When searching for moving portraits, I did not find a huge amount that was particularly interesting. However, I did find this moving portrait of Ellie Goulding:

I think what was most interesting to me was the fact the lighting and set up is very similar to in my own moving portrait. She is also listening to herself, which is similar to my first shoot with Tessa where I got her to listen to a sad song. This is a way of evoking emotions within someone, which seems to be what my video and this video of Ellie are trying to achieve.

For our final project, I want to show different emotions of people, a bit like in the film Inside Out. In class, we were shown a video created by a man named Robbie Cooper of kids playing video games. The way the kids reacted was incredibly interesting, especially because they were looking at the camera which made it appear as though they were looking at you. Cooper has also created other videos in the same way (using an autocue machine).

It is so interesting focusing purely on the way people’s faces react and the different emotions that come across their faces.

I love the black background as it does not detract from the attention of the faces.

Cooper created 3 different immersion videos, including clips of people watching films like Paranormal Activity, playing call of Duty and babies watching Peppa Pig.

Here is his archive:

This time, instead of just filming one person doing loads of things, I filmed 6 people all eating the same sweet. I also used the LED lights as they are supposed to look better in videos. Here is my finished video involving 4 of the original videos I shot (I couldn’t work out how to make a 6 shot video and found making a quadrant a lot easier.

I still had a few issues when shooting – I used 2 LED lights and had them both on 15 on the little back monitor and still found the shots to be incredibly bright. I have since dulled them down in Premiere Pro and turned down the exposure and white balance but I still do not like the harsh white light that comes off them as much. Some of the people I recorded did not show many expressions when I filmed them so I decided not to use them – I wanted the most expressive people so that you could compare the 4 videos.

Even though the shots are a little bright, I am happy with my final product and find it incredibly interesting comparing everyone’s reactions as they all started eating the sweets at the same time. I also like how all the people look at the camera as it makes it more personal, adding to the interest of the video.

For my moving portrait, I wanted it to be similar to the videos I researched where the subject in front of the camera is looking at the camera. I like the personal feel to it and it also makes it weird as it feels as though you, the viewer, is the camera.

Here is one of the examples of my moving portraits:

( Will not let me post as the files are too big)

I initially thought they went well as the lighting looked great on my camera. I did not discover, however, that the backdrop is far too lit and that I should not have used the soft boxes. I have since learned that I need to use the LED lights in the studio. Another idea I have had is to video several different people all eating the same sweet shown in the video of Tessa above. If they all start at the same time, it might be interesting to see who reacts first and how their reactions differ.