Where It Belongs // Video Project Postmortem
Doing research at the NYPL.
Working with Lizzy on our collaboration project was such a smooth experience. After sharing our interests and past projects, we discussed how we could focus on an object—more specifically, a fictional legacy / history of said object. We landed on an idea to trace the history of an object from one of our cultures and decided to use a mug crafted by a Korean artist, gifted to me by my mother. After creating our storyboard, we starting shooting scenes at various locations, including Lizzy’s apartment + backyard, streets of Flushing, subway rides, and the Brooklyn Museum. We also allocated time to spend at the New York Public Library to do research on the era of Japanese annexation of Korea and the Korean War. We found archival photographs and footage to include in the intro portion of the video.
During our shoot in Flushing.
After every round of editing, which we took turns for, we met up to look at the cuts together and give feedback to each other. We had extensive discussions on the visual and auditory direction we wanted to go towards. One thing we both learned was how big of an impact music can have on a scene. We had a hard time editing the “falling” sequence to evoke the emotional response of anxiety that we wanted. We discovered that the background music and sounds can really create the atmosphere and context for the climactic scene. Ultimately, with Lizzy’s suggestion, we decided to use the Shepard’s tone to create an anxious feeling.
I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and productive this collaboration was. Thanks to our similar taste and interests, we were able to navigate through the process of creating this video effortlessly. In fact, I appreciated and will miss having a partner to ask for immediate feedback and input for the edits, during which I often become disoriented and unsure about the cuts.