Diaries: A Translation of One's Thoughts (Visual Essay Project)
Brief
In groups of 3 or 4, create a video essay or experimental documentary. Based on the theme of ‘Collection’. This should be between three and five minutes and should include visuals and voiceover (that you produce).
A team of 4 consisting of me, Lucy, Blanca and Yang, we brainstormed on some ideas of what topic we should focus on. At first, we were a little dumbfounded when we were given the project. We were given such a short period of time to come up with a topic and was quite worried about whether we could meet the criteria at first. Creating a visual essay from scratch was a little intimidating because we have never done it before but I was excited. I personally enjoy watching visual essays on Youtube.
Brainstorming
Figure 1. Mind map
Figure 2. From Yang's iPad, our team brainstorming ideas
We started drawing a mind map of stuff that we have collected previously from our Collection Project. Just jotting down random topics that could possibly come to mind (refer to Figure 1 & 2). Our team knew that our main goal was to not just create an educational video essay, but also an essay that relates back to us which was how we birthed the idea of creating a video essay about journals. Since all of us live far away from our family and friends, we feel lonely sometimes and do not really know who to talk to so we would write diaries about our thoughts and feelings since we do not know who to vent it to. We wanted to translate our sentiments towards diary-making and the beauty behind it.
Figure 3. Initial ideas
Our initial idea of doing a video essay about journals soon faded away as we realised that our topic is too generic. We branched out to what a journal means to us and realised that there are a lot of aspects to it (refer to Figure 3). Journals come in many different forms such as writing, photos, singing, etc. There is no fixed medium in how you can journal and that was when we realised we had to narrow it down.
Vulnerability was a key factor that we wanted to show in our video essay. Rather than just spitting facts about our topic, we wanted to add our own personal touch.
Figure 4. Developing our ideas. Choosing our niche.
Our team decided to focus on diaries as our main topic for our video as we felt personally connected to the topic, it felt right to work upon something that touches us too. We started with creating a structure and what type of content we wanted to include (refer to Figure 3). At this point in time, we were still quite confused about how we should execute our video. There was an uncertainty as we were spitting out ideas and research content. How are we going to compose all of this into a 3-5 minute video? The main challenge was translating our ideas written on paper into a visual form.
As someone who was appointed as the editor and also has had a little bit of filmmaking experience back when I was in Singapore, I knew that I wanted to approach this visual essay in a way that is educational yet relatable for the viewers. Instead of starting the video with facts and examples of diaries, I wanted to include movies and TV shows that made references to diaries. Let the clips speak for itself which would ease us into the introduction of our topic.
Research - looking for inspiration & references
Inspiration for our video essay:
Video structure and format inspired by Nerdwriter1 from Youtube (Nerdwriter1, 2019)
Nerdwriter1 from Youtube is someone who has heavily inspired the way we structured our video. He mainly does video essays on art history, film and pop culture. In most of his videos, he always starts with a clip from the film/topic that is related to what he is going to talk about. Instead of him speaking and reading off the script, he lets the clip speak for itself. It would catch the attention of the viewer and allow them to get a grasp of the context of the video essay first before moving on into the essay. In this particular video titled, "Succession: Say What You Mean" discusses how the show Succession plays with words. There is a lot of dialogue being said in this video, between the characters in the TV show which affected the way the video essay was edited.
Screenshot from the video essay "Succession: Say What You Mean" (Nerdwriter1, 2019)
An example would be at the 1:06 mark in the video, Evan (creator of the Nerdwriter1 channel), talks about how "words are just nothing complicated airflow" and he cuts to a shot of helicopters flying in the TV show which was a clever way of editing as he was talking about something that was not relevant to the imagery but because of the usage of the word "airflow" he chose a clip from the TV show that shows literal helicopters and I think that kind of bounces off the narrative of the video essay even better. It was such a simple edit but I thought it reflected very well on the narration of the video which was why this video essay has greatly inspired our own video essay too.
Films & TV Shows:
Suits
A scene from Season 4 of Suits where writing diaries was mentioned ('Suits', 2014)
With that said, we researched what movies that we could use as a reference for our video essay. Our teammate, Blanca, happened to stumble upon a scene in Seasons 4 of Suits where diaries were mentioned, and I felt like it was a good introduction for the video essay.
In this particular clip, Louis, who is lying stomach down on the couch, is writing in his diary when his co-worker, Katrina walks in on him and asks him what he is doing. He proceeds on to explain that he is writing in his diary and that he only writes his personal troubles in his diary. He separates his positive triumphs and writes them in what he says his 'dictaphone'.
This already gave us a glimpse of how we use diaries and that we only show our weak and vulnerable to our diaries which were one of the main points that we wanted to focus on.
Mean Girls
Opening up the Burn Book ('Mean Girls', 2004)
In Mean Girls, the Burn Book plays an important element in the movie. It is a secret book where Regina George writes mean things about the people in her school. She never reveals to them except for her close friends (The Plastics).
This is somewhat similar to our topic as we wanted to show how far people could go with their diaries.
Daniel Sloss: Live Shows Freedom Writers
'Daniel Sloss: Live Shows', 2018 'Freedom Writers', 2007
Other reference materials that we used as our introduction were short clips from Daniel Sloss: Live Shows and Freedom Writers. Both of these clips showed the vulnerability of their diaries. They revealed the contents of it, on one-hand in a comedic way but the other was much more sorrowful as the character recounts events while reading his journal.
Both of these clips have very different emotional value to it which is why I wanted to include them in the video essay as it would bring the viewer on an emotional rollercoaster instead of being monotonous throughout.
All of these reference materials set the tone for the rest of our video essay as it already explained to the viewers the different views and aspects to how one writes in their diaries.
The Diary of a Young Girl, 2002
Anne Frank is probably one of the most famous diaries out there as it is a collection of her experience while in hiding during the Holocaust. This diary was the perfect research material for our visual essay as it brought forth the narrative.
In the book, there was a short excerpt that I thought perfectly summarised the visual essay:
Anne Frank explains why she started a diary (The Diary of a Young Girl, 2002, p. 6-7)
In this excerpt, Anne Frank explains why she started a diary. She exploits her true feelings regarding her existence among her families and friends and what I really took away from this was that she felt really lonely. She mentions how she is loved many but deep down she still feels lonely.
This excerpt from the book spoke volumes and I personally was touched by it. It was only here that Anne showed her true colours. Even with people around her, she still felt the safeness and comfort when she wrote in her diary and that I think that already gives a great context of what we wanted to convey through our visual essay - vulnerability.
Research - editing style
During our group meetings, we also discussed how we were going to edit the visual essay. Editing plays a huge role in our visual essay. It could affect the rhythm and flow of our visual essay and how we wanted to convey our message.
At one of our group meetings, Yang did some research on some video essays that we could take as reference. She found a video done by TED Talk titled "Why the pencil is perfect".
TED, 2018
The speaker of the video is Caroline Weaver, a pencil shop owner. She talks about the history of the pencil and how its design came to be. In the video, there were a couple of shots that inspired how we were going to film our B-roll shots.
Video screenshots (Why the pencil is perfect, 2018)
While Caroline was explaining how the design of the pencil came to be, shots of the pencil being made in the factory were shown. The way they filmed it was very smooth and seamless with the added sound effects which greatly inspired us to film our diaries in a professional setting too as we felt that it would enhance the story and narrative of our visual essay.
Writing the script
Within our team, I was the most proficient in English which naturally I volunteered to write the script for our visual essay. Writing the script was kind of tricky at first as there were sentiments that our team wanted to send across. The two main factors that we knew we wanted to include was Anne Frank's backstory and our own personal way of writing diaries.
Voice-over script for our visual essay
When writing the script, I wanted to start with a statement that reflected other people's thoughts towards diaries and how we generally perceive it, slowly easing into Anne Frank's portion of the visual essay which took up the main chunk of the script. We wanted to leave how we write our diaries as the last section of the script. Therefore, I wrote a monologue that breaks down the simplicity and beauty of diaries. Rather than speaking the technicalities of diaries, I wanted to add an emotional aspect to our visual essay, therefore I wrote some of my personal conceptions towards diaries.
Filming
Our team arranged a day to head out together to vintage markets at Brick Lane. We wanted to film some B-roll for the final portion of the video which was our personal take in writing diaries.
Walking down Brick Lane and goofing around at the vintage market
The whole objective of this trip was to just have fun and experience the vintage culture as much as possible. I rented a DSLR camera from the Kit room and filmed some shots of us in the vintage markets shopping and stuff. At the end of the day, we would go back home and write a diary entry about our day at the vintage market. We would film ourselves creating our diary entry which would be included in our visual essay. Other than showing historical facts about diaries, we wanted to add our own personal experience too. We felt that adding our own personal diaries into the video would make it more substantial.
Since all of us have different ways of writing diaries, we delegated our roles in the diary making process according to that. We did not want to show the same way of writing diaries in our visual essay as everyone does it differently. Therefore, this was how we split up the work:
Blanca - photo collage (she likes to cut up loose pieces throughout her day and paste it in her diary, therefore we decided to have a diary that is image-based)
Yang - illustration/doodles (Yang is very strong doodling and illustrating)
Lucy - vlogging (Lucy mentioned that she likes taking videos on her trips which are a form of diary making, therefore she would use her iPhone to film our day at the vintage market and the footage would be included in our visual essay)
Joanne - writing (I keep a personal diary of my thoughts and it mainly consists of words, this is a very common way of diary making which we definitely wanted to include our visual essay)
After our trip to the vintage markets at Brick Lane, we went back home and filmed ourselves creating our diaries. Our team booked the copy stand and 3D photography studio for another day as we wanted to film footage of our completed diaries in a professional setting.
Filming our finished diaries at the 3D photography studio
We filmed our diaries in several different angles. At the 3D photography studio, we filmed more close-up shots of our diaries since we had more freedom with the camera as it handheld. We would film cross-sections, close-up details, etc. so that we could get as much as B-roll footage for our visual essay.
As for the copy stand, we wanted to film flat lay shots and the contents of the diary in a much more professional style. Our team had a shot in mind where we wanted to film a flat lay of many diaries. Yang made a quick animation of how we wanted to film that particular shot:
Her idea was to have the diaries multiply by itself. However, on the day where we want to shoot that scene in the copy stand studio, we realised that placing the diaries while having the camera rolling would fit the tone of our video much more. he cut between shots in the storyboard animation was too fast. We wanted to make this shot feel smoother, therefore, instead of cutting between multiple shots of diaries, we decided to film just one long shot of placing different diaries into the frame.
Editing
Editing in Premiere Pro
When we finally got all our footage, it was time to edit. Initially, I was a little lost on the whole structure of the video. Though our team knew that we wanted to start the video by using footage from films and TV shows that mentioned about diaries, it was how we eased into introducing the main focus of our visual essay. Which was why the voice-over played a huge role in the emotional aspect of the essay.
As much as our team had a rough idea of the structure of our video, executing it was the hard part. We knew that at the beginning we wanted to add a somewhat vintage feel to our visual essay since our topic was about diaries. Diaries hold a timeless feel to it, therefore we felt a retro/vintage style for our visual essay was the most fitting.
Since we already had the B-roll footage that we took of our completed diaries and at the vintage market, it felt more fitting to put that at the end as we wanted to end the video on a high note. The middle section of our video would mainly be about Anne Frank.
As I got into the momentum of editing, I realised we did not have enough substantial footage to back up the voice-over. There was something missing in the middle section of our video which took up the main chunk of our video. That was when I had nowhere left to look but Youtube.
Figure 6. Boycott of Jews is Enforced by Nazis. (British Movietone, 2015)
To accompany the part of the voice-over where we talk about Anne Frank, I found two videos that fit perfectly. The first one (refer to Figure 6) which is a video from an archival channel on Youtube called British Movietone. The video shows old film footage during the Nazi era which I thought fit the narrative of Anne Frank since her situation happened during that time period.
Figure 7. Otto Frank talks Anne's diary. (Anne Frank House, 2009)
Giving a third-party perspective to diaries was crucial too. As much as we keep diaries to ourselves, the fear of having being read by someone else comes with it. Therefore, the idea of showing a snippet of Otto Frank's thoughts after he read Anne's diary came naturally. It gave a fresh new perspective on our visual essay as we not only focused on how one translates their thoughts but also how the effects of finally removing the veil of confidentiality and seeing the reaction of closed ones realising the person's true thoughts and behaviour.
Figure 8. Image by author (Frank, O. and Pressler, M., 2002)
After adding in those 2 clips, I realised I still needed more footage that would carry the voice-over further. The footage we had just did felt right for this section of the video, so on a wimp, I took out my iPhone and filmed the quotes that I underlined from Anne Frank's book (refer to Figure 7).
I chose this excerpt because she explains the reason why she kept a diary. It perfectly summed up why we keep diaries in the first place, especially for someone who went through such a tough time.
Throughout the whole video, standardising the transitions between clips was crucial. When I was switching between major or pivotal moments in the essay, I would use light leaks. But if I'm cutting between clips I would not use any transition.
As I felt like I was reaching the climax of the video, the momentum picked up. I kind of already have an idea of how to edit the last section of the video.
Editing - Music
Even before I started editing the video, I already knew the kind of music that would fit the video perfectly. "Don't You Forget About Me" by The Simple Minds was the perfect way to ease into the introduction of the visual essay as it denotes how we use diaries to write down our memories, therefore the song choice.
I mainly chose the soundtrack from the movie "Her" for the Anne Frank part of the section and the ending section of the video. The soundtrack that was playing during Anne Frank's part is called "Some Other Place" by Arcade Fire. This track has a melancholic yet relaxing feeling which I thought fit the sorrowful part of the video.
As the video slowly progressed to the last section of the video, which was the montage of us at the vintage market, I used the soundtrack "Photography" by Arcade Fire. It is a soft piano track yet a happy-go-lucky vibe to it. It was not too in your face, therefore the music choice for the montage was fitting.
Overall Direction for the Editing Style
To perfectly sum up the editing process, it was momentum. Our team knew that we wanted to make clear visual cues that distinguish between each section of the video. Introduction > Middle > Ending. Having these sections distinguishable yet creating a seamless transition between each arc was no simpleton. Putting them into place was the greatest challenge. Translating our ideas into the actual form is easier said than done.
As mentioned before, the editing style was heavily inspired by Nerdwriter1. The way he eventually reveals the main topic of his video essay was what our team wanted to focus on.
1st iteration
1st version of our visual essay
After finishing the 1st cut of the video, I showed it to Dinara to get her opinion on it since having a third-party to watch it would give us a different take on how we could improve our video.
She said she thoroughly enjoyed the video and that she loved it. However, she felt that Otto Frank's interview part was too long and that I should cut it down as she said halfway through Otto's interview she was starting to losing interest. I showed the video to my teammates and they said the same thing too. That was when I realised I had to relook at that part of the video. Yang suggested to cut down that part of the video because it was too long-winded.
2nd iteration
2nd version of our visual essay
Looking back at the feedback, I rewatched Otto's interview. To be very frank, I did not watch the whole interview because I was in a rush to add it into the edit. However, as I watched Otto's interview, he started to talk about how shocked he was when he realised Anne's true feelings. When he mentioned that it felt right to include that in than the initial part.
The initial cut of the interview was very long-winded. Otto talked about how he found out about Anne's diary which did not have much sentimental value. It kind of broke the flow of the visual essay as it was at its heightened point, but because of the length of the interview, the viewers start to lose their interest which I totally understand.
Therefore, I literally cut down that video by half and the 2nd version of the visual essay was shortened by 30 seconds which is a considerable amount of footage.
Class presentation + feedback (2nd iteration)
Before the day of presenting our visual essays, I showed the 2nd cut to the team and they said they preferred this version. Yang said it had better pace and it did not feel so long-winded. It felt just right.
On the day of the presentation, our team was the first one to present as all of our members are present. After the presentation, our tutor, Katerina said that she liked it and she asked us how we felt. I think our team was satisfied with the final result as we felt it had substantial evidence of our topic yet we had our own input to it too.
Katerina gave us feedback on how she was a little confused with the transition between Anne Frank's section to our montage of us at the vintage market. She felt that it was too abrupt and that it might be confusing for viewers who are watching it as they do not know what is the purpose of having that montage at the end.
Team discussion for the final iteration
Our team came together to discuss what we could improve to that section of the video. Honestly, we felt that everything was in place and there should not be any more changes, however, after rewatching the video multiple times we agreed with Katerina's feedback and decided to add something so that the transition between Anne Frank's section to the montage at the end was smoother.
At first, our team wanted to draw something that would help illustrate why we were showing the montage, however, we could not think of anything, therefore we decided to just take a picture of one of Yang's diary and Anne Frank's book side by side so at least it indicates to viewers that we are transitioning to the next section of our video which is the montage. We knew we had to add in an extra sentence in our voice-over as it would seem pretty weird if we just had an image of the two books side by side without any context.
Edit of our voice-over
After adding in that sentence, I went back home and recorded the voice-over for that section. Though our team discussed to use just an image, I realised it would break the flow of our visual essay and it just did not fit in. Therefore, I filmed using my iPhone and have Anne Frank's book in the frame for a few seconds and then I place Yang's diary beside it. We did not really have the luxury to go back to the copy stand to film it properly so I just filmed it on my table.
Once done, I added it into the timeline and edited the video accordingly with the voice-over.
Final iteration + thoughts
The final version of our visual essay
This is the final result of our visual essay. The whole process for this project was pretty strenuous as there were other projects that we were working on too. Our team knew that the story was very important. As much as we wanted to talk about the topic that we chose, introducing a story into the essay was the main challenge.
There were many ways that we could have approached this, we could have easily created a very abstract visual essay of random images and montages of diaries and such but from the get-go, our team realised that the content needs to speak for itself and we did not want to be too experimental with it since it was an essay in a sense.
Personally, I felt pressured because I was probably the only person in our team who knew how to edit and was pretty proficient at English. Therefore, having to communicate with my team members whose first language was Chinese was a little hard at first. But as time progresses, we could understand each other and synergise well together. Though we were clueless at the start, we slowly gained momentum and was able to bounce ideas back on forth while we were planning.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project. Creating a video was definitely not our strongest forte but with a good foundation + story, it brought forth a project that we were all proud of.
Bibliography
Anne Frank House (2009) Otto Frank talks Anne’s Diary. Date uploaded: 23 September 2009
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWRBinP7ans&t=31s
(Accessed: 15 November 2019).
‘Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner’. (2014). Suits, Season 4, Episode 2. USA Network, 18 June 2014.
Bolger N., Davis A. and Rafaeli E. (2003) DIARY METHODS: Capturing Life as it is Lived. Annu. Rev. Psychol. New York University.
British Movietone (2015) Boycott of Jews if Enforced by Nazis. Date uploaded: 21 July 2015
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtYR0KrLi4 (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
Daniel Sloss: Live Shows. (2018). Available at: Netflix. (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
Frank, O. and Pressler, M. (ed.) (2002) Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl. London: Puffin Books. The Definite Edition
Freedom Writers. (2007). Directed by Richard LaGravenese [Feature film]. United States: Paramount Pictures.
Mean Girls. (2004). Directed by Mark Waters [Feature film]. United States: Paramount Pictures.
Nerdwriter1 (2019) Succession: Say What You Mean. 23 October 2019.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REhlyvtiIhQ&t=3s (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
TED (2018) Why the pencil is perfect. March 2018.
Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/caroline_weaver_why_the_pencil_is_perfect
(Accessed: 3rd December 2019).
In groups of 3 or 4, create a video essay or experimental documentary. Based on the theme of ‘Collection’. This should be between three and five minutes and should include visuals and voiceover (that you produce).
A team of 4 consisting of me, Lucy, Blanca and Yang, we brainstormed on some ideas of what topic we should focus on. At first, we were a little dumbfounded when we were given the project. We were given such a short period of time to come up with a topic and was quite worried about whether we could meet the criteria at first. Creating a visual essay from scratch was a little intimidating because we have never done it before but I was excited. I personally enjoy watching visual essays on Youtube.
Brainstorming
Figure 1. Mind map
Figure 2. From Yang's iPad, our team brainstorming ideas
We started drawing a mind map of stuff that we have collected previously from our Collection Project. Just jotting down random topics that could possibly come to mind (refer to Figure 1 & 2). Our team knew that our main goal was to not just create an educational video essay, but also an essay that relates back to us which was how we birthed the idea of creating a video essay about journals. Since all of us live far away from our family and friends, we feel lonely sometimes and do not really know who to talk to so we would write diaries about our thoughts and feelings since we do not know who to vent it to. We wanted to translate our sentiments towards diary-making and the beauty behind it.
Figure 3. Initial ideas
Our initial idea of doing a video essay about journals soon faded away as we realised that our topic is too generic. We branched out to what a journal means to us and realised that there are a lot of aspects to it (refer to Figure 3). Journals come in many different forms such as writing, photos, singing, etc. There is no fixed medium in how you can journal and that was when we realised we had to narrow it down.
Vulnerability was a key factor that we wanted to show in our video essay. Rather than just spitting facts about our topic, we wanted to add our own personal touch.
Figure 4. Developing our ideas. Choosing our niche.
Our team decided to focus on diaries as our main topic for our video as we felt personally connected to the topic, it felt right to work upon something that touches us too. We started with creating a structure and what type of content we wanted to include (refer to Figure 3). At this point in time, we were still quite confused about how we should execute our video. There was an uncertainty as we were spitting out ideas and research content. How are we going to compose all of this into a 3-5 minute video? The main challenge was translating our ideas written on paper into a visual form.
As someone who was appointed as the editor and also has had a little bit of filmmaking experience back when I was in Singapore, I knew that I wanted to approach this visual essay in a way that is educational yet relatable for the viewers. Instead of starting the video with facts and examples of diaries, I wanted to include movies and TV shows that made references to diaries. Let the clips speak for itself which would ease us into the introduction of our topic.
Research - looking for inspiration & references
Inspiration for our video essay:
Video structure and format inspired by Nerdwriter1 from Youtube (Nerdwriter1, 2019)
Nerdwriter1 from Youtube is someone who has heavily inspired the way we structured our video. He mainly does video essays on art history, film and pop culture. In most of his videos, he always starts with a clip from the film/topic that is related to what he is going to talk about. Instead of him speaking and reading off the script, he lets the clip speak for itself. It would catch the attention of the viewer and allow them to get a grasp of the context of the video essay first before moving on into the essay. In this particular video titled, "Succession: Say What You Mean" discusses how the show Succession plays with words. There is a lot of dialogue being said in this video, between the characters in the TV show which affected the way the video essay was edited.
Screenshot from the video essay "Succession: Say What You Mean" (Nerdwriter1, 2019)
An example would be at the 1:06 mark in the video, Evan (creator of the Nerdwriter1 channel), talks about how "words are just nothing complicated airflow" and he cuts to a shot of helicopters flying in the TV show which was a clever way of editing as he was talking about something that was not relevant to the imagery but because of the usage of the word "airflow" he chose a clip from the TV show that shows literal helicopters and I think that kind of bounces off the narrative of the video essay even better. It was such a simple edit but I thought it reflected very well on the narration of the video which was why this video essay has greatly inspired our own video essay too.
Films & TV Shows:
Suits
A scene from Season 4 of Suits where writing diaries was mentioned ('Suits', 2014)
With that said, we researched what movies that we could use as a reference for our video essay. Our teammate, Blanca, happened to stumble upon a scene in Seasons 4 of Suits where diaries were mentioned, and I felt like it was a good introduction for the video essay.
In this particular clip, Louis, who is lying stomach down on the couch, is writing in his diary when his co-worker, Katrina walks in on him and asks him what he is doing. He proceeds on to explain that he is writing in his diary and that he only writes his personal troubles in his diary. He separates his positive triumphs and writes them in what he says his 'dictaphone'.
This already gave us a glimpse of how we use diaries and that we only show our weak and vulnerable to our diaries which were one of the main points that we wanted to focus on.
Mean Girls
Opening up the Burn Book ('Mean Girls', 2004)
In Mean Girls, the Burn Book plays an important element in the movie. It is a secret book where Regina George writes mean things about the people in her school. She never reveals to them except for her close friends (The Plastics).
This is somewhat similar to our topic as we wanted to show how far people could go with their diaries.
Daniel Sloss: Live Shows Freedom Writers
'Daniel Sloss: Live Shows', 2018 'Freedom Writers', 2007
Other reference materials that we used as our introduction were short clips from Daniel Sloss: Live Shows and Freedom Writers. Both of these clips showed the vulnerability of their diaries. They revealed the contents of it, on one-hand in a comedic way but the other was much more sorrowful as the character recounts events while reading his journal.
Both of these clips have very different emotional value to it which is why I wanted to include them in the video essay as it would bring the viewer on an emotional rollercoaster instead of being monotonous throughout.
All of these reference materials set the tone for the rest of our video essay as it already explained to the viewers the different views and aspects to how one writes in their diaries.
The Diary of a Young Girl, 2002
Anne Frank is probably one of the most famous diaries out there as it is a collection of her experience while in hiding during the Holocaust. This diary was the perfect research material for our visual essay as it brought forth the narrative.
In the book, there was a short excerpt that I thought perfectly summarised the visual essay:
Anne Frank explains why she started a diary (The Diary of a Young Girl, 2002, p. 6-7)
In this excerpt, Anne Frank explains why she started a diary. She exploits her true feelings regarding her existence among her families and friends and what I really took away from this was that she felt really lonely. She mentions how she is loved many but deep down she still feels lonely.
This excerpt from the book spoke volumes and I personally was touched by it. It was only here that Anne showed her true colours. Even with people around her, she still felt the safeness and comfort when she wrote in her diary and that I think that already gives a great context of what we wanted to convey through our visual essay - vulnerability.
Research - editing style
During our group meetings, we also discussed how we were going to edit the visual essay. Editing plays a huge role in our visual essay. It could affect the rhythm and flow of our visual essay and how we wanted to convey our message.
At one of our group meetings, Yang did some research on some video essays that we could take as reference. She found a video done by TED Talk titled "Why the pencil is perfect".
TED, 2018
The speaker of the video is Caroline Weaver, a pencil shop owner. She talks about the history of the pencil and how its design came to be. In the video, there were a couple of shots that inspired how we were going to film our B-roll shots.
Video screenshots (Why the pencil is perfect, 2018)
While Caroline was explaining how the design of the pencil came to be, shots of the pencil being made in the factory were shown. The way they filmed it was very smooth and seamless with the added sound effects which greatly inspired us to film our diaries in a professional setting too as we felt that it would enhance the story and narrative of our visual essay.
Writing the script
Within our team, I was the most proficient in English which naturally I volunteered to write the script for our visual essay. Writing the script was kind of tricky at first as there were sentiments that our team wanted to send across. The two main factors that we knew we wanted to include was Anne Frank's backstory and our own personal way of writing diaries.
Voice-over script for our visual essay
When writing the script, I wanted to start with a statement that reflected other people's thoughts towards diaries and how we generally perceive it, slowly easing into Anne Frank's portion of the visual essay which took up the main chunk of the script. We wanted to leave how we write our diaries as the last section of the script. Therefore, I wrote a monologue that breaks down the simplicity and beauty of diaries. Rather than speaking the technicalities of diaries, I wanted to add an emotional aspect to our visual essay, therefore I wrote some of my personal conceptions towards diaries.
Filming
Our team arranged a day to head out together to vintage markets at Brick Lane. We wanted to film some B-roll for the final portion of the video which was our personal take in writing diaries.
Walking down Brick Lane and goofing around at the vintage market
The whole objective of this trip was to just have fun and experience the vintage culture as much as possible. I rented a DSLR camera from the Kit room and filmed some shots of us in the vintage markets shopping and stuff. At the end of the day, we would go back home and write a diary entry about our day at the vintage market. We would film ourselves creating our diary entry which would be included in our visual essay. Other than showing historical facts about diaries, we wanted to add our own personal experience too. We felt that adding our own personal diaries into the video would make it more substantial.
Since all of us have different ways of writing diaries, we delegated our roles in the diary making process according to that. We did not want to show the same way of writing diaries in our visual essay as everyone does it differently. Therefore, this was how we split up the work:
Blanca - photo collage (she likes to cut up loose pieces throughout her day and paste it in her diary, therefore we decided to have a diary that is image-based)
Yang - illustration/doodles (Yang is very strong doodling and illustrating)
Lucy - vlogging (Lucy mentioned that she likes taking videos on her trips which are a form of diary making, therefore she would use her iPhone to film our day at the vintage market and the footage would be included in our visual essay)
Joanne - writing (I keep a personal diary of my thoughts and it mainly consists of words, this is a very common way of diary making which we definitely wanted to include our visual essay)
After our trip to the vintage markets at Brick Lane, we went back home and filmed ourselves creating our diaries. Our team booked the copy stand and 3D photography studio for another day as we wanted to film footage of our completed diaries in a professional setting.
Filming our finished diaries at the 3D photography studio
We filmed our diaries in several different angles. At the 3D photography studio, we filmed more close-up shots of our diaries since we had more freedom with the camera as it handheld. We would film cross-sections, close-up details, etc. so that we could get as much as B-roll footage for our visual essay.
As for the copy stand, we wanted to film flat lay shots and the contents of the diary in a much more professional style. Our team had a shot in mind where we wanted to film a flat lay of many diaries. Yang made a quick animation of how we wanted to film that particular shot:
Storyboard animation by Yang (done on an iPad)
Editing
Editing in Premiere Pro
When we finally got all our footage, it was time to edit. Initially, I was a little lost on the whole structure of the video. Though our team knew that we wanted to start the video by using footage from films and TV shows that mentioned about diaries, it was how we eased into introducing the main focus of our visual essay. Which was why the voice-over played a huge role in the emotional aspect of the essay.
As much as our team had a rough idea of the structure of our video, executing it was the hard part. We knew that at the beginning we wanted to add a somewhat vintage feel to our visual essay since our topic was about diaries. Diaries hold a timeless feel to it, therefore we felt a retro/vintage style for our visual essay was the most fitting.
Since we already had the B-roll footage that we took of our completed diaries and at the vintage market, it felt more fitting to put that at the end as we wanted to end the video on a high note. The middle section of our video would mainly be about Anne Frank.
As I got into the momentum of editing, I realised we did not have enough substantial footage to back up the voice-over. There was something missing in the middle section of our video which took up the main chunk of our video. That was when I had nowhere left to look but Youtube.
Figure 6. Boycott of Jews is Enforced by Nazis. (British Movietone, 2015)
To accompany the part of the voice-over where we talk about Anne Frank, I found two videos that fit perfectly. The first one (refer to Figure 6) which is a video from an archival channel on Youtube called British Movietone. The video shows old film footage during the Nazi era which I thought fit the narrative of Anne Frank since her situation happened during that time period.
Figure 7. Otto Frank talks Anne's diary. (Anne Frank House, 2009)
Giving a third-party perspective to diaries was crucial too. As much as we keep diaries to ourselves, the fear of having being read by someone else comes with it. Therefore, the idea of showing a snippet of Otto Frank's thoughts after he read Anne's diary came naturally. It gave a fresh new perspective on our visual essay as we not only focused on how one translates their thoughts but also how the effects of finally removing the veil of confidentiality and seeing the reaction of closed ones realising the person's true thoughts and behaviour.
Figure 8. Image by author (Frank, O. and Pressler, M., 2002)
After adding in those 2 clips, I realised I still needed more footage that would carry the voice-over further. The footage we had just did felt right for this section of the video, so on a wimp, I took out my iPhone and filmed the quotes that I underlined from Anne Frank's book (refer to Figure 7).
I chose this excerpt because she explains the reason why she kept a diary. It perfectly summed up why we keep diaries in the first place, especially for someone who went through such a tough time.
Throughout the whole video, standardising the transitions between clips was crucial. When I was switching between major or pivotal moments in the essay, I would use light leaks. But if I'm cutting between clips I would not use any transition.
As I felt like I was reaching the climax of the video, the momentum picked up. I kind of already have an idea of how to edit the last section of the video.
Editing - Music
Even before I started editing the video, I already knew the kind of music that would fit the video perfectly. "Don't You Forget About Me" by The Simple Minds was the perfect way to ease into the introduction of the visual essay as it denotes how we use diaries to write down our memories, therefore the song choice.
I mainly chose the soundtrack from the movie "Her" for the Anne Frank part of the section and the ending section of the video. The soundtrack that was playing during Anne Frank's part is called "Some Other Place" by Arcade Fire. This track has a melancholic yet relaxing feeling which I thought fit the sorrowful part of the video.
As the video slowly progressed to the last section of the video, which was the montage of us at the vintage market, I used the soundtrack "Photography" by Arcade Fire. It is a soft piano track yet a happy-go-lucky vibe to it. It was not too in your face, therefore the music choice for the montage was fitting.
Overall Direction for the Editing Style
To perfectly sum up the editing process, it was momentum. Our team knew that we wanted to make clear visual cues that distinguish between each section of the video. Introduction > Middle > Ending. Having these sections distinguishable yet creating a seamless transition between each arc was no simpleton. Putting them into place was the greatest challenge. Translating our ideas into the actual form is easier said than done.
As mentioned before, the editing style was heavily inspired by Nerdwriter1. The way he eventually reveals the main topic of his video essay was what our team wanted to focus on.
1st iteration
1st version of our visual essay
After finishing the 1st cut of the video, I showed it to Dinara to get her opinion on it since having a third-party to watch it would give us a different take on how we could improve our video.
She said she thoroughly enjoyed the video and that she loved it. However, she felt that Otto Frank's interview part was too long and that I should cut it down as she said halfway through Otto's interview she was starting to losing interest. I showed the video to my teammates and they said the same thing too. That was when I realised I had to relook at that part of the video. Yang suggested to cut down that part of the video because it was too long-winded.
2nd iteration
2nd version of our visual essay
Looking back at the feedback, I rewatched Otto's interview. To be very frank, I did not watch the whole interview because I was in a rush to add it into the edit. However, as I watched Otto's interview, he started to talk about how shocked he was when he realised Anne's true feelings. When he mentioned that it felt right to include that in than the initial part.
The initial cut of the interview was very long-winded. Otto talked about how he found out about Anne's diary which did not have much sentimental value. It kind of broke the flow of the visual essay as it was at its heightened point, but because of the length of the interview, the viewers start to lose their interest which I totally understand.
Therefore, I literally cut down that video by half and the 2nd version of the visual essay was shortened by 30 seconds which is a considerable amount of footage.
Class presentation + feedback (2nd iteration)
Before the day of presenting our visual essays, I showed the 2nd cut to the team and they said they preferred this version. Yang said it had better pace and it did not feel so long-winded. It felt just right.
On the day of the presentation, our team was the first one to present as all of our members are present. After the presentation, our tutor, Katerina said that she liked it and she asked us how we felt. I think our team was satisfied with the final result as we felt it had substantial evidence of our topic yet we had our own input to it too.
Katerina gave us feedback on how she was a little confused with the transition between Anne Frank's section to our montage of us at the vintage market. She felt that it was too abrupt and that it might be confusing for viewers who are watching it as they do not know what is the purpose of having that montage at the end.
Team discussion for the final iteration
Our team came together to discuss what we could improve to that section of the video. Honestly, we felt that everything was in place and there should not be any more changes, however, after rewatching the video multiple times we agreed with Katerina's feedback and decided to add something so that the transition between Anne Frank's section to the montage at the end was smoother.
At first, our team wanted to draw something that would help illustrate why we were showing the montage, however, we could not think of anything, therefore we decided to just take a picture of one of Yang's diary and Anne Frank's book side by side so at least it indicates to viewers that we are transitioning to the next section of our video which is the montage. We knew we had to add in an extra sentence in our voice-over as it would seem pretty weird if we just had an image of the two books side by side without any context.
Edit of our voice-over
After adding in that sentence, I went back home and recorded the voice-over for that section. Though our team discussed to use just an image, I realised it would break the flow of our visual essay and it just did not fit in. Therefore, I filmed using my iPhone and have Anne Frank's book in the frame for a few seconds and then I place Yang's diary beside it. We did not really have the luxury to go back to the copy stand to film it properly so I just filmed it on my table.
Once done, I added it into the timeline and edited the video accordingly with the voice-over.
Final iteration + thoughts
The final version of our visual essay
This is the final result of our visual essay. The whole process for this project was pretty strenuous as there were other projects that we were working on too. Our team knew that the story was very important. As much as we wanted to talk about the topic that we chose, introducing a story into the essay was the main challenge.
There were many ways that we could have approached this, we could have easily created a very abstract visual essay of random images and montages of diaries and such but from the get-go, our team realised that the content needs to speak for itself and we did not want to be too experimental with it since it was an essay in a sense.
Personally, I felt pressured because I was probably the only person in our team who knew how to edit and was pretty proficient at English. Therefore, having to communicate with my team members whose first language was Chinese was a little hard at first. But as time progresses, we could understand each other and synergise well together. Though we were clueless at the start, we slowly gained momentum and was able to bounce ideas back on forth while we were planning.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this project. Creating a video was definitely not our strongest forte but with a good foundation + story, it brought forth a project that we were all proud of.
Bibliography
Anne Frank House (2009) Otto Frank talks Anne’s Diary. Date uploaded: 23 September 2009
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWRBinP7ans&t=31s
(Accessed: 15 November 2019).
‘Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner’. (2014). Suits, Season 4, Episode 2. USA Network, 18 June 2014.
Bolger N., Davis A. and Rafaeli E. (2003) DIARY METHODS: Capturing Life as it is Lived. Annu. Rev. Psychol. New York University.
British Movietone (2015) Boycott of Jews if Enforced by Nazis. Date uploaded: 21 July 2015
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEtYR0KrLi4 (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
Daniel Sloss: Live Shows. (2018). Available at: Netflix. (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
Frank, O. and Pressler, M. (ed.) (2002) Anne Frank The Diary of a Young Girl. London: Puffin Books. The Definite Edition
Mean Girls. (2004). Directed by Mark Waters [Feature film]. United States: Paramount Pictures.
Nerdwriter1 (2019) Succession: Say What You Mean. 23 October 2019.
Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REhlyvtiIhQ&t=3s (Accessed: 15 November 2019).
TED (2018) Why the pencil is perfect. March 2018.
Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/caroline_weaver_why_the_pencil_is_perfect
(Accessed: 3rd December 2019).
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