Within the framework of the Erasmsus+ project "Video for a change", Rakonto realized the video below for the Laroinaise association "La Préfass" whose objective is to inform the inhabitants of the village about the goal of this project.
Presentation of the project
La Préfass is an association that promotes an innovative project in the small town of Laroin, in Pau. The project was chosen among many others and financed by the European Union because of the ecological choice of materials and the way in which the sustainable and the social are merged into one program.
The project is called "Guilhembaqué Farm", which rises on the old foundations of the former farm run by the owner Guilhembaqué, who decided to donate her land to the municipality, which had to find a way to finance the project.
The project provides for the construction of four different spaces: the first corresponds to the old farmhouse and will be used for social gatherings, organizing events, the second will promote a space for artisans, the third will be the old forge where farmers will sell their products every Friday, the fourth will be a hall, built architecturally like the Zome. The rooms will be built with eco-sustainable materials, mainly hemp, while maintaining some characteristic elements of the old farmhouse, such as the old doors on which we can still see the old coat of arms engraved, another feature that will be kept intact will be the buildings built with stones taken directly from the river and characteristic of the place.
Making a video as part of an Erasmus+ project
The task of the group, which chose the association La Prefass, was to produce an informative video about the future project in order to inform the citizens of Laroin, especially those who had the most doubts, about what the project really is and why it is actually good for the community.
The group worked on the project for three days: the first day was characterized by meeting with the association, explaining us what their objectives were, who the video was aimed at, what values they wanted to put forward, showing us the structure and what they are dealing with, in the case of Prefass they showed us the design prototypes as the final structure will be ready in October 2023, this was more than useful to be able to get the right information and be able to put it in the video.
Shooting
Once the meeting was over, we spent the afternoon thinking about how to make the video and, as it was Friday, we took the opportunity to talk with Luc, and have his testimony as a farmer who sells his products in the square and will soon have a place to do so, namely in the third space mentioned in the previous paragraph. Loreto and Coco, upon our return, organized a workshop to give us tips for the next day, the day of the shoot, which was very helpful because we needed a general introduction and some tips on how to record, how to frame and how not to get lost in small mistakes like remembering to set the focus manually to avoid losing focus when something passes in front of the camera unintentionally and our interviewee loses focus.
The second day was all about the shoot. The day started with a meeting with the mayor of Laroin, Bernard Marque, who welcomed us in the best possible way in the town hall, we introduced ourselves and he showed us, with the help of photos, paintings and architectural drawings, what the farm looked like before the project, and how certain elements have been preserved (for example the doors), we filmed the scenes of all the drawings and the material, so that we could use them in the final video. Then we did an interview with the mayor inside the future Guilhembaqué Farm, as he showed us where the future spaces would be. After interviewing Ariane Payen, representative of La Prefass, we shot some scenes with drones under the supervision of Coco and with Loreto.
The third day was dedicated to workshops where we were explained some of the functions to use when editing a video and we took the opportunity to work on a project and focus on the idea. The last day was just editing the video, under the supervision of Coco and Loreto, and in the evening we showed our work at the movie night, which we were very happy about because the mayor was also present to see the final work.
Evaluation
Throughout the project and the making of the video, everyone collaborated in different ways and each was given a lead role, but we often ended up overlapping with our own work and it was good because we had a good balance. Editing was perhaps the hardest part, as we were all new to editing applications, so we had to get used to it. But everyone contributed in different ways, with some of us working on the audio and cutting the interviews to match the sound of the microphone underneath, others working on the cartoons introduced into the video, some on the audio and others on the behind-the-scenes video. Although it seems that editing is the responsibility of one person, working in such a group was helpful, everyone had a small role and at the end, during the final edit, everyone was able to give feedback and ideas on the choice of scenes to improve the whole thing.
Despite the fact that we were all beginners, it was nice to see how each of us contributed in our own way to the final project and that in a short period of time, 3-4 days, we learned how to use programs such as explee.com, DaVinci for editing, how to recognize camera angles and which ones to favor depending on what we wanted to frame and the message we wanted to convey in the video.
