Living In A Video - Part 1

Within Harvard's VES concentration there are two tracks: studio and film. I was a studio concentrator, with a focus in painting. However, VES concentrators were required to take a "crossover" course, or a course in the other track, so I took an intro video-making course called Life Stories, taught by Alfred Guzzetti. Since there are a lot of technical things to learn in filmmaking, the course involved learning more of the fundamental elements -- how to use the camera, log and capture clips, and edit. We also discussed the process of telling a story. Alfred tried to teach us to be very selective in editing and critical in deciding what needed to be presented to tell a comprehensive and compelling story. Often we were limited by what footage we actually had, and I learned that through editing you can construct an alternate reality.

In the video course, we did three projects. The first involved asking someone to tell a story while you captured it on video, and then using simple edits to streamline the story. I asked Peter Emerson, a resident scholar at Kirkland House (the house in which I lived for three years) and who lived in our entryway. It became a bonding experience and Peter has become a mentor figure for me over the past several years.

For the second project, we were asked to create a video diary.

For the final project, we were able to choose the subject of our video. I was wrestling with my fear of uncertainty in pursuing a career in fashion, so I announced to the class that I would be doing a video which explored this subject. Luckily, one of my classmates, Nancy Chang, didn't have an idea for a project so we worked on my idea together. Nancy had taken a couple of photography courses and had a good eye. The video centered around my involvement in Eleganza as well as my quest for an internship in Paris. Some of it is a bit embarrassing to show now, five years later, especially since it's a very basic project (remember, this was an intro course), but the video has sentimental value. We spent many long nights editing the project, coming out when the sun rose.

Here it is: