Exploring Video Production
Short Film
For this project, we all had to write, our own script, longline, and synopsis for a short film that might be produced. Mine didn't get picked, but I wasn't mad about it. Our story was about a guy who has a boring, mediocre life. One day he finds a lucky penny, and his life takes a turn for the better. Good things start happening left and right, and he believes it is because of his lucky penny. Then he loses his penny and he believes that his life is over. We worked in groups of 5 to film, edit and produce our films.
This project lasted around 3 weeks. We had one week for pre-production, one week to film, and one week to edit.
Some challenges we faced were we never found parents to act in our film, so we had to cut some scenes out, which made out film confusing. Another challenge we faced was turning down our ISO too low in a few scenes, which made some of our shots grainy. Our white balance was also off for some of our raw clips and they were unfixable in post.
I learned that I hate video. I may be decent at it, but I never have the motivation to better my videos. I also learned how to fade out videos, along with where the effects tab is... I definitely should have known how to do that already.
We haven't gotten any feedback from an outside perspective quite yet.
As for changes, we took out all of the scenes with adults and took out the original opening classroom scene.
Our video was fine. It was not good, but at least it was completed.
Movie Trailer
The trailer that my group chose to portray was The Breakfast Club. We wanted to portray the theme of "80s rebellion". Our group's main goals were to accurately cast the roles in our piece and get our shots as accurately as possible. We started with pre-production, which we knocked out in two days. Each group member did a different part. I did the beat/sequence sheet, one member storyboarded, one member wrote out the script and costumes, and so on and so on. We began filming before any of the other groups, but we were also the last group to finish.. because we never did. There is a theme within my blogs... my videos are all pretty good quality but they are never finished. Anyways, our entire group got together with our actors and filmed after school in the library. We planned on knocking the entire video out in one day, but mid video, our camera fell off of the tripod and broke. After that day, none of our actors were available at the same time. Therefore, we couldn't finish our video. We edited as we went along. As for post production, Alex edited most of it, but I helped him sequence and if he wasn't sure if something looked okay I would give him my two-sense. My role in the video was a little bit of everything. I gained a newfound confidence in video with this project because I helped direct some of it and I think they used a couple of my ideas :) I didn't really learn anything NEW for this project software-wise, but I learned that sometimes you have to work with what you have. As for the five guarantees of filming, I didn't learn anything technically, except for how a boom mic works. Our group was very very good at communicating; we had a group chat and actively checked up on how the film was progressing. We were all equally leaders, I think personally. We were all 100% a part of discussions and production. Lastly, our project management was great because we finished our pre-production work early and we edited as we got clips finished. Something I would have done differently is not breaking the camera! Also, asking our actors about their schedule before we pick them to be in our video. If the camera wouldn't have broken, I wouldn't change anything! Our actors were amazing and our plan was set up to be golden. Unfortunately, our actors had busy schedules. The biggest "oopsie" we made was not checking our actors' schedules. Always look out for people who are available over people who look perfect for the part.
Time Management
I've used my time in class for the most part, but when writing blog posts and scripts I struggle to focus on them. When filming and editing my full attention is on my work, but for some reason writing is hard to focus on for me. After I finish projects early, I do homework for other classes. I am going to be honest... after I finish video projects, it is rare that I will try to enhance them. I do with my graphic design projects, though! I don't know why I don't in here... outside of school I might watch a video to help me understand how to edit new things.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Some of my strengths are that I know how to work a DSLR camera, do pre-production work, and do some simple sequencing and cuts in premier pro. Some of my weaknesses are using tripods, knowing all of the different shots, I don't really know how to use a Panasonic camera, I don't exactly know how to do a whole ton in premier pro, and I am not a very good director.
Short Films
My role/s in our short film was co-editor and assistant director. The genre we picked was a drama coming of age film. As mentioned before, I learned that video is not my style and that I have troubles using premier pro. I don't really think that my writing skills improved/evolved. I definitely had to open my mind a bit to find some creativity, but my writing style stayed about the same through my writing of the script, logline and synopsis.
Summary
I loved how relaxed the classroom's style was, and I loved working with... most... of my classmates.
I would change the amount of effort I put into my projects, and my casting choices..
My overall takeaway is that I am glad that I know not to do video next year.
Next year I want to do everything I can to improve my graphic design skills and get endorsement hours.
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