2018 Fall Semester Reflection

My Projects:

Commercial: Converse Promo

This commercial was the first project of my senior capstone entertainment video class. Our goal was to make a commercial for a company that makes a product (not a service) and to do it in a fun, creative way (so not an infomercial). I was placed with another senior and 2 juniors. Every single person apart of this worked very hard given that we had 2 1/2 weeks to start and finish it.

I was the director which forced me to open up new thoughts outside of my usual camera work. But, given that I did have camera skills, I was a mentor to the cinematographer and went through all of her shots before we filmed.

When we thought of this idea for Converse, we wanted to have a lot of product reliability established and to focus on colors of the shoes associated with the background. We also wanted to show the shoes can do many different things and can associate with any common person.

A big challenge we faced was that there was not a lot of pure shot preparation during pre-production. Due to the fact that we had 2 1/2 weeks and it being our first project, we were a little slow and we focused on the settings, movements, and timing during our week of pre-production. This caused us to "go out into the wild" for our camera shots. Benefit to this was that I learned to put more faith into my crew and to realize that it was possible without a shot list. Another benefit was the fact that we could go to so many different places with many different actors and we made efficient time while we filmed. During editing, our editor and cinematographer had so my enthusiasm and dedication that they stayed 4 hours after school making a rough edit and the next day, we only had to color correct.

This project was very fun and was a new type of style for me.

Music Video: Youth by Daughter

This was our 2nd project of the year. I had made a music video in the past but this one is something I am very proud of and an experience to remember.

First of all, the story behind this was not my idea but is something that I could relate to very well which helped with the way I shot this. We were able to use our main actress from our feature film, The Hidden, and she was so fun and perfect to work with. Without our 2 good actors, this would not have been as impactful. The best thing about this is the fact that the water scenes and the black and white scenes are herself fighting with her own mind and her inner thoughts. Without knowing that, this video would also not be as impactful. The ending is not a "happily ever after" and more like a reality check for things that turn bad around us.

This project was so fun to film because it focused on a lot of personal shots and close-ups to make it all more emotional. I was able to use a GoPro for underwater shots and it was a new experience for me because I had to think about the eyes of someone watching and of our main girl character. What I love about this is the fact that every shot has a purpose and a meaning behind it and moves the story along. This video gave me an opportunity to get my meaningful, creative side out and forced me to "think outside the box".

This video was supposed to be 2-3 minutes but our problem was that if we cut part of the song, then it would loose some meaning to it and we were able to fill each second with something that moved it along and kept it all interesting.

This is by far one of my best projects and is to this day my favorite one so far.

Short Film: Behind Closed Doors

This short film has been my most recent completed project. It started out as scriptwriting and treatments and after being chosen as my groups short film, we had 10 days to revise the script, film and edit.

I was the director and editor for this video because it was my idea and script that I wrote. Initially, it was able to be stretched into a feature film and had a lot of psychological aspects to it but because we made it into a short film and had 10 days, we revised it to be simpler to shoot and easier to understand. This film was supposed to be portrayed as a portrait film, which means its like a look into someones life. This includes her day-to-day activities. Most films would not have her putting on her shoes and backpack and instead just wake up and walk out the door. But I included those things to get more of a sense of the style in the finished product. There is a lot of repetition in the middle so we can get her character development and paranoia. The critics I got were related to this but I still believe it was all needed for the style I was looking for. The strongest point of this video is the beginning montage because it is 2 minutes of pure character development between both James and Rose.

This style was different and difficult to do in 10 days. For all we did, I am still proud of it because it was done on time and finished the way I wanted. If I would change anything, I would have wished we used a 50mm lens instead of the kit lens because it would've made more unique and interesting shots.

My Time in Class:

This semester, I have done very well in class. Here and there I got distracted because of my scatter-brained mind but for the most part, I got things done and collaborated with my peers very well. I have been able to make close relationships this semester so far like how the seniors last year did with me. Once I had things done, I talked about future projects with my close friends and classmates. I can be described as a head-strong leader and big influence on those around me and especially with this class. Concerning my tendency with being easily distracted, I need to show more leadership skills and ignoring them and really focusing on the current project i am done with.

Guest Speakers:

My class had 2 guest speakers this year: Gordon Lamb and Drew Conners. Mr. Lamb talked about storylines and how we could've condensed our feature film from last year. He also critiqued the projects we had done at the time and gave us good feedback for the future that I will use on our upcoming feature film. Drew Conners was a student last year that graduated and came to talk to us about making good characters. He told us about antagonists vs protagonists and how to make those connections strong and also about how to show the motivations of the characters without making a whole backstory behind it. When he came, the writing team was finishing up our feature film script and was able to change a few things about it so that we could have the best script we could.

Upcoming Feature Film:

Since November, my class has worked on "Get Real": a story dating back to the 80s about 5 high school friends who all have difficult pasts. This film will be very character arc orientated while still having a basic story line.

I am very fortunate to work alongside my director as her 1st Assistant Director. This basically means I am the "business director" while she is the "creative director". In week to come, I will be making the filming schedules based on my crew and actors' schedules and making the call sheets for each filming day. While on set, I will be looking over every department and make sure everything is going smoothly as my director talks to the actors. My camera background will help because I know what needs to happen to make sure we have no wasted shots.

I am very excited to see how this turns out and to go through this entire process again like last year. I anticipate to be very proud of everyones hard work but the end of the school year and to be able to say "yeah I was on the directing team for that film right there."

Summary:

In conclusion, I am very proud of my previous project but hope to have the next one be the best and biggest one so far. All of these projects will help me in the future because I have officially declared Kansas University as my school of choice to double major in Journalism and Film and Media Studies so that I can get more production skills to eventually be part of a media team or advertising company here in Kansas City.