Assignment Week # 6 Pt. 1 Hugo Does His Own Makeup

I had no experience at all in making videos. Actually, I barely take any videos in my spare time and I've never thought about getting involved with video making ever in my life, so I knew this assignment would be challenging from the beginning.

Initially I struggled to come up with an idea that interested me for this particular assignment, and I thought I'd have to find a fun subject to work on considering my lack of general interest in video making. Later that week, a makeup tutorial that my friend shared on Facebook caught my eye, and it inspired me to create a puppy version of this makeup tutorial video.

My idea was to put a hoodie on my dog either Hugo or Lucas and hide behind with my hands going forward through the sleeves to perform the tutorial, to create an illusion of the dog himself doing it.  The shooting was a lot harder than I thought. At first, I spent a lot of time with my partner to experiment and learn about the perspectives and angles of the camera, as we found a closer and tilted angle would reveal my head that's supposed to be hidden behind, and I had to position low and literally bury my face in Hugo's hair in order to show my hands visibly.  We also tried both puppies to see which one would work better for the camera. Lucas is younger and smaller with more behavial issues so we decided to "cast" Hugo for the video after a few test shootings. Then I realzied that it could be difficult to keep Hugo sit still and focus on the camera, as he never had such training.  The shooting took place for three nights in a row, as I didn't want to exhaust my puppy and had to give him a break every 5 to 10 minutes.  It took us a lot of effort to make the final video that captured him with full attention.

Test shooting with my another puppy Lucas

Multiple attempts with my dog Hugo

The process of editing was not easy. I've never used IMovie before so I honestly felt every anxious before editing the video. I couldn't find the option to extract the audio from a video on IMovie so I downloaded a program that should have done the work but it ended up not working. Eventually I decided to play the video on my phone closely to the camera while shooting to make the audio part work.  It also took me quite some time to figure out how to split clips and edit the titles.  I also couldn't figure out how to slow down the scrolling speed for the scrolling credits.

Overall I think the experience was a little scary as video making was totally out of my comfort zone, but I'm very glad I tried it out and I'm actually very interested in learning more about it.