I recently viewed an amazing peace of art featuring the one and only Cara Delevingne. The video is set in two various places on the beach, on a high swing, in cars and on a pier. That really motivated me to respond to this video and have rapid cuts during the clips, have energetic music and that’s what people tend to associate beaches with- fun and exciting vibes.
Here you can see the model on a high swing standing rather than sitting because why not right, it shows that she is ready to push the boundaries.
Here is my favourite frame from this fashion film, the screenshot looks like the shot was taken out of paradise or from a painting. In my resort in Cuba I had a similar frame of my model walking down a pier onto the beach backwards. It shows their journey, they interaction with the beach.
In contrast to this video clip I decided to choose a Nike advert featuring a known English grime rapper called SKEPTA. The video swooshes from scene to scene rapidly after a simply phone call that SKEPTA is having. I really liked the quick transitions, the fast forward and slow motion effects. And the locations that were used really inspired me to visit them myself for my own video.
For instance a simple corner shop:
Another one is on the street, this ahit is fast forwarded:
Having people dancing:
And lastly I would like to talk about the choice of music as well. The producer and maker of this short clip used many British grime tracks as the main character sings in that genre. It simply shows how much, sound, audio or soundtracks mean when it comes to editing fashion films. If for instance this had a county or pop song it would really relate. Moreover it’s a Nike brand and that’s a sports brand which means when you exercise you listen to upbeat and fast songs.
Apart from creating a video, I also intended to take a couple of still photographs to further explain the clothes and the environment.
This photograph is a cloe up, eye level shot of my London model, I want to show you his hair, eyes, his ear ring and his jawline. This photo was taken in Southbank, Waterloo in Central London.
These series of photographs were taken in an estate close to Picaddily Circus. I wanted to show a rougher area in London compared to some Mansions and Luxury hotels. London streets look amazing but compared to a walk down the beach its really nothing.
This funky shot was taken using the TV setting, by using shutterspeed my subject moved and it created a movement trail behind him. You can see his head movement in this shot. Buckingham Palace was the place were this photograph was taken.
Moving forward, Here are some shots of Curtis in Cuba. The first photo shows him posing infront of the beach, followed by a hut including the Cuban flag and a nice plant area. The background builds up as we look more and more into it.
This image was taken in the pool. I wanted to show how great life is in Cuba compared to a cold and rainy weather in London. There you could barely wear clothes as it was siply too hot to.
Lastly, I present screenshots I took from my fashion film. The first image shows my subject enjoying his life on the beach. By having his hands in the air, it shows how muchhe praises the beach and how delighted he is to be there. On the other hand Konrad seems a little more drained of life, the constant walking was making him tired however he gave his best like always. The third image shows Konrad on a high ledge. I wanted to shoot him there posing for the camera and then by slowly taking off his jacket and dropping it, I expose what he wears underneath. The effect of him making it fall so casually really made me like this frame. Fourthly, you can see Konrad in front of a High End designer Brand called Burberry. I didnt want this shoot to be cliche and have footage taken in front of fashion brands however I decided it would be thoughful to atleast include one. The only reason why I chose this window was due to the display, the pink, floral and contemporary setting really caught my eye and though it could link to the red light clip I have of Konrad towards the end. I fast forward that clip due to the fact that he had slow movement in the original footage. By fast forwarding the clip I created a great moving image of Konrad
Starting to edit was my favourite aspect of this project because this really pushed me out of my comfort zone, I never professionally edited any videos to make a narrative and make it look interesting apart from short Instagram videos. I started off from importing all my videos and photos from my photoshoot to a made folder on my desktop. From there I could criticise myself and eliminate videos that were not needed, were shaky or didn’t have much to offer. The strongest ones were labelled and sorted out in order from the date created.
I then thought of what is going to be the story and therefore I arranged them into groups where I had Cuba footage on one side and London footage on the other. This way I could place them onto the timeline easily without them being jumbled up.
Here you can see the whole set up of my editing software. I have my media on the left where I could easily access them, the frame window on the bottom with the audio file and the screen where I could preview the clips on the right.
Before editing the videos, I made sure each clip is stabilised completely so that I could only get clean and smooth shots.
This was my most useful tool, by using this dial I adjusted the contrast, highlights, exposure and black points of any specific clip I chose. Most films were shut during natural daylight and didn’t really need heavy correcting however the footage shot after sunset needed some shadow and contrast correction due to loosing detail and colour.
This was the function where I could adjust the audio to my clip. I was thinking hard about what music choice should I choose. I had an idea that I wanted rap because of the youth culture in London but then I realised that the spoken language in Cuba was Spanish and therefore I wanted to have Spanish lyrics. I came out to bring in the song by Bad Bunny called “Callaita”. It was a song full of energy, it reminded me of the time I spent in Cuba and the words to connect such as the rapper singing about the beaches “playa” and singing about partying and being yourself, which is what Konrad portrayed in London.
My software allowed me to modify the clips by using slow motion and time lapse to create effects interesting for an eye. The slow motion was used to really appreciate the view and the clothing whereas the fast forward function was used for more rapid movements such as dancing or walking.
Here you can see the Titles page where I Could insert text on top of my video for credits, quotes and locations. I used this to write: Damian Sliwa, Featuring Central London, and Cayo Coco in Cuba, Buy less choose well and do it yourself, la vida es simplemente hermosa, Curtis Luchanah and Konrad Kuros. I didn’t want to overflow the text as my audience would get too distracted therefore I kept it minimal.
Whereas here I present the numerous transitions that I placed in-between scenes so the transitioning wouldn’t be so simple and boring. It does give it a nice feel and style to my work. For example, rather than going straight into the next frame, it transitions by fading or blurring into the next scene.
Towards the end of the film I inserted some quotes that could relate to my video. I stated “Buy less, choose well and do it yourself!”. The purpose was to tell my audience that London is about being independent and doing things by yourself and not looking at others. People in London tend to choose the wrong clothes and manage to buy a huge amount of them too without realising half of the things were not needed and the only reason why they bought it was to stay on top of the trends rather than focusing what makes them comfortable.
In contrast with the English quote I had to insert one is Spanish. This translates to: “Life is simply beautiful”. I wrote that because the scenery I present in my opinion looks magical and it’s a shame not to say what a beautiful life I had for that one week in Cuba.
I ended my fashion film with two moving images of my two main models, Curtis and Konrad. I titled their names in transition instead of doing a credit page as I don’t think it was necessary due to the already made length, it simply would have made it too long. The arrows facing each other are symbols that a transition is being used in that area.
To conclude the edit took me a whole rough day to do which I am happy with because the soundtrack goes well with the video, the footage is not shaky, the colours are vibrant, and it has a great narrative of contrasting two different worlds.
I want to begin with saying that this was one of the hardest projects I had in this course however I am always up for a challenge. In this scenario it was producing footage to a fashion movie. As I never shot an actual video in my life, I had to use some inspiration from the bigger artists. Two rappers that collaborated on one song called Praise the Lord by Asap Rocky and Skepta shows the contrast between London and New York City in their music video. There are fast shots of both places, they swap from one to the other or even use split screen to show both scenarios at once. By watching this video, it gave me an idea to create something similar whereas I would be using the setting of Cuba and Central London streets to show their differences, the fashion, the scenery and how people act differently in the opposite environments.
Let’s start with London as I want to talk about the city I live in and see on a daily basis. London City is a home for fashion, designer and streets. People that walk in central London do dress in a way to be suited to their lifestyle or their occupations. The Youth will wear whatever is trendy at the time, adults would wear more casual or smart clothes depending on the situation and fashionistas would dress up in a way that they could be seen by everyone. Streets of London do look dirty, they look damp however they are full of life and energy.
On the other hand, people in Cuba are not as wealthy, they mostly care about comfort and not to overheat because of their strict weather conditions. Cuban fashion is mostly to be straw hats, shorts and vests as any other forms of clothes would simply be a danger to their body. Whilst staying in Cuba for a week, I observed that the only humans who actually care about their image are tourists and the natives most likely wear replicas of known brands. Furthermore, Cubans look at life differently the way us British people do. They want to live to their best lives out there, they don’t mind being unsuccessful but as long as you have a loving family and a good job, your life is set there.
My London Model named Konrad comes from a fashion background as he was always interested into it since he was a kid. Curtis which is y model from Cuba doesn’t really care what he wears and that is exactly perfect as it shows the difference between them. The settings that I will choose strictly will definitively pair with the models clothing styles. Such as having a long trench coat and sneakers in the streets and having shorts, t-shirt and bare feet on the beach will explicitly show the contrast. I hope my fashion film will convey my audience into believing that I am shooting two different worlds, cultures, scenery and people and it will really show the opposite lives they live.
To conclude my video idea, I would like to sum up the different aspects and features I want to include in my three-minute film. There should be footage of the beach, pier, swimming pool, rocks, palms, hotel, streets, luxury hotel, low angle shots, slow motion shots, rewinds, fast forward shots, models walking or running, bridges and showing off the clothes or accessories.
Here I present my storyboard that I created for this unit. It includes the two locations im going to use which is Central London and Cuba. It includes the two type of fashion styles I will include. My london model will wear designer clothes whereas my Cuban model will have less of designer and less clothes as I will be shooting in a very hot country.
As one of our workshops this project, we had a great opportunity to have a session with a professional, we entered the IT suite and worked on a video on Adobe Premier pro. We had a task to creative a montage film of scattered video clips which had a narrative and using our creativity and imagination we could possibly create a different scenario each time. I remember that the clips were about a tube platform with a crowd and a man talking about a topic in the library. I know that I contrasted the two as one was a quiet place where people could really focus on their studies and the other was a vivid, loud and flashy environment wich was the complete opposite. to conclude the video I also found a dialouge of the man speaking and a classsical atmospheric soundtrack that was overlayed on top of the film.
I learnt from that session to: Start with importing content onto desktop/hard drive or usb.
We learnt about frames per second and how each video is split into little clips; videos are normally filmed at 24fps.
and we learnt about the old school way of making movies by getting our hand on an old tape full of images that when printed could of been put together to create a series of moving images.
Today we enetered studio 1 and saw a green screen being set up in the middle, My first thoughts were that I was so excited to use it. I never had a green screen experience so this by far was one workshop I was looking forward to. To start off we had an intoduction about a camera that can be used for green screen effects. That is called a Black magic camera. Its in a rectangular shape, its black of course and its normally placed ona stand to prevent shaky movements in shots.
I made some notes regarding the black Bagic camera:
Make sure the shadow is not on background,
Black magic takes any lens( fixed and zoomed),
The battery is not that great. Manual focus
(Focus peaking) everything in focus will get a green halo on the subject) Aperture change by rewind and fast forward button, Shutter speed works on it (24/sec), You can change frame size. Normally film in full screen, Set the camera to Progress HQ for codiac under the recording setting.
This was amazing when we were adding different effects to the screen like for example having an ocean behind us and we were pretending to swim whereas we were simply in the studio. I found out the more budget the company has the better and the more realistic the shot looks on the small screen.
A Fashion Film is a series of moving images put together to tell a story, to motivate, to inspire, to sell or to inform a specific audience about a product, a place, a narrative or a brand. Now you see a lot of examples on adverts, company’s website, in stores, music videos, art practices or on social media. It is a way of showing their audience more than a still image, it shoes the movement of the product, the texture of an environment or the creativeness of the company.
The goal is all the same, inspire people to buy the product that is seen in the video. This looks much different than simply creating a commercial. In fact, most fashion films don’t mention the products at all. Instead, outstanding fashion films often highlight the products in a delicate way. A music-driven fashion film will highlight the clothing by cutting incredible cinematography together with a good music track that evokes the right tone for the clothing being presented. the biggest challenge when creating an experimental film is to create an engaging film that doesn’t isolate the audience. You don’t want someone to be so weirded out by the unconventional storytelling that they don’t look at the clothing! When done correctly, an experimental fashion film can be quite effective. The effects that can be used are for instance, zooming in and out the frames, showing light trails, fading, fast forwarding or putting it in slow motion and inserting text onto it to show a bigger narrative if the video is not enough.
Films originally started to be screened in cinemas. People would purchase tickets and view movies on the big screen. Fashion films are too short to be presented in cinemas. Directors would still focus on fashion in a way that could not be visible. Each actor has a specific character which matches a different clothing style. For example a higher class gentlemen would wear a high top hat and a suit whereas a Pop Star singer would wear flashy and sparkling clothes to be seen out of the crowd which therefore means that fashion was always related with films.
Slow Motion – can use to add a tense atmosphere to the video and make it look extraordinary.
Tracking – busy scenes will attract more detail to the subject.
Close ups – Shows more texture and detail in the shot.
Fast forwarding/ Time lapse – It shows very rapid movements in fast fraes per seconds. Speeding the pace of a video makes it sometimes more interesting because there more things going on at once.
Sound – Without noise the video can be empty and have no energy in it.
Lighting – Different tones of lighting are used to create suspense, set the scenary, show spotlight onto the models and so on.
Damian's Reflective Journal 