Final Exam Semester 1
Project #1: CommercialThis commercial was the first project I took on this year. It began as a commercial for Polaroid, but due to an issue during production, it became a commercial for Canon. Production issues can't be avoided and our required some creativity. The entire project took about two weeks or so to complete, including pre-production and editing. We began pre-production for the project by scouting locations and planning shots. We went out and filmed for two days over the weekend, one day at Shawnee Mission Park and one on the plaza with a plan to shoot more during the week. That following Monday, I misplaced the SD card with all our footage from the weekend. To this day, I still haven't found it. My group then had to scramble to find a new way to shoot our commercial in just a couple of days. In order to save time, we switched our project from Polaroid to Canon so we could have access to the featured project at any given time. The main idea was to showcase the features of canon and how well the footage comes out. Our editor, Kate was editing over the weekend when her computer died and lost all of what she had edited. Luckily, Kate is an amazing editor and was able to edit the entire thing in just 24 hours and got it turned in.Instead of following the original idea, Kate made it more entertaining by using the commercial to appeal emotionally with audiences by showing how Canon captures life. We got positive feedback from our classmate, the only negative things I can remember had to do with color correcting, but with our lack of time to edit, the lack of color editing is understandable. Overall, I think this project turned out quite well and I'm very happy with it.
Project #2: Music Video
This second project is most definitely my favorite. The music video also had some ups and downs for me as well. My music video project began as a group of two people. We picked out a song and then realized that this was a lot to take on and it wasn't going to work very well, so we split and got put with other teams. This music video, "Youth" focuses on growing up through trauma and in this case, suicide. The music video is about a girl whose friend died and her struggling with the fact that she didn't reach out to help him.When I began on "Youth", there were only two filming days left so I didn't get to do very much. I helped out on set and pretty much took on the role of production assistant. I had a blast filming, especially since our main actress worked on the previous year's feature film with us. We got lots of positive feedback and very minimal negative feedback, mostly that people didn't understand what was happening. On that note, I feel like e-Comm film students in general, me included, have this idea that every film/music video needs to be completely understandable on the first watch. I feel like part of that is due to the fact that society tells us that everything needs to be black and white. One thing we should focus on is pulling away from the idea that something is bad because we don't understand. It's really harmful to each other when this type of feedback come out and we should work next semester on understanding hidden meanings and that some creators don't want you to understand. Other than that, the project turned out amazing.
Project #3: Short Film
"Willow" is the third main project that I participated in this semester. This project is my biggest regret so fat this semester. Not because it's bad, its amazing. I regret that I wasn't able to take on the role I had been assigned. The filming days didn't work with my personal schedule and therefore I wasn't able to participate with much of the production, so I can't comment much on this project except for how much I enjoyed the story. It got lots of great feedback about it's simplicity and it turned out very well! I would like to circle back to a point I made in the previous project about creators purposefully wanting to confuse the audience. The point of the ending of Willow is that you're not supposed to know if she's homeless or not and the ending was a source of several negative comments that people didn't understand the ending. I would really like for our class to get out of that mindset.
Time Management
Time management is a very fluid idea for me and it's very subjective due to different definitions and objectives. I believe I manage my time in class very well, except when it comes to blogging, I'm not very good at that. I can also see how someone might critique my management skills. For instance, this semester I didn't turn in a couple blogs, my short film treatment and my short film script. For me, that boils down to writers block and poor writing skills. Through this struggle, I have found other ways to stay productive. I've been spending quite a while working on the website for the feature film. I also spend time analyzing music videos and behind the scenes videos for professional projects. These activities help me analyze my own skills as well as learning how to foster a positive production environment. When I'm not doing either of these activities, I'm teaching myself about color correcting a trying out different programs such ad DaVinci Resolve.
Strengths/Weaknesses
My strengths are very few and far apart, as are my weaknesses. I'm what you would call a "jack of all trades, master of none". My strengths include my positivity and dedication to this class and my fellow peers. My weaknesses include many technical skills. I can do many basic technical things such as work a camera, and do basic editing, but I'm not amazing at either. I'm just kinda there. That's why I love being production assistant, it allows me to participate in a little bit of everything while have the freedom to experiment on my own projects.
Guest Speakers
The guest speakers were very helpful this year. I enjoyed both Brandon's and Drew's presentations. I found Gordan's to be a little bland, but that's probably because it was the second time I've heard it and also Drew and Brandon are closer to my age and more relatable. Brandon's presentation will help e very much with my social media role in the feature film. Drew's presentation on characters will be very helpful throughout life with writing and production of my own projects.
"Get Real" Production Role
For this year's feature film, I am Production Assistant and Social Media Content Creator. I'm super excited for this production. Since I was production assistant last year, I feel like I can improve even more and be more efficient this year. With social media, Im eager to sink into this new role and really promote our film and get a big turn out for this year's premiere.
Summary
This year has been a blast so far, I'm just sad that I missed most of it due to a busy schedule. The one thing I would change is to make film a higher priority, which will be happening as the feature film goes into production. My biggest takeaway from this semester is that film isn't just one idea, it's a multitude of ideas converging and dancing. They might not alway make sense, but they create something beautiful. I also learned that film is not something to be understood, it's to be felt. My goal for the upcoming semester is to make this feature film the best it can be!
