Poked Pretty Things

I absolutely adored this project. It was fun, refreshing, and completely different than anything I have ever done before. Of course that also made it more challenging, but I think that propels the creative process.

I chose to do my video on tattoos, which opened up a plethora of questions. That is a rather broad topic, and I really could go anywhere with it. But where to go and how to get there? Especially with only two to five minutes?! I mean, I am a long winded lass! I like to FULLY express the intended point. That being said, I decided I would make a clip of why people get tattooed. My vision is this: an intro about the art of tattoos with b-roll followed by four people stating why they chose that medium as a form of self expression.

Sounds easy, fun, and exciting - or at least I thought so. It was fun and exciting, but not easy. I quickly called all of my tattooed "beautiful freaks" and begged them to sit down in front of the camera. They were more than willing and boy oh boy did they talk! They didn't stop talking, which resulted in almost forty minutes of footage to sift through, which was definitely time consuming. It was also a little heartbreaking because they said some great stuff!

The editing screwed with me a bit, but was miraculously easier than I thought it would be. Of course I have never used a video camera before and I have never edited film (so take it easy critics and cut a girl some slack!). Actually, do not cut me slack at all - I like the feedback.

However, one thing that I must point out so we might all have a little chuckle at my fabulous "duh duh" moment was that when I compressed the video I actually did not compress the entire video - I only compressed ONE of the cuts. To make matters even worse I didn't catch that I had done this and I uploaded it to YouTube and Vimeo! Mwahahahaha. Luckily I noticed "hey, this isn't my video!" and had it deleted, but man - waiting for compression twice really stinks!!

I could definitely see this becoming a hobby of mine (great, another expensive undertaking said the poor college student). I can also fully understand why people leave their jobs for weeks at a time to tour the country and take footage. I felt like it was biting into an apple - I got into it, adored it, and wanted to do more. I suddenly wished the class was just a video and editing class and I wouldn't have to dive into the world of wikis or facebook this semester.

Yes, I would thoroughly enjoy filming my inked up pretties every week and putting together a delightfully delicious documentary that throws the body mod culture right in the faces of everyone watching and leaves them thinking "hmmm, maybe I should take a trip to my local tattoo parlor."