Attempting to Make A FUCCING Masterpiece

While I managed to produce a finished product, it’s not what I had envisioned. While the documentary voiceover-style angle was the one I went for here, that is typically not how I would do a piece in the future. My dream Mini Doc, a pie in the sky idea that I have had since the beginning of the semester, was an homage to my favorite show, Top Gear. Their car review videos have set the standard for car journalism videos, with their massive budget. Others have imitated, but never replicated.

I hoped to create something that came close to those imitations. Just days before I was set to film, my car’s intercooler failed, which made it a very poor idea to drive for a short film. In the simplest way possible: the part that cooled hot turbo air into usable cold air for the engine began to leak coolant into the engine with the air, which could cause the motor to seize and “blow up.” Not a great look for a “star car.” While my car did get back on the road with a replacement intercooler (see right), it was post-filming, and only managed to feature minimally in my new Mini Doc as B-roll. What did I make a Mini Doc on then? FUCC, Furman University Car Club. It was perfect, as our club was just in its infancy as a Furman Student Government Association-recognized organization. This could be a stellar way to promote our club and encourage new members to join.

Speaking of organization, perhaps poor organization was the downfall of this Mini Doc. I wanted to feature my interviewees’ cars alongside them, but that ultimately fell short because I forgot to bring chairs for my interviewees. I scrambled and gave them a Home Depot bucket to sit on instead. This gave my interviewees the appearance of being short, when in reality at least one of them isn’t.

Another issue I faced was my camera’s data organization. For whatever reason, my camera lost footage of a classroom meeting of our club and a sequence of one of our members and his car. While I found a way to work around the missing footage, it was inconvenient and annoying.

Additionally, when taking “rollers” – B-roll of a car in motion taken from another car in motion, the audio was blown out due to the wind. In an effort to salvage audio, I recorded my own car’s exhaust note, and adjusted it in Adobe Premiere Pro to change it to sound similar to the cars I had recorded. I did so by clipping a lavalier microphone to the exhaust tip of my car (see left), which actually worked FLAWLESSLY. When I went to unclip it, the microphone was scalding hot, and I was worried I had ruined it, but that was NOT THE CASE when I used it to record audio for another project the next day. The muffler of my car runs at about 300-500 degrees Fahrenheit, so this should be a testament to the build quality of these microphones.

I had not properly interviewed anyone on camera since high school, and incorporating B-roll was something I had rarely done when I did. This was largely due to time constraints.

When I did it now, it made the video more dynamic and it kept my audience more attentive. This is certainly something I will incorporate in the future.

While I still want to create a passion project like Top Gear at some point, I don’t think it is something that can be achieved under a deadline and with a rubric constraining my vision. Perhaps there is a time in the future where that is a possibility, and if I do, it won’t be with the Furman Communications cameras.