Storyline:

This video takes a satirical look into some of my personal traits, namely self-absorbedness, self pity and insecurities about what others think. The video begins with a scene of the actress strutting down hallways, pausing dramatically to admire herself in the reflection on the glass. It also features the actress displaying her insecurity over her self image through a monologue where she states that she wears big coats because she wants to hide her “fat arms and ass” from the world. The video ends with several sequences of her crying and lamenting that people would “do this to me” when she had “slept so little last night”, providing a strong cathartic ending to an otherwise funny and lighthearted video.

Concept:

Being that there was a 1 minute video, I decided to make it lighthearted and funny rather than make it too in depth as I feared there would not be enough time to explore many deeper emotions. The character I wanted to emulate was Kim Kardashian, who is a public figure notorious for being “famous for doing nothing” apart from using social media and engaging in frivolous activities.

As I wanted to use this chance to experience being behind the camera, I decided to make use of an actress rather than act the alter ego out personally. I wanted to use an actress who I knew shared my personality traits and would understand the tone of the video that I was going for, hence I approached my best friend Shirley who kindly agreed to be my actress.

As we are avid viewers of the reality TV show “Kepping Up with the Kardashians”, Shirley and I knew how to portray Kim and I’s similar traits well. To give ourselves inspiration and aid in the filming process, we spent some time reviewing clips of Kim Kardashian from interviews or past episodes of the reality show. Certain scenes of my video were actually re-enactments of videos of Kim, with our own twist attached. The crying scene, for example, is something that is also iconic to Kim as she is famous for having an “ugly cry” which I have too which is why I don’t cry in public :)))))

To me, the choice of music in the video was extremely important to setting the mood. I actually decided on the music before deciding on the character I would use! The song used was “Me Too” by Meghan Trainor and I remember hearing it for the first time and having imagined this video in my mind. To add to the bubblegum pop style of the video, I sped up the tempo of the song to make it more catchy and lighthearted.

Process

To aid in our concept development, Ms Lei gave us some tasks which would help us in choosing a character. The first was to list out 5 fictional characters, my choices being:

Katniss Everdeen

Moana

BoJack Horseman

Eric Cartman

Daria

The second was to list out 5 public figures:

Kim Kardashian

Ellen Degeneres

Donald Trump

Malala Yousafzai

Kanye West

The third task, list out 5 characters that I knew personally:

Shirley Wang (best friend)

Cindy Chiang (mother)

Jacob Sze (Brother)

Joel Sim (best friend)

Shi Nai Xin (friend)

I then had to pick 1 character from each category based on their traits that I myself possess.

Bojack Horseman: Jaded, seeking excitement in life

Kim Kardashian: Self absorbed, insecure about self image

Jacob Sze: Funny, brave, a lot of self conviction

To me it was important to pick a character that was recognisable to others, so that they would be able to understand why I shared the particular traits of the character.

This film was my first time shooting a video on my own with a digital camera, as well as editing it, and this did cause me some degree of anxiety. However, I was able to make use of my existing knowledge of cameras as well as what I learned in the previous semester (and also some help from google) to shoot and edit successfully.