Semester 1 Reflection

What I did this semester

Project #1: Cheating PSA

This project was about a boyfriend cheating on a girlfriends's paper but my group made it seem like it was cheating as in he was with another woman. This project took about 3 weeks for pre-production, filming, and editing. The biggest challenge we faced was the timing of our film because at the end of the shoot, it was starting to become darker and it shows in the film. We received very good feedback from our class and everyone who saw it; most people said that it was a very good PSA. On my edit, the ending words seemed more like a commercial than a PSA. I am very proud of my team and this film because the lighting (besides the dark shots) and the cinematography is pretty amazing, in my opinion, and the shoot went very smoothly.

Project #2: Musical Connection Short Film

This film was about a kid, who's father just died, and finds his comfort through music. This took about a month to finish. I was the sound technician for this film and a challenge I faced was trying to control the wind on set because I was very windy the day we filmed and it took longer than expected because we had to wait for good sound. I learned how a set works better because under stress, we still had to get things done and my crew worked well together and was efficient. We received pretty good feedback from our peers like how the cinematography was nice and so was the background music. Personally, I really love the song that Peter (the main character) plays on the piano. Our composer did a very nice job playing that for us and I honestly cried the first time he played it for us. In final editing, our editor changed the transition from flashbacks to real time.

Project #3: Script Writing for the Feature Film

I do not have a document for the script, but I was on the writing team for my class' feature film for next semester. We finished a rough draft in 2 weeks, but 2 months for treatments, discussions, and script writing. The challenges we faced was connecting ideas together to fit the main theme of the script. The feature film is about a teenage girl who finds cancer and running away from those who are finding her because she found the cure. Once we read the rough draft to the entire class, we made many dialogue changes because some of it seemed awkward and unnatural. After we made the final edit, the class found out their roles for the film and I got 1st assistant camera operator. I am very excited to see how this film turns out next semester. The final edit will be done in May 2018.

How I used my time in class

When I finished with my work for the day or for a project and I had extra time before a next project, I worked on studying tv shows and movies to enhance my learning on lighting and cinematography. I am usually pretty productive in class and have extra time for individual learning. When I am outside of class, I sometimes go to my dad's shoots (he is a video producer for many companies) so I can enhance my learning on how it is on a professional film set.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Strengths

My strengths as a video production student are collaboration others and being a leader in class discussions. I get along with everyone in my video class and can work with everyone on sets. During class discussions over the feature film ideas, I was able o give good ideas for some scenes and was able to put other people's ideas in mine.

Weaknesses

My biggest weakness in class in staying on task. I have so many friends in this class and end up talking to them a lot while I should be working on my individual learning activities. On set next semester, I will try to have fun but stay on task at the right times because being 1 of the 2 cameramen, the pace of the filming is based on me and the DP.

MX4D Experience

A couple weeks ago, both entertainment video classes went to B&B Theaters and watched Justice League in an MX4D theater. This is 1 of 5 4D theaters in the nation. I thought the experience of 4D was incredible and added a lot to the movie, but the movie itself was not too great. This new technology will add so much to future movie experiences.

Summary

My favorite thing about this year was working with some of my closest friends in class and on set. I have become a lot closer to so many people in this class because of filming and production. If I would change anything, I would focus more when we are in pre-production for my shorter films (PSA and Short Film) because I was focused during script writing and collaboration of the feature film and it went very smoothly and I'm glad I contributed to those discussions. This class is so amazing and the best 2 hours of my day. My goal for next semester is to do the best I can to make this feature the best it can be.