Pyramid Scheme Video

In Interactive with Steve we watched this animation made in flash about Pyramid Schemes.



The video showed how to spot them and had some drawings in to help demonstrate what is being narrated. The animation looked professional and helped towards putting across a message.

A pyramid scheme is a way of making money that involves promising people payment for enrolling other people into the scheme or teaching them how to take part. The many people at the bottom of the pyramid make hardly any money whereas the few people at the top make vast amounts of money. Pyramid schemes are a form of fraud and are therefore illegal in many companies (including the UK), however by renaming them and slightly changing aspects of the scheme, many companies get away with it. One big giveaway is that it's too good to be true and one example is reselling aloe vera products. This type of scheme has been in existence for at least a century.

60 Second Sequence

For this short video my group used Oscar's hair and beard to our advantage, making a video featuring Jesus. I used a range of shot types to connote different things when shooting this video, which incorporated everything we'd been learning about film and sound.

Firstly, it opens with the sound of someone urinating which leads the viewer to wonder where the sound is coming from and who is creating it. Then the first shot is shown (A long shot) and you're introduced to James, which matches the sound with the visuals. The second shot is a close up of James face, which firstly shows the character in more detail and secondly shows his shocked emotion, leading the viewer to believe he can see something. The third shot is another close up, which keeps the level of intimacy and is a point of view shot because it's what James can see. After this the dream sequence starts, showing inside James's head. It uses some clips shot on a black screen, and one shot of James lying on the floor, with the camera looking down at him. I chose this shot because isolates James as he contrasts with the light floor.

When James is waking up from the dream,  I chose to use a long shot to establish the new location and the figure stood behind James. Because it's so wide, it also looks dramatic and helps to build the dramatic tension. To further build the tension, I included a buildup sound effect. We also chose to use a stabiliser in the shot that moves towards Oscar, so that it was smooth and looked intense and cinematic. The last shot shows a close up of James's confused face for comedic effect.

Overall, I think that this video is fairly good, however if we had more time to film and plan it then it would be more effective. I also used audio from the camera footage as dialogue at the end, which should have been recorded separately. What I think went well were the shot types I chose to use and how the tension changes throughout the video.