REDMERCEDES Reflection
For years I’ve been inspired by YouTube dancers of all walks of life. My passion for dance actually began with YouTube after I watched the movie Step Up. I would spend hours on YouTube learning how to dance to hip hop, which is why I decided to create my own YouTube dance video. I chose the song REDMERCEDES by Aminé because it has a constant tempo and it flows well with hip hop style dancing. I worked with Eric Wescott on this project because I wanted to try working with a dancer from a different background. I have learned dance on YouTube and in studio, but Eric has not been professionally taught dance. At first I thought Eric would struggle keeping up with choreography, but I found him to catch on extremely fast and he even choreographed. We chose to use the high school as our main film setting because of convenience, but it worked out well because of the effects we implemented. After my first experience with film on my last project, I found that lighting is a key element. We used both front and back lights to create shadows and show all our moves the way we wanted. Using Final Cut, we were able to create a Ken Burns effect that makes the viewer feel like part of the dance. Unlike my last project, I did not try to create a deeper meaning of life or a lesson for the viewer to take away. I simply wanted to create a cool video about something I love that wows an audience. Eric and I used outfits to our advantage and kept a theme of red, black, and white. It was perfect timing when I got a metallic gold jacket as a gift because as soon as I saw it, I knew it was meant for this video. Eric and I were filming after school and noticed an outdoor light that resembled a street light. We were able to give rural maine a different look with the night time scene, outfits, and lighting. The batting cage was my favorite place to film because of the darkness and mirror effects we captured. The crisp editing effect we added made the blackpoint darker and really put the focus on our moves. The mirror with tutting we added in the batting cage was a great way to break up the scene before switching to the final part of the dance. We ended the dance back at the gym where we began the story, which was simply two gym kids who wanted to dance. At the end we added extras in the background and only the most observant will notice Tyler Peters struggling to bench the bar. Overall I enjoyed making this project and I was so happy to finally have a YouTube video like the ones I used to learn from. This project has taught me that I should work out technical difficulties before showing my projects. The computer would not play the audio to the video which was embarrassing, but it was okay because I was able to show it on a different screen. I enjoyed dancing and filming this piece, but I must say that my favorite part was editing. I’ve expanded my knowledge of the arts with REDMERCEDES, and hope to use it to my advantage in the future.
Mystic Arts and Music 