Both videos are for a semester course offered at the University of San Diego, ARTV 108 Introduction to Video Art. The first video is the video I made for my midterm, called Mirrored Dance. The purpose of this assignment was to make a video that seems like compressed time. Mirrored Dance consists of a young woman dancing to the song, “Popstars” by K/DA. It is shot in three different locations, but the dance is put together as one. The audio is not the song itself, but the audio shot when filming in one of the locations. The original audio from filming is kept to show the power of her choreography is with her shoes squeaking and her feet stomping on the dance floor. It is intended to leave an impact on the audience so they can feel like they are there with her dancing and listening to her footsteps, not just the music itself. It is put together but compiled into one dance is to show the fluidity of a singular dance and the power and emotion it has behind it. The song itself helps evoke the emotions of what the lyrics are in the song, and the emotions felt in her choreography. The image of a confident woman on the stage, saying how “Nobody will bring us down” and the ending lyric asking, “Are you ready for this?” conveys the confidence she is showing and how there can be nothing bringing her down on the dance floor. It is called Mirrored Dance because she is essentially, mirroring her own movements each time when shooting in a different location, but it is put together as one whole dance, in the end, still flowing as it would be if it was shot in a singular location.
The second video is my final project video for the class called Let’s Play. The purpose of this final assignment is intended to investigate and portray the character of a specific site, place, or space in a non-narrative format. The video, which consists of appropriated video game footage and footage of the Lost Levels Arcade video games in Claremont, California. I would like to thank them first of all for allowing me to film footage in their arcade for this class, and all the shots of the arcade machines are from there. The arcade itself consists of older style machines from about the 70s-90s. When viewing the video, it is switching the perspectives of a the environment the machines are in, the arcade machine itself, and the actual footage of the video games. I wanted to give the viewers a sense of three different perspectives, yet it is held here into one space itself. I also wanted to play on the fact of how arcade machines are usually seen played by people, and its environment is crowded. I want to show the viewers how an arcade machine acts in its own space when it is idle, rather than when it is being played.
Belana Marie Labra is a first-year student at the University of San Diego. She plans to major in Marketing with a minor in Visual Arts. Her hobbies include photography, digital arts, and traditional arts. She also enjoys playing video games such as Overwatch or League of Legends and listening to music while she draws.
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