Experimenting with Video Part 3: 30 seconds in Nha Trang

A collection of footage I captured on a single walk down the beach in Nha Trang. Each time I play with video as a format I'm more convinced that shorter cuts are better. Of course, it depends on the mood you're going for, but I love how the cadence of cuts can give a certain rhythm to the visual experience. 

An interesting technique is to play with the attention span of the viewer. There's a sweet spot where the viewer has just recognized what the image is, and the longer you dwell on that image, the more the attention starts to fade and your visual becomes stale. 

By cutting to a new shot right at the moment where the viewer has barely just perceived what the shot is, you create a really fresh experience where the viewer is constantly engaged.

Experimenting with Video: A Day in Sapa, Vietnam

In any creative field it's important to expand our horizons and try new things. I've recently been playing around with video more as a natural extension of photography. Photo albums are a favorite format of mine because they allow for a loose story. Video builds on that, but adds motion. 

I feel a common mistake people run into with video is dwelling too long on each shot. I wanted to maintain the snapshot element of photos, but with the added expressiveness and emotion that comes with moving images.

I try to limit each shot to 3 seconds or less in order to always keep the viewer's attention engaged and guessing. 

This video was shot in one day in the beautiful valley of Sapa, Vietnam. It was a sunny day and I had a great time hiking along the rice paddies with my camera, meeting friendly people and taking in the stunning scenery.

Sapa is a really peaceful place and although people work hard in the rice paddies, there is a sense of joy in the air that I wanted to capture with this video.

I look forward to exploring video more as a format. I feel it's an area where my creative strengths can flourish. Photography obviously has a strong connection to videography, but I think the concepts I'm familiar with from design can be applied to video in interesting ways.

In design we have to always consider our work from the user's perspective. Taking this empathetic approach is great for video because we're designing someone's experience. We're trying to take them on a journey, the same way we do in UX design. Simplicity is also important in video, just as in design. By stripping away the unimportant, we can create a powerful focus on the important things.

So when I edit a video, I'm looking for one simple gesture or expression, and then cutting out everything before and after. This approach makes even the simplest gesture, or smile, and interesting moment.