Polka-dot - "Do you pay any electric bills?"...

Make Up

Usually when I do my make-up for events I just go with the flow and see what I come up with, so that is what I was going to do until I came across an interesting look on TikTok.

This make up look looks so simple and achievable! I had already recreated this for an event I went to where extreme looks were the norm, but going in this outside and to the public was going to be a different experience. Nevertheless, I recreated it in my own way.

So, this was the final look! I also set up my iPad to record a timelapse recording of the process, so I can use this in future content and/or here. This look only required me to do a white base for the whole face, then I took a round brush and made sure enough of the eyeshadow pigment was on there, and stamped it onto my face following the picture above. I took my own approach and did purple eyeshadow for my eyes, and used purple liquid liner to do my eyeliner, and topped it all off with dramatic fake lashes. This was one of the fastest make-up looks that I have ever done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2NHJ5Oh_0E

I'm going to keep doing timelapse recordings of every look I make, because it is a very easy way of showing the process and behind the scenes and the effort it takes to put myself together for these videos! Also, it's just cool to see.

My favourite part about this make-up look is that it is not too flashy, but still unique and cool to look at. It was as simple to execute as it looks, and I would even consider this as my everyday make-up look. I even liked that when I asked my friends what this reminded them off, everybody gave me a different answer, such as "Mr Tumble's Bag", and I like that this look can be interpreted in many ways.

There isn't anything that I didn't like about this look, but maybe aside from the fact that if I am not careful it will smudge with the lightest touch, but that's all make-up, and especially because I have really oily skin I had to take extra precaution for the prep before applying the white base. This probably comes down to using better quality cosmetics, but I was using what I had on hand and what I was used to. If I were to do anything different, I would make time to research into cosmetics which are specifically formulated for longwear.

Recording

My original plan was to just walk through town, maybe do some window shopping, and to see if anyone would pay attention to this extreme look. I did go to Boots to do some shopping, and right afterwards I had bumped into a friend who was on a walk and said he wanted to join for the recording, so I ended up vlogging that too! This ended up just being a casual vlog out in town, with a side rant from my friend about a takeaway place we both enjoy, and a nice succulent meal in McDonald's. Other than that, I did not have a clear plan of what I wanted to include in the recording, but more just dipping my toes in the water and seeing what works and what doesn't.

For this entire recording I had use the DJI Wireless Microphones, with the receiver plugged into my iPhone, which I was using as a camera for the timebeing. Later in the recording I had switched to use the phone's main camera on 0.5x, as up until this point I was just using the front facing camera, capturing only my face and whatever was above my head, and now with a friend on the side I wanted a wider angle to capture both of us. This was definitely the way to go; got more of my surrounding in frame, and it looks more like the vlogs you see on TikTok and Instagram, but it still was not the best quality. Plus, I was constantly afraid that someone was going to snatch my phone out of my hands, so I was cautiously recording for the entire session.

At the end of the day I met up with my partner in one of the Library's study rooms to record my conclusion of the day. I basically talked about my experience with the public, which was that not a lot of people actually paid attention, but that may have been due to the time of day (I went in the evening, that conclusion was recorded past 8pm). Going in the evening definitely lessens my anxiety, as people probably expect something crazy to happen at night in town centre, therefore they are not as shocked to see somebody going all out for an evening out.

Overall, I did enjoy this day out and did not feel as nervous going out in a look like this one, but I do wish I had done it earlier in the day and had made a clear plan of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do.

Editing

I had imported the clips from that day onto my laptop and got to editing! Since I am more familiar with Adobe After Effects and find it easier to use, this will be the app I do all of my video editing in.

Since I am planning to upload these videos onto TikTok and Instagram I am going to use the dimensions in which my clips were recorded in, that being 1080px by 1920px. I screen recorded a part of my editing process, as all it really was was me cutting the clips, like when I paused or said "umm" or breathed too loudly. Since this screen recording was over 11 minutes long, I am going to speed it up for your sake. Also, it did not record any of the application audio, so silence it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBpNY_VVryM

I had occasionally inserted a zoom in onto my face for comedic effect, such as when I shook my head, or at the clip when a guy asked me if I pay electric bills, my response being no, and him replying "Keep it that way", because that was pretty funny. This zoom-in informs the watcher that this particular moment is significant, whether that being in a funny way, or "remember this for later" kind of way.

Once I was happy with the result of my editing, I wanted to include captions in the video, as the auto-captions on Instagram and TikTok aren't always super accurate. Generating my own captions would mean that I can adjust the transcript, and/or add anything that the automatic captions wouldn't have picked up. During my UKAHT live brief last trimester I had learned from a friend that Premiere Pro has a feature where it enables you to do captions much faster and efficiently, so I got to learning how to use my arch nemesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2eF8M50ggg

I had used this tutorial to guide me through the process, and it was so easy to follow! Premiere Pro gives you unlimited customisation, so for example if I want a specific sentence to appear seperate from the others, I can do that! If I want my text to jump like in karaoke, I can do that too! It is endless, but for this purpose I am going to keep the text simple and not give myself any more work, as I also want this to be as legible as possible for those with reading problems. For the font choice I have gone for Helvetica Light, as it isn't anything fancy and looks clean on the screen, and I am keeping the text at the bottom of the screen but not so close. If I were to put the captions all the way to the bottom of the screen, it would later be covered up by the caption of the video, therefore making the captions redundant. The screenshot below is showing the transcript timeline, to show you what I am seeing.

I had kept the edited video as it was and I did not add any background music to it, as you can later add music in TikTok itself and I wanted to see which audio it would recommend. The first song was not good as it was too loud and did not suit a vlog-type video, so I used one of the most commonly used songs "Blue Danube Waltz"; but unfortunately, I stumbled into a problem. Since my video is longer than the audio I added, the song cuts off in the middle of the video, and TikTok does not allow you to add another audio due to copyright issues. You can only add an additional song if it was made by TikTok and was copyright-free, but none of them sound good, and because I was already super tired and wanted this posted I just decided to leave it as it was. In the editing suit of TikTok itself I added a title at the beginning of the video "Getting out of my comfort zone: Cambridge central edition" to give people context to the video they're about to see. I also added little text boxes of comments which would be interpreted as my inner monologue, just for comedic effect.

Overall I am pretty happy with the outcome of this video, especially the sudden change in tone when my friend joined in. However, I did not like that TikTok does not allow you to add two different audios, other than their own, making the video feel incomplete as it goes on. If I were to do anything different, it would be to add the song in the After Effects timeline and edit it there rather than relying on TikTok itself, and this way aswell I have a wider variety of songs I can choose from, copyright-free or not.

Uploading to TikTok

For this first video I kept the caption short and simple. I asked in the caption if the viewers liked the video and to give feedback. As someone who already uploads to TikTok I had noticed a recent change in the caption making department, and that is that you are now limited to only using 5 hashtags for the video. This was very challenging as it limits me to try and reach a wide audience with only 5 descriptive words, so for my first try were #vlogging , #cambridge , #funkymakeup , #makeup and #firstvlog , which I think are self-explanatory. Once that was done, and I was done, I posted the video! Here is the TikTok link to it (Wix doesn't let you embed TikTok videos for free).