Spoofing The History Channel

   Quite a feat it was. When looking to make a movie there isn't usually a deadline unless you want there to be. This is an occasion when time was of the essence.

Prep Work:
   Original intentions were unclear, we were given a week and a half notice, but didn't learn we could work with partners until a week prior. With one week and counting we rushed to get ideas together and had filming underway that evening. We all knew that this project for our English class didn't have to be as extravagant as we were making it but we were going to have fun with it, and we were going to blow the competing power-points out of the water.
   The assignment was to compare Ibo culture to that of our own. Our first ideas were sketchy, but we eventually settled with Ethan's idea of spoofing The History Channel. We choose to compare religion because we wanted to hit on all the topics, but the only way to do this was to use a wide range topic, and religion fit the bill. From there we planned out speeches and skits to play over the audio.
   Making costumes was a bit fun. We had a lot of supplies just laying around...an old shield, a black table cloth and a tin foil sword. Each of these was modified for the purposes of the video. The old shield became a mask by cutting holes into it and painting it. The black table cloth became a robe & headband, the tin foil sword became a cross. From there we took some paints and attempted to make black, but it came out as purple; until the second filming. Which was two days prior to the release, where we made a successful black. Other costumes were fresh to the market.
Filming:
   I have a 16GB SD card, it can hold nearly four hours of video, we almost used it all up. Day one of filming we shot mostly the short skits to go over the video which took quite a bit of time. And the second day we shot all the speeches as well as a few more skits. We filmed for a total of about seven hours, which isn't all that much.
   One of the more interesting parts of filming was the cold. The temperature may have been 65F but when you factor in wind chill and rain it seems closer to freezing. When we shot the arrival of the Christians, which was out in a leaking canoe, we had to get out in the even colder water where our feet soon became numb. We wanted to show the canoe as though it were out at sea. So we got the canoe a bit out and Ethan and Tim got in the canoe, I stood out in the cold water.
   When you plan to put someone on the screen four times it is best to have some careful planning. Ethan got dressed up like an Egwugwu and we then shot him entering the screen four different times. Now I'm not trying to complain or anything but Ethan and Tim often think very highly of my editing skills, some times too much. So Ethan keeps walking out on screen and I keep reminding him, don't cross into "the area". We had way to many takes of this, but it is a learning experience.
   The green screen; you would be surprised what you can do with one of these. I don't mean to boast but I nearly have it down to a science. So the first day we filmed just a little on the screen, but what we forgot to do was remove this object from leaning up against it which messed with the shading and added a big object in the background! But it wasn't to bad, I fixed it nicely. The second day I was sure to get it all right, and we did many a things to make it look a bit more professional. Such as changing the positioning of the chair, getting close ups; among other shots.
Editing:
   Would you believe me if I told you I spent about 14 hours editing and would have prefered another five for finishing touches. So yes it was a great movie, but for the first day of it's release I had a bazillion things I whished to fix. Although I am now over it I would have prefered to have removed the picture of weed, and could have shortened some of the talking parts. Pretty much everyone who has seen it was highly impressed with the work, and I'm glad it turned out so well and more importantly glad the class liked the presentation.
   Getting to show off some new techniques was fun. More recently I learned to use this effect in Primiere call "Roughen Edges." Basically you add that on top of the green screen mask and you achieve removal of the green glow. I'll admit that there was still a bit of green glow, but it fooled many people into believing that the speaking shots were filmed on a real book case.
Final Words:
   I'm pleased, liked having a deadline and we achieved what we shot for; a great grade and blowing everyone else out of the water. My family has sent the video off to their friends because their impressed and their friends enjoyed it which is pleasing. Ethan still a bit to embarassed to show his mom, but my mom later informed me that she sent it to Ethan's mom anyway...haha.
   I learned from this a new techniqe for video that I knew but never had a chance to incorperate. But for the most part I learned to incorporate this technique succesfully. This technique I am reffering to is the ability to place video over the speaker which is a big thing in the history channel theme. Therefore I was forced into learnig it, and learning it well. I realize now that back when we did our news that this technique would have improved the videos ten fold if not more. Plus everything else we now know how to do and we would have been well on our way to a great series.
   In a conclusion everything was extreamly well made, and a three teamed video project takes some work but we pulled it off with flying colors and will further use this in the production of LO2 [which most of everyone doesn't know exists, so click the linck to read a short post about it]. As that is all tell me what you think of the video and what you think could be improved.

Thanks For Reading
The Director,