Review: "Can a Robot Love?"

YouTube Creators, Corridor Digital, recently made a video called "Can a Robot Love?" using robots and stop-motion to put together a story. The video tells the story of a robot who is unintentionally sent to a junkyard while cleaning. In the junkyard, the robot meets others: some friendly, and some not.

The video was very well made, especially considering the extra steps that had to be included for using robotics. One thing that I felt was especially good was the storytelling. In a story without human characters or dialogue, it's often times hard to portray emotions, but all the robots in the video, even the ones that had no "faces" gave off their own unique feel. A lot of the shots were great, too. The sweeping establishing shots and the close ups of certain actions fit together, adding to the quality. However, as with all videos, there were some small problems. For one, some of the junkyard characters that were stop-motion animated looked a bit clunky at points, breaking the realism. Also, once the action started, it was a bit confusing what was going on. The action scene was really cool after the viewer figures out what's happening, but there isn't enough to introduce it.

There were a lot of things in this video that I would like to use at some point. For one, the use of panning and other movement makes a shot a lot cooler and can establish a location. Also, I think using stop-motion or other forms of animation within a live-action video is an awesome idea, and can make a fantastical situation like the one in the video a lot more realistic.

https://youtu.be/XgsZ6GnFglA

Corridor Digital. “Robots Programmed to Kill!.” Online video clip. YouTube. Youtube, 22 October, 2016. Web. 29 November, 2016.

Tae Kwon Do Feature

After the last feature story I made, I wanted this next one to be better, incorporating all the things that weren't so great last time, and keeping the good things from last time in. First of all, while I originally thought that my idea to do a story on marching band was a good idea (and I still think it could've been), my planning, especially for the B-Roll/nat. sound, was not great, giving me little to work with in the editing. This time, I chose a subject (Tae Kwon Do) that I know a lot about, and I got some much better footage with good sound with it. I was also able to get a variety of shots this time, fitting some more medium and close shots into the video.

I think the interviews were about the same quality as last time. I got the answers that I needed, and the sound was good, but they weren't amazing of anything. I did get some things better, though. For one, last time, the location wasn't very good, being a solid gray wall and a weirdly-lit basement. While I couldn't get a relevant location for Drew's interview, I was able to get Master Stephen's in front of the flags, which ended up being a bit better.

When looking at this video compared to the last one, I'd say that I'm still improving. In the final product, I got much better nat sound than last time, and also just improved a bit on all the other aspects that make a good story. It's not amazing yet, but I'd say that I'm getting closer.