User:Alice/Video essay

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Concept

A bedroom-based video essay based on the genre of Desktop films, which deconstructs a techno-solutionist range of food products from the perspective of the problems they're allegedly fixing.

In it, i'm focusing on problems, not just solutions.

The video essay combines a collection of existing material sourced from vintage archive resources, product advertisements, video reportage, and website screenshots, interlaced with a narrative produced in the form of home-made video footage. It functions as my personal review on a range of products I've been researching for months, both in theory and in practice.

Aesthetics inspiration

The style of the video is based on the kinds of home-made videos that populate YouTube, in which the protagonist comments upon a certain topic, or reviews a certain product, usually in a very informal environment and format.

• reaction videos
• product unboxing and review

In the past few years, a huge gap has been created within the culture of 'vlogs', between creators that have a huge production budget, a crew and professional tools, and those who simply film themselves with their webcam/phone in the context of their own bedroom. I am interested in the latter group, because it represents a more genuine approach to expressing one's opinion, one that is not necessarily influenced by sponsorships, that allows the creator to speak their mind, to demonstrate the true scenario of them experiencing the product/video/topic they are discussing in their vlog.

I have chosen this particular format because:

• it blends in with the whole body of videos within this culture
• it highlights the distance between the professional/sleek/artificial environments promoted in ads and the real experience of the product
• it represents a style of honest reviews that is diminishing in the online sphere, where you can't distinguish anymore between paid and honest reviews.

Review culture

The culture around meal replacements relies heavily on consumer reviews. It's a real shift in the way people relate to food these days, with this new category of 'tech foods' like lab-grown meat, plant-based burgers that imitate beef, and, ultimately, meal replacements which are constantly rated and reviewed, and these reviews influence others and the brands that produce them. Individual experience with these products is crucial, unlike any other kind of ordinary foods (unless we're talking about restaurants, which is a different issue).

With meal replacements, anything from packaging to texture, flavor, consistency and ratio of micro/macro nutrients is carefully taken apart and analyzed in depth. People recommend their own concoctions based on specific dietary goals, and others ask for advice.