Playing with onlinebedroom: How to Create Video Work

By Victoria Cantu GUTS+Published: June 12, 2024

This is an artist page by Victoria Cantu. This project was part of the CATS+ Spring 2024 cohort.

Introduction

While collaborating with my fellow residents during the The Collaborative Art + Technology Situation, we decided to explore personas through video art. Each of us would create a video to display at our exhibition showcase. I’m going to take you through my video process! I also listed out prices of materials to give you a sense of how much money this took. I definitely could’ve just worked with what I had at home, but I bought a couple of things to enhance the production. Depending on what you need, I would recommend shopping at your local thrift stores! I sourced some materials at Austin Creative Reuse, a great resource for creatives.

Step 1: Pre-production

For this video (and in general), I was inspired by The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli and the performance aspect of Lucha Libre. I wanted to create a video that conceptualized my identity as a non-binary Mexican-American. For Venus, I knew I wanted to play with makeup and create a high feminine look, whereas I struggled with how to portray myself for the more masculine look. I saw my lucha libre mask from my last Mexico trip ($10) in my room and decided to run with it.

Step 2: Gather Materials

After making my first short film, I knew I wanted to improve the lighting. I bought 2 clamp lights and lightbulbs from Home Depot ($50), and to my surprise, the lighting was exactly what I was looking for. I started to gather the materials I already had and then made a list of things I needed. Materials I already owned include red curtains ($30), my tripod ($30), gloves ($5), 3 shells ($5), and makeup. I placed a Target curbside order for the remaining things I needed like bobby pins, gluesticks, lip liner, brow gel, face razor, eyebrow brush, pearl strips ($4), hairspray, and lash glue ($50). Last but not least, I ordered a wig from Amazon ($50) that reminded me of Venus’s hair.

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Step 3: Scout Your Location

I’ve been realllllly into red curtains (lol) so I decided to film in my bedroom since I had them set up already. I thought about filming outside or at The Museum of Human Achievement, but I knew I was going to be naked and wanted to be comfortable.

Step 4: Production

I shot the videos on my iPhone on different days so that I could really spend time embodying the character. I experimented with lighting days prior to filming, so I knew the nighttime and clamp lights combo worked best. When filming, I mainly just stand in front of the camera and play. That’s what performance is all about, I think. I didn’t have any concrete ideas beforehand regarding what I should be doing with my face or how I should move.

The lucha libre look didn’t take long at all to film because makeup wasn’t involved. Once I was in front of the camera, I realized that I wanted to stare around the room as if I were staring at myself. Voyeurism always plays a role in my work so it just sorta came natural! For the Birth of Venus look, I spent about 4 hours getting ready and performing in front of the camera. It was sooooo much fun but I was soooo tired after.

Step 5: Editing

Once I finished filming, I trimmed the Venus video to include my favorite part and overlaid it with the clip of the lucha libre video. I did minimal editing honestly! I messed with the opacity and effects in Premiere Pro and messed with the speed to tell a story between the 2 characters.