10/17 Research & Exploration
The new assignment is to create an instructional video. My topic is pancakes. To start with, I created a sketchbook spread depicting the process.
For research, I studied memorable videos from the past that I thought would be especially relevant.
After doing my research, I isolated some “tips” for increasing the quality of pancakes that I could focus on.
- Whisk the flour if you can. It reduces clumps before you add in wet ingredients.
- Create a well in the center of the flour before you create your batter. The wet ingredients will incorporate more smoothly.
- Whisk gently and don’t overmix, because developing gluten leads to tougher pancakes.
- Let your batter rest in the refrigerator for half an hour before cooking, in order to relax the gluten structures.
I focused more on impressive camera angles and visually interesting shots. When making my video, I think it might be more important to make visually engaging compositions for my shots. I haven’t started actually making the pancakes yet, since I don’t have the tools I ordered yet.
10/22 Initial Tests
I made some pancakes once I received my implements. For a first pass, they didn’t seem bad- I’ll tinker with the recipe to increase fluffiness and volume. Right now, my pancakes seem a little limp and greasy.
In class today, we discussed methods of establishing clarity and credibility. There is, apparently, a very important distinction between teaching and showing. In addition, I need to consider what to emphasize- face included.
Steve mentioned Italian Westerns and Steven Spielberg as a reference for building our photo storyboards. Cinematography is a very deliberate craft that focuses heavily on what to include within the shot — it may end up applying a lot more to my final product than I would think. I loaded up “A Fistful of Dollars” and watched the first 30 minutes. The opening scenes of a movie introduce a lot of information for viewers to process — I believe there is a lot for me to learn from how directors execute this.
The main breakthrough I realized is that, contrary to my initial beliefs, impressive photo angles are not as important as consistent and readable “center” shots. Building a sense of continuity between shots is vital to reducing viewer confusion — which will allow me to streamline the learning process. One thing to remember is that the movie has an easier time returning to a shot without losing viewer interest due to a combination of engaging action and the use of voice lines.
Pictured below is a very rough idea of how I will plan out my photos.
10/23 Improvements
I made more pancakes and removed eggs this time. This surprisingly did not alter taste and texture too much, other than making them slightly less springy. They’re still flat and a little limp — I need to experiment with adding more flour and turning down the heat. Also, the dough is now edible raw.
Making my photo storyboard made me realize how hard it is to maintain consistency between shots. I may need to build a camera stand to hold my camera steady, as using just my hands is simply not enough.
Moving forward, I’m preparing to record and tinker with the recipe further.
10/22 Taking a step back
During our critique today, we touched on how to guide the viewer. It’s important not to introduce anything without prior context, and to pay careful attention to the composition of your shots. For the storyboards, jumping between frames should be minimized. I should aim to reduce unnecessary background information, and pay careful attention to sound cues.
There is also the question of artificial environment, which emphasizes only the present task, and contextualized environment, which emphasizes the overall act. Ideally, I should aim to strike a balance.
For pancakes in particular, potential problems spots would be showing ingredient measurement, the passage of time, and control over the environment.
10/28 Major Roadbumps
Making the video tonight provided additional challenges. While it was great to put my ideas into practice, the act of actually filming was a challenge. I didn’t have easy access to a helper or a phone holder, so many of my shots are done one-handed. The finished product ended up being not quite what I wanted in terms of craft. However, I think the concept is sound and I’m excited to try it again. I especially think controlling the ambient sounds would do wonders for video quality.
I had much more video than 1 minutes would allow, and as a result a lot of footage was gutted. For my next iteration I definitely need to reassess what to prioritize.
However, there are specific things I’d like to keep:
- The opening shot with all the ingredients (maybe a little longer than 3 seconds)
- Closeup-reveal of ingredients and their respective measurements (maybe too repetitive?)
- Melting the butter with an audio cue of the microwave in the background
Things I’m definitely going to improve:
- Stability of camera when filming
- Improved viewer engagement (audio, mixing up the camera distance)
- Closeup of cooking pancake to show when to flip
- Whisking the flour while adding liquid ingredients at the same time
- “Locking down” ingredient containers so they don’t shift when interacted with
- Much better pancake flip
- Adding a final shot (with butter and syrup)
10/31 More Problems
This video was highly challenging and frustrating to carry out. This time around, I learned more from critiquing my fellow pancake students’ videos than studying my own.
In particular, Francis’ video gave me a good idea of what my project could achieve. The quality of his footage in terms of camera stability, smooth cuts, and engaging action seemed to achieve what I had visualized last week.
11/2 Temporary Reflection
It’s quickly becoming apparent that the main separation of what I envision and what I am achieving is craft. I’ll see what I can do about it.
11/3 Final Plans
Spent more time fleshing out my plan for final filming tomorrow. Playing with introducing some new ideas, but it may be better to stick with what I’ve been doing at this point.
At the core of my video is the consistent return to an overhead shot of the dry ingredient bowl. Since that phase will eat up most of my time, I’m prioritizing clarity for that part in particular. 2/3rds of the video will be centered around the mixing bowl, 1/3 around the frying pan.
11/4 Last Recording
I switched from Buttermilk to Whole Milk recipe pancakes due to a variety of factors, and re-added eggs to the ingredient list.
Making this last video opened my eyes to a lot of subconscious improvements I had been making in my videos without noticing. For example, I would try to do my actions faster in order to streamline the process and cut down on time. I also started to get a better feel for what good pancake batter should look like in terms of consistency and texture.
For my final recording, I used two video cameras: my smartphone and a rented camcorder from Hunt Library. The tripod-mounted camcorder was positioned over my central bowl and frying pan, while my phone recorded detail and action shots.
I’ll look over the footage tomorrow and splice it together.
11/5 Final Submission/Thoughts
Making this video has been a constant grind of making the best of shoddy craft. I am constantly disappointed by my efforts to polish video quality. In general, I think the nature of my topic demands I allocate much more time and resources to filming than other topics; I clearly did not prioritize it enough in my schedule.
That being said, I learned a lot about what kind of cuts feel intuitively smooth with their timing. Recording a lot of footage and shaving it down to a minute has forced me to closely examine what I consider important.
If I had another week, I would spend most of it studying the camera settings and scouting out a better film location than the Donner kitchens. Despite its frustrations, this project has been fun process-wise to work on.
