Moving Image: Video Analysis #2

Rachel Soh | The Journey to Defend the Throne

Title: THE JOURNEY to Defend the Throne

Starring: Parris Goebel & Royal Family

Director/Editor: Rachel Soh

Music: Matt Corby - Resolution

Theme: Short film, almost a documentary except without voice over.

Purpose: Following the Royal Family and their journey to compete at the World Hip Hop Championships to defend their first place title for the third consecutive year. This short film takes you behind the scenes of the world renowned hiphop crew and gives a glimpse of what it took for these dancers to 'defend their throne'.

I really admire Rachels work. She knows how to capture beautiful shots. The whole film is simply made up of various shots and camera angles, yet the colour and vibrance of her shots are very eye-catching and interesting to watch.

 

She also uses shallow depth of field in all of these shots above. In the first two, the focus is on an inanimate object while there are people in the background are moving but blurred out. In the bottom two shots, the focus is on moving people. The third is of a member of the Royal Family writing on their wrist band and the last shot is of Parris Goebel with an excited look on her face. Again, Parris is framed by the people burred out around her creating a frame inside the frame.

I liked this shot because she filmed Parris practicing in the mirror but at first glance, I thought it was edited to look mirrored. I like this idea of using the mirrors to your advantage when filming.

I want to be able to use a variety of different depths of field in my own work. I also really like the idea of documentary videography. This video has inspired me to follow my dance company on our journey towards World Supremacy Battlegrounds. I could take my camera to every practice and document whats going on. I have previously done it for Regionals but I didn't have enough footage because I was too busy dancing. It might be a better idea to get somebody else to film us while we dance because I don't have time to get good shots as well as keeping up with learning the choreography at practices.