Conspiracy Theory Edit

As part of an assessment we were given the task of creating a conspiracy theory video that led the audience into believing one side of the conspiracy. The aim of the video was to persuade the audience into believing that what was being said was true. Doing this by putting statistics, sightings, facts, figures and any other leading information into the video. The video also had to be visually interesting so that it gained the viewers interest and brought them into the conspiracy. All of the footage that was to be included in the video had to be footage from sites such as YouTube and archive footage and images that could be found on the internet.

For this assessment we decided that we would focus on the conspiracy that is "Big Pharma". Big Pharma refers to the conspiracy that pharmaceutical companies are selling products that could be more beneficial to cure illness but aren't so that it means the consumer must buy multiple medication in order to get better. It also looks into many of the pharmaceutical companies selling medication that does not have any actual benefit to illness but in fact just acts as a placebo effect but is still sold at a high price.

When we started to put the video together we first looked at what we wanted the structure of the video to be. We looked at what the message was that we were trying to get across to the audience and ensuring that this came across clear and concise to the audience within three minutes. We then broke the structure down into different sections. These being: -

1. Introduction - people sneezing, coughing, taking pills. "Kerching" sounds and the sound of cash registers opening in between the videos. It will start off slow in pace but then will gradually increase in pace throughout the introduction.

2. Business of selling pills - adverts, factory footage, pharmacy's, doctors. Stating how big a business it is and showing numbers and statistics.

3. Introduction of conspiracy - news reports, explanation of the conspiracy and the government's involvement with the conspiracy.

4. Personal Stories - members of the public and of the industry that have told their own personal stories of their findings and how people have suffered due to the conspiracy. Antidotes and footage of ex-scientists that were previously in the pharmaceutical industry.

5. Impact on the public - believers of the conspiracy, protests, footage of sadness including children, infants and elderly.

6. The future of the pharmaceutical industry - where will the industry go from now, how will the industry change. Ending with the text - "will the truth every come out".

From this we then made a list of what archive footage that we would need in order to create this structure. We also thought of the different sounds that we would need to include as well and also added these to the list. We then split the list of videos between us and we each went away individually and searched for the videos that were needed. This was the list that we created: -

• Sneezing, coughing, illness
• News reports/chat shows talking of the big pharma conspiracy 
• Drug adverts 
• Factory footage/Pill footage 
• High Street - Pharmacy's, Boots, Superdrug
• Doctor's Surgery - consultations with patients 
• Government Interviews - surrounding the pharmaceutical industry, medicine and Big Pharma 
• Clips of statistics and numbers regarding the pharmaceutical industry. 

I enjoyed being able to search for the clips that we needed as it was nice to think that you could use other people's footage that you didn't need to plan yourself. The footage is all ready there and you have to pick and choose which clips would look best for the film. I found that there was a variety of clips for each category of clips that we needed and it was a case of deciding which ones best fit the style of the video that we were going for. However, at some points it was hard to have such a wide variety of choice as it meant that you had to sieve through all of the videos in order to find the best ones. 

Once we had gathered all of the videos that we needed for our edit we then converted them into mp3's for sound and into mp4's for the videos. We then organised them into the structure of the edit and placed the videos under each of the headings. It was then a case of putting the clips together in order to form each part of the structure. This was when we then came across the problem of that it was hard to match the videos to the structure that we wanted as it was hard to put the videos together in such a way that it explained what we wanted explained. We needed something to link the videos together and that explained the points that we were trying to get across through the images and the visual. This was when we had to decide whether we wanted to have a voiceover or various clips of text that continually explained the conspiracy in between or over the top of the footage. We came to the decision that we would use text to do this and that we would place it in between footage and also to have text on top of the footage. 

When editing the news reports and chat show section of the edit we came across another problem and this was that there was no flow in-between the footage. It just seemed like we were showing various clips of the news and chat shows one after another. It seemed boring and it slowed down the pace and the interest within the conspiracy. This was when i came up with the idea of that we could put footage of a TV static screen in between the clips so that it was as if someone was changing the channel on a tv and that they were channel flicking. This also would give the impression that Big Pharma was a problem and was important as it would appear that all that was on the TV was news about the conspiracy. We also had the sound of static over the TV as well as this also helped to break up the edit and keep the interest with the viewer. 

Another problem that we found was the image and sound quality of our video, the reason for this being that the videos that we were using had been taken from YouTube. The quality of YouTube video's varied between the videos on both their image and sound quality and this caused us problems in order to make the edit as a whole level in terms of sound. To solve this problem we went through each clip individually and changed the sound levels so that they were all at a similar level so that when watching the video you could not tell the difference in sound quality between clips. However, all though we did this the sound quality was still not at it's best but we tried to do the best that we could with what we had. 

I think that once we had completed our edit we were all happy with it as a group. We were happy with the fact that the message was clear and concise within the video and that it came across in a persuading and interesting way that gained the viewers attention. We had changed certain elements of the structure that we had originally agreed but overall the structure was still there and we got across all of the information that we wanted too. 

It was interesting to be able to make a film out of someone else's footage as it meant that you could solely just focus on the editing. You don't have any personal connection with the footage as you haven't planned or filmed it yourself. I find that when you are editing with your own footage you tend to edit differently to when you are editing footage that you have no relation too. With being able to focus on just the editing i found it a lot easier to edit and put a structure together and to complete an edit to a better standard. I think that when editing with your own footage you can sometimes be too protective of the footage. For example, if you had filmed a scene yourself and you knew that it took over an hour to set up and shoot but you then get to the edit and it doesn't seem to work but you still want it to be in the final edit as you know how much time you had invested in that scene. Whereas if it is someone else's footage you have not invested anything within it so you are just totally focused on making the edit to the best that you can. You have total vision on the final look and edit of the film which i think helps when editing and i would personally prefer to edit footage other than my own due to this reason.