Projects
Movie Trailer Recreation
For this project, we were put into groups and told to recreate a high school movie trailer. Our group ended up recreating the trailer for "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". This entire process took about a month to complete, and had many challenges built in to it. The main challenge we came upon was scheduling with our actors. We found it was extremely difficult to find a time that all of our actors and team members could be in the same place at the same time. Throughout the making of this video, I learned a lot about the use of microphones and sound. I learned how to operate a boom mic and also learned more about how to use your music and audio effectively. At the end of this project, we mostly received positive feedback. The main negative on our piece was that some of the music did not stay true to the actual video. So, for our re-edits, we imported some of the actual music from the video to make it more accurate. Overall, I think our group did a great job working together throughout this project and I am very happy with our end product.
Short Film
For this project, we all came up with an idea for a story and then wrote a script. After this, we were put into groups and chose one of the short film ideas we wanted to produce. Our story was about two friends name Max and Cheddar, both trying to kill each other with clever traps. The making of this short film took about 6 weeks to complete. The main challenges we experienced during production was scheduling, acting, and location scouting. We struggled to find actors who were willing to be in our video originally, so we had to settle for less-than-stellar acting. Afterwards, we had some problems finding times we could film with our actors, as well as finding a location that would appropriately fit our script. This project really taught me to be patient and positive during filming because being negative on set will only make everything worse. I also improved my camera skills a decent amount during this project. I learned the importance of focusing every individual shot and using interesting camera angles to enhance our video. The main feedback we received for this project was that our film had some struggles with pacing. We were told that although we did a pretty good job setting up the story, everything after that seemed very rushed. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to make these needed corrections to our video. As a whole, I think our group did a great job working together and persevering through difficulties throughout this process. Although our final video did have many issues, I am still fairly happy with it and I think we did a good job portraying our story and theme.
Time Usage
Throughout this semester, I think I have used my time in class pretty well. There were definitely times that I got distracted, but for the most part, I was able to get my work done when I really needed to focus. When I had extra time for my project, I tried to enhance my video by experimenting our attempting to learn new editing skills that I hadn't previously used. Also, outside of school I was able to use even more time to make my videos better. I often filmed for our videos outside of class, and I also stayed after school a few times to help finish editing our video. While my time usage in this class was definitely not perfect this semester, I still think as a whole I did a good job at keeping myself, and others, on track during class.
Strengths
In eComm, I think I have done a great job with the guarantees of eComm. More specifically, I think I did a good job collaborating and communicating with my group members. I also think I am good organizationally and help our group and project stay on track. I think I have also become much stronger with my camera work throughout this semester as well as using other equipment such as tripods and mics. Overall, I think I am also good at encouraging my group and being a productive team member.
Areas for Improvement
I think the primary areas I need to improve at are my leadership and technical skills. I do think I did a better job at taking lead at times this semester, but I would still like to challenge myself to be the main producer/director for a video. I also would like to improve in some ways with my editing. I think I am good at sequencing my shots and telling a story. However, I would like to learn more about the use of audio and graphics in my videos. I would also like to improve at some things like color correction, and other aspects that help to make my videos look better as a whole.
Short Film Role
The entire process of making this short film was definitely difficult but also rewarding. For this project, I was the cinematographer and was in charge of setting up most of our shots. This was a fairly new experience for me, and helped me to feel more comfortable behind the camera. Our film was pretty much a comedy (although sometimes unintentionally). This whole process taught me to be organized and really focus on the pre-production work because it will really help make the rest of the production process much easier. When I was writing my own story, my logline and synopsis started off extremely vague and wasn't very well portrayed. However, as I progressed into my treatment and script, it progressively became more detailed and it really started to come together. While I didn't necessary enjoy writing all of these things, I think it will definitely prove rewarding in the future.
Summary
For this semester, I really enjoyed the extremely creative and cooperative environment in our classroom. It allowed me to be productive independently, but also allowed me to bounce ideas off other people around me. However, the class was at times fairly loud, so I would recommend that somehow you split talking into smaller groups so the entire class doesn't end up yelling. Overall, this year in sophomore video was actually really enjoyable for me. I was able to work on videos in many different areas of film which allowed me to figure out what I enjoyed doing specifically. I will definitely remember some of the things I learned in this class as I move forward in eComm. Looking forward, I am definitely ready to join the SID strand of eComm, and I would like to challenge myself to be more involved with my groups and express my ideas more often as I move forward.
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