Déjà vu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOp-S0n6Ma4

I initially could not think of an idea for the final project. I debated doing the verb list since I had done poorly on Micro Project Five, and wanted to try and fix my problems with it and improve upon my poor ideas and execution in Micro Project Five. But, I decided I wanted to do something that wasn't Photoshop and was different. This led me to think about what looks "cool" on video. One of my first ideas was reversing the video to make it look different and cool, something no one had done before in our class and a rare idea I doubted anyone would come up with. So I searched backwards videos on YouTube, and the most popular video type was backwards eating. Backwards eating was interesting and confirmed my idea that I wanted to do a backwards video. But the idea was taken further when Ben Korobkin told me he wanted to work together. We thought it would put an interesting spin on the backwards idea, by working together. He decided that doing everything we did backwards, but still making it appear as if it was possible in the forward direction also allowed us to add a creative spin the project. Not only was everything we did together and backwards, but it appears like it was possible in the correct order, and the goal was to see if the viewer could tell everything was done in reverse but played in reverse, so that it appeared in the correct direction. 

During the project, Ben and I had initially thought we could just film everything we did, but the choice to do only things that could be done forward and backwards was chosen by Ben, and later I decided that would add an artist touch and was a good idea. We knew right away to do the building and destruction of the AEV, which is an engineering project that we have been doing for about the past two months together, along with two other guys. The second idea we had was to do some sort of CSE programming. We are both in introduction to C++ programming and we decided we should write a program that says "Hello" and "Goodbye" in order to do something cool. Unfortunately, the final project comes out blurry when the words are being displayed, which is unfortunate, but I tried to fix by slowing down the video. Our third idea was leaving for class every day, so we recorded getting on the elevator and leaving our rooms, preparing for the morning. This turned out fairly well. This is when we got stuck though, because the only other class we are in together is this class, and couldn't do anything besides this project together. So we brainstormed and since he is violent, we decided that we should hit each other, since we often disagree on things, and it can get violent. Lastly, we decided since we both enjoy football, we should throw one back and forth to each other. This was hard to achieve but came out better than I thought it would. 

My final thoughts on the project are that I think it turned out very well. I think it is hard to tell everything was done backwards, but there is definitely something off about everything we do, but I like how it worked out.  The idea is also very unique, something I don't think anyone has come up yet in this class or in general. It shows how Ben and I's lives are intertwined and everything we do impacts each other. The importance of what we do together is emphasized by the fact that every video only has Ben and I doing things together. The video making sense back and forth is my favorite part, and it will be interesting if anyone can tell that is what is happen during the video and not that we just look awkward. This final project is different enough from my other projects that I am happy with it. Ben contributed to the idea of forward and back, while I had the original idea of backwards in the first place, and our ideas complimented each other’s.