, when I saw an option marked 'I'm Feeling Lucky' which I thought would automatically improve the video quality. It didn't. What it did do, was halve the video length and remove all the sound!
3) So had to delete this video and reload a new one.
4) Finally, I tried to resubmit the video to Britain In A Day. This failed because it was linking to the wrong account and it couldn't find the video. It took me some time to be able to work out how to fix it.
All for 2 minutes footage!
As my friend Phi pointed out, I should have recorded my attempts at the video instead!
On this particular day I was choosing my Top 50 photographs from The Self Image project, with the hope of setting up an exhibition of the work. As both projects are works of self portraiture, I decided to submit a video.
This is what I submitted: http://youtu.be/3btS-zmOU3Q
Just filming and submitting the two minute video proved to be somewhat of a challenge in itself!
1) I initially took several attempts to get the words right (the words 'computer manipulation' seemed to be particular easy for me to stubble on)
2) After the first attempts, I watched the video and realised that the light from the window was so bright I could not be seen. So I had to wait for the daylight to change.
3) Recording the next decent version, the video stopped as the camera memory card was full.
4) Next the battery went mid recording, so I had to wait till the battery had recharged.
5) With the battery recharged, I was just about record when my landlord started to sing Karaoke, very loudly! (The first time this had happened.)
6) When the music had eventually quietened down, I tried again and then watched the result to find that the sound quality on the camera was unlistenable! (My solution was to record the sound separately on my Olympus digital dictaphone, then synch the video and sound together afterwards on Logic Pro.)
7) Now late in the day, when I watched a new version of the video, I could see that the image on the screen was too bright, was blurred and the camera kept trying to refocus itself.
8) So I had to experiment to get the video in the right position. Although this problem was never completely fixed, finally I got the video recorded.
The drama did not end with the video recording being finished.
1) First the video would not upload to You Tube, as my internet is much too slow.
2) It eventually worked after I tried a new mobile connection I'd bought, so I submitted the video to Britain In A Day.
3) As I was finishing, I spotted an option to polish the video on YouTube. I was deciding what to adjust, when I saw an option marked 'I'm Feeling Lucky' which I thought would automatically improve the video quality. It didn't. What it did do, was halve the video length and remove all the sound!
3) So had to delete this video and reload a new one.
4) Finally, I tried to resubmit the video to Britain In A Day. This failed because it was linking to the wrong account and it couldn't find the video. It took me some time to be able to work out how to fix it.
All for 2 minutes footage!
As my friend Phi pointed out, I should have recorded my attempts at the video instead!
Posted by Chris Garner. Posted In : Video Blog
