Semester 2 Video

What I Did This Semester

This semester, my video class focused on entertainment video. We did 3 projects: a music video, a high school trailer, and a short film.

Music Video

For this project, I worked with 4 other students. We had to choose a song to create our own, original music video. My group chose Everything Has Changed  by Taylor Swift because we liked the aesthetic of the songs and we only needed 4 actors. This song is really sweet and has a saccharine feel to it.

We first had to do a story board, beat sheet, and get our actors. We then had to get our schedule set and started to film. We filmed at a school playground, a park, the plaza, and a school library. We then had a little competition between the group when we started to edit. Out of the 5 of us, we created 3 final edits and even though they had the same shots, they were all different from each other. The video above was the edit that another girl and I worked on (and I personally think it's the best one). This entire process took about 5 weeks.

With such a big group, it was difficult t get all of our ideas to go together (hence the editing competition). Also, I was hard to film in the library because the bookshelves were so close together and sometimes our crew was in the shots. Also, all of the editing groups had trouble with the stabilization future on Adobe Premiere because it made the shots out of focused. But, we got most of it all figured out and made the final product look mostly professional.

Overall, this was a fun film to shoot because our actors were our friends and they listened to us even if they weren't an actual couple. Also, my crew was very fun to be with and we all worked together very well. I also liked all of the finished products.

High School Trailer

For this project, I worked with 2 other students. Our prompt was to chose a movie about high school and recreate their original trailer. We had to follow frame by frame and get the costuming and script all right. Then, each student had to edit their own video to show off our editing skills to our teacher. My group chose High School Musical 3. The above video is my final edit.

Because we had to follow shot by shot, my group decided to tae screenshots of each shot of the original trailer to put on our storyboard and the write descriptions below it. When then had to get all of our actors, figure out costumes, and get our schedule. Once all of that was finalized, we had to go out and shoot in 2 weeks and then edit in 1 week. this entire process took about 4 weeks.

We did have so troubles, though. Some of our shots included lip syncing, big crowds, and basketball games. For the lip syncing, we played the music, let the actors sing to it, then muted it for the edit and put the actual music over it. For the big crowd scenes, we had to tightened our shots and tried to get the rooms to look full. But, we also had to do different shots than from the original trailer because we didn't have much extras to make it look like a crowd. For the basketball shots, we actually went to one the basketball games and had to wait for the right shots of the players shooting. Because it was an actually game, we couldn't tell the players to do a lay-up and that made finding the right shot hard.

Overall, I know that this isn't my best video but it was fun to shoot.

Short Film

For our final project, 5 groups had to make a 5-10 minute original short film. I worked with 3 other people. I was the director and a cinematographer. the only rule for our short film was that it had to be school appropriate and even though ours had a gun in it, our teacher still accepted it.

First, before we even knew our groups, each person had to create a treatment about an original short film. Then we had to write a full script for this short film and we still didn't know who was in our group. Then, finally we got into our groups, shared our scripts, and chose the best one from the group. My group had difficulties deciding who's to choose so we legit had to flip a coin over it. Then, we had to figure out actors, do a detailed storyboard, scout out our locations, figure out our schedule, shoot, then edit. This entire process took about 9 weeks.

The film that we did was called Shelter. It is about a girl who really likes the forest and people start to question her about it (watch the film to find out the rest).

One of the struggles we had was filming in the rain. For one of the shots, I had to be raining because of the aesthetic of the film and we weren't sure if the camera was water proof. But, luckily it was and we got some really good shots that day.

I personally think that the acting is what made this film so great. Our actors were really passionate and you can tell in this film. There was a lot of emotion and it really paid off. The guy who played the father was the most impressive because he was such a nice guy and then we saw him act out his character and we thought that he was a completely different person and yet he pulled it off so well.

Overall, this was my favorite project throughout the entire year because the locations were fun, my crew was fun and directing was really amazing because how respectful my crew was. The final edit is really amazing and if any other person edited this, it wouldn't have been as good.

Time in Class

When I was finished with that day's assignment, I moved on to the next day's assignment and got ahead of the class sometimes. I also looked at tutorials and youtube videos to inspire me. Plus, when I was watching TV at home, I focused on all of the different shots andethought about how I could use those in the project that I was currently in.

Summary

My strength is probably leading. When it comes to video, I know what I want and I know how to get it done. That is why the short film was so fun because I was the director and I got to do the film how I thought i should be done even though it wasn't my script.

My weakness was probably staying on task. I got distracted really easily because some of the days were really dry of excitement. But, I got back on task and got things done on time.

Overall, I am really glad that I am going into Entertainment Video for the next 2 years because this past semester was really fun and I can't wait to do more of it.