Reminiscence Of A Good Day

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Back Story: This video was made in the first week of my first video production class back in 2003/2004. The instructor told us to make a short film that demonstrated footage on a tripod that was still, panning and something else. Yes it was a really easy assignment.. but I was bored with that idea. Not in a cocky way, I just really needed a challenged so I made it ridiculously overcomplicated.

After scouring the web for some fair use old time piano tracks. They where all short so I had to improvise. Trying to figure out how to make those old fashion silent film decoration boxes wasn’t easy. Photoshop to the rescue! I had to watch a few silent films to get a sense of authenticity. Lucky for me Walmart was selling those $1 shovel DVD disks. Lots of great old films and TV shows before they where given the studio video and audio clean up/remastered treatment.

At the time Adobe Premiere was an awful program to deal with still images and incorporate them into interlaced video. Apologies if you cant read some of the “T’s or “F’s” because the interlacing decided to get rid of top horizontal lines of the letters.

The next step was to edit the video. Everything was going really well except my old timer film filter was too predictable so I had do more research to find a trial version filter that was a bit more random in its jitters/hair marks, burn marks, and other wonderful film effects. With the filter now working and the sepia tone rocking I was taken back by the over all look. Unfortunately something was missing…

After asking around I found an old 16mm video projector. It was broken but it was working well enough to get some sound effects.

Yes, you guessed it, i’ve got my name plastered all over the end of this film. Growing up watching 16mm films in elementary school, I remember all the random text that appeared at the end of each reel. I always wanted to know what they said. At least with my film you get to know.

The film itself was loaded with amateur mistakes. I had no idea what I was doing! I did however plan on having a fun. Some sequences such as the bad guy intro lasted too long. I have no idea why I did that or why my finger came down on one of the frames. The entire idea of an old silent film taking place on a college campus with modern attire is laughable. BTW we didn’t plan for that one random guy at the end to stick around and look back at the camera and smile. It was distracting from the two characters casually running away.. but it still made the video more interesting so I kept it.

On assignment show day it was received well. Lots of laughs and a “show off” glare from my video instructor afterwards. It was a playful display of approval but one that made me laugh.

Duration: 122

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