For my final project in Comm Lab, Video & Sound, I collaborated with Youngmin Choi and Julie Lizardo to write, direct, and edit a commercial for the fictitious product, Match Watch. Match Watch would be a surveillance service for couples to keep tabs on each other to a toxic degree by utilizing contemporary surveillance technologies present in day-to-day applications.
In this sense, Match Watch is both a parody and a satire. Match Watch parodies the glib way in which technology companies present privacy-invasive technologies both for their own gain and often to the detriment of their users. Match Watch satirizes how these same technology companies facilitate toxic relationship habits, like stalking, with features like location services.
Developing Match Watch was a fascinating insight into the process of shooting a semi-professional grade video, and satisfying closure to this course. In each step of our project, we utilized skills that we have learned throughout our course, adapting these skills to fit our needs as unique issues arose. For instance, in order to shoot a scene of me walking down a hallway, we placed a tripod on a rolling chair to facilitate a stable tracking shot. Similarly, when faced with an issue where (in retrospect) one of our actors had spoken too softly, we used Adobe Audacity to raise the volume of their dialogue without distorting the clip.