Gravity

Final Product:

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

Intention

When I was thinking of ideas for this project, I recalled a funny scene in an episode of Community, in which the writers added in a short montage of romantic moments between two of the main characters. This montage was based on an actual fan-made video that had been posted to Youtube the previous year. They continued to make fun of it throughout the episode, claiming that any two characters could appear as though they were in a romantic relationship, as long as their interactions were slowed down and put against a slow romantic song. This scene can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW5Wtvj2Ivg

For my creative project, I want to follow a similar idea - make a "romantic" video from two characters who share no romantic relationship at all. I plan on using two of the main characters from The Office - Jim and Dwight - since this is one of my favorite TV shows and there's a lot of material to find clips from. If you look on Youtube, there are a ton of popular fan-made videos that are focused on romantic relationships in TV shows and movies. I want to try making one of these videos, but changing the way that the relationship between Jim and Dwight is presented, since I definitely agree that our perception of a relationship between two people is very heavily influenced by the context in which we view their interactions.

Response

One thing I was hoping for was that the “crossover” aspect would be able to add a wider audience base for the project. I’d seen similar things done before - taking gags from one show and translating them into the context of another - so I was hoping to achieve a similar result.

I decided to share my result on Reddit, since the /r/DunderMifflin subreddit is still relatively active for a show that’s already done airing. I’d never posted anything on Reddit before, so I wasn’t sure exactly how to title the post to present it concisely and effectively, and I ended up going with “Dwight and Jim’s Relationship - Community Crossover”. Unfortunately, this post has not gained much traction. I also want to post this on the Community subreddit, although that one is less active. 

Narrative

I first started by just looking for popular scenes from The Office. In the original Community clip, none of the clips came from particularly romantic moments, so I tried to keep most of my clips to just normal, mundane tasks. One thing I noticed from the Community clip is that the actions Jeff performed were just acts of common human behavior (such as keeping someone from tripping), but they were very clearly misinterpreted. I followed a similar process for my video, using actions such as Jim holding the door open for Dwight.

I also had to figure out a way to transition into the slow, “romantic” montage. The point of my work was to parody the cheesy romantic video style, so I needed a way to make that clear. I ended up introducing the characters first and then cutting in part of the Community clip to facilitate the transition into the slow song. This worked out well to help change the tone of the video, as well as emphasize the crossover aspect between the two shows. I also ended the video with an exasperated Jeff from the Community clip, since it again stressed how ridiculous the slow video montage was. 

Reflection

As someone who understood the context of my project and enjoyed watching both Community and The Office, I thought the message was very effective. It brought a sense of nostalgia from being reminded of a joke from years ago, but also showed it using clips from a different show. The clips were also humorous on their own, as they were very heavily recontextualized. It was nice to be reminded of the funny pranks and scenes that Jim and Dwight shared, and also seeing them played slower and to a dramatic song.

However, I can understand how this project might mean very little to someone who had never watched either show before. Especially if someone didn’t know the Community clip I was referencing, it might make very little sense. This is definitely a reason that my post on Reddit didn’t grow very quickly, since the point of the video is not immediately clear right from the beginning, and it is even more abstract if the viewer doesn’t know the backstory.

Sources

None of the clips belong to me. I got most of my clips off of Youtube, and had to get a few by recording my screen while streaming the video.