Irrevocable

This was the last video I made for my Field Production and Editing I class. The final project assignment was to make a 6 to 12 minute video, based on anything that we wanted to do.

I looked back on the past videos I made for class, and I wanted to try something different. I hardly had any dialogue, if any, in my videos because I went more for the emotion, silent side. So, I knew right off the bat I was doing to do dialogue. But, I didn't want scripted dialogue, I wanted real dialogue. Keeping this in mind, I also though about the subject matter of my videos. They all had some key element, whether it was a clock getting fixed or milk being poured. Thinking on a humor side of that, and wanting the real dialogue, I went back to the first actress I casted for my first video, Hannah Welch. Her and her boyfriend, Mark Pikula, knowing them for awhile, they together have great dialogue that I wanted. Their normal conversations can be so animated, I knew they were the perfect fit. I invited them over for a game of UNO and just recorded them. I did tell him some dialogue that I wanted to be said, as far as viewing my video, but other than that, it was all real dialogue.

I always wanted to do a horror element in a video, and I looked no further than another Madonna student, Brett Wheat. I have seen his work, and I knew I needed his mind to make my horror idea work. I first had the idea of him knocking at my apartment's front door, wearing a clown mask. I would get frightened when I see this, and I would run away. But only have him follow me and approach as his new neighbor asking for food. Luckily, and I do mean luckily, I couldn't find the clown mask that was needed so I knew I had to change the idea.

Again, looking back on my videos, I wanted to pay homage to them and use similar camera shots for my final video. I invited Brett over, and when he came, we talked about what we could do with this idea. My apartment has a pretty creepy basement, and when I first moved in, I knew I wanted to make a movie down there. Him and I headed into the basement, and our minds connected very well, and the basement footage turned out great. Brett gave me an idea of using a moving crop effect in Final Cut Pro that was needed to make one of our camera shots work.

After we finished the basement scene, we shot the similar camera work to my prior videos in my apartment. That part went pretty easy. I had my MacBook out, and we looked at the older videos, and just set up the new shots as needed.

The following day, I shot the laundry room scene. In the laundry room, I was going to do my first shot thinking. I started off on a light being turned on, and I panned to my laundry basket. I tried the shot several times, both handheld and with my tripod. After viewing the footage, I settled on a tripod shot.

WATCH "IRREVOCABLE" ON YOUTUBE

I had an awesome time editing this video, probably my favorite. I included bloopers, I edited the opening music with Hannah and Mark's dialogue, and just overall, had an real enjoyable time. The video doesn't follow one pace, which I loved. It starts with a Back to the Future parody, to an UNO game, to a stalker in a red ski mask, and finally to blooper filled credits. It has to be funniest video I made, I always enjoy watching it.