Junior Semester One Reflection

Well, it's that time of year again. It's time for winter break, and time to wrap up the semester and reflect on it. So without further ado, here it is:

PSA: Teen Smoking

Here's the first project I did this semester, and the first of the year. Basically, I worked with others to create a humorous PSA about teen smoking. It took only a few days to film, and a few to edit. The main challenge was that we couldn't get good enough shots, until someone pulled out their iPhone and we filmed with that. Another challenge was how windy it was that day. We tried to film when the wind had toned down for a few seconds, and then edit out all the rest. Yet, it was a little hard to hear. There wasn't much we could do to change it after that feedback, but tried to make it slightly better. However, on my part, I really like the color correcting I did for my edit, though it does seem a little inconsistent for some of the shots. Overall though, it was a great start to the year.

Short Film: Sentio

On the flip side, the short film I worked on was dramatic. My friend Brett had a really cool idea for a type of surreal psychological thriller. We went more into planning with this one. I took on the role of art director and location scout, and was in charge of the set, props and consistency of them. The actors were a little hard to find, as only one person showed up to the audition. Yet, Brett has friends who can act. We used the weekend to get the shots of the restaurant, and after school at Brett's house. Production went quickly, but post-production took quite a long time. Plus, Brett is a really self-sufficient and advanced editor, and he insisted that he could do it by himself. Props to him, it looks great. The only issue we had was that our audio was way to quiet for a few shots, but we were able to rerecord that. The class said it was great, although the plot was a little confusing the first watch. It was one of those films where you have to really think while watching it, and I love that.

And now for a little sneak peak of something we're working on right now:

Feature Film: The Hidden

So every year the class works together to create a movie-length feature film. The plot of ours was originally conceived by Brady Stanfield, but expanded by the whole class. As of writing this, we have most of our actors casted and pre-production almost done. Without going into too much detail: it's about a girl who finds the cure to cancer in a world where the government forbids it. No spoilers for you. I took on the roles as one of the script writers. The original script Brady wrote was like 12 pages, but the final is 88 pages. I can't make too many exclamations, but... dang! This is going to be huge. We also applied to production roles, and I am pleased to tell you that I will be the art director again. Today, I just finished the prop list, and I'll send it out to the crew and try to start collecting the props we need.

Productivity

A lot of the time, I feel like I have nothing to do in class. Whether it's because we finished a project early, or because I've done all of my work on the project, I have some free time in this class. But, to stay productive, I've taken to working on my skills. Script writing and pre-production has always been my forte in filmmaking, so I like to work on independent projects. I have a few scripts and treatments I write to keep myself occupied. Also, I told you about this in a separate blog post. If I have writers block and no creative juices, I try to hone the technical side of filmmaking by analyzing short films.

My Strengths

Like I said earlier, pre-production is my forte. I'm a creative person who has almost too many ideas for short films and feature films. I really like focusing on story and character arcs. As an avid writer in general, I enjoy treatment and script writing. Also, being an art director has taught me to be visual.

Areas of Improvement

Well, like an average human, I won't be good at everything. While my editing has improved from freshman and sophomore years (cringes), I'm still not a very cinematic editor. I haven't been able to figure out that "look" that a lot of great movies have in Premier Pro. What I can do now is watch a lot of movies and try to imitate the lighting and colors in my own shots.

Guest Speakers

This year, we had some guest speakers come in and talk to our class. It was really cool to listen to local industry professionals talk about filmmaking. Both of them work in advertising, and one is Mrs. Smith's son. We got to view their work, and they told us what they did to improve their skills until they were hired. We learned that pre-production is the most important part, because if you don't really create something good at that time, then production and post-production are bound to fail. One of the speakers also looked at the script for The Hidden, and gave us feedback to work on the dialogue. We did.

MX4D

We also went on a field trip to a local theater to watch an MX4D movie, brand new theater technology. The seats move around, a breeze and mist are blown at you, and the smell of grass is used. We discussed making moving and sensory movies, since this is the future of theaters.

Summary

Well, it's been a great semester. I really felt like I grew a lot as a student filmmaker. Even with some mistakes, I wouldn't change anything, because the mistakes have helped me grow. I'm really exciting to work independently this break, and see what I can do for The Hidden. Until then, Happy Holidays everyone! Speak to you next year!

MX4D Experience: Justice League

So recently we went on a field trip to a local theater to see Justice League. The theater we went to had recently remodeled to include an MX4D room, a brand new movie experience. Today, I'll talk about that, and how it enhanced the movie.

What it MX4D?

Have you ever been in a 4D theater at Disneyland or somewhere like that? Well, MX4D is basically that with big production HD movies. The seats move around, air and water spray at you, a grass smell effect, and there's even sparse snow and rain. Currently, there are only 5 theaters in the nation to have this technology (the one we went to is the first in the midwest). The reason a lot of theaters are going to start building them is because many are in a financial struggle right now. Most people don't go to the movies anymore, they use Netflix and other streaming services. The goal of MX4D is to give viewers a movie experience they can't get at home. This is the future of movie theaters.

What do I Think of MX4D?

When I first heard about this, I loved the idea of it. For one, it sounded very fun, like an amusement park ride and a movie all in one (which it basically was). I also thought it was great to revive the glory of movie theaters. Don't get me wrong, I still thought this was pretty darn cool, but after experiencing MX4D first hand, my opinion changed a little.

One small fear I had was that it would be uncomfortable. It wasn't too bad. Although my friend, who wears glasses, said that whenever water sprayed her glasses would be fogged up. So if you're going to ever see something like this, contacts are probably better.

A small issue: I don't think I was fully invested in the movie. It was exciting to be moving around with the movie, but that amusement park ride and movie comparison I made? This leans more towards the ride part. Unlike 2D or 3D movies where I can talk about all my favorite and least favorite parts immediately after the movie ends, most of the plot details seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Looking back, I remember the movie is about DC superheroes. If your going to experience MX4D, it's probably best to also see the regular movie earlier.

Also, MX4D seems limited on what movies would be showing. For Justice League, we were completely still, watching the movie during the non-action scenes. Mrs. Smith also said that the theater has played horror movies like It in the MX4D room. So if a movie has no action or scares, it seems like an MX4D experience would be slightly awkward with it.

However, I still thought it was a lot of fun to go see, just mostly for the moving seats. The grass smells, well, those could be improved.

MX4D And Filmmaking

Before and after seeing Justice League, the class discussed that if this is the future of movie viewing, then what does that mean for us, future filmmakers? Well, it's to include more sensory imagery. Crane shots are also great, because the MX4D seats will move with them.

Conclusion

Well, that day was very cool to experience something that was previously only available in California and the northeast. It's also good to know where movies are going, and I'm excited to see this in other theaters, and go to an MX4D movie again.

Some Short Films I Was Watching

So whenever I don't have anything else to do in class, I usually go to YouTube and watch short films. It's great to study other filmmakers and see their methods, stories, characters, and how they flesh them out. It's also great to watch a lot of films for technical reasons. You can see what shots they used, how they framed their subject, and how the lighting and editing appeals to the story. So here is a few I've watched:

Andy

So here is the first one. Out of all of these, it's probably the one I, personally, can relate to most, being an average teenager and feeling pressure to do what everyone else is doing. I can really understand Andy and why he falls into peer pressure. The framing of his character is also something I caught. He seems almost inferior to everyone else, which was good for what the film makers were portraying.

Emily

Warning: Very emotional video above. I mean, just from the thumbnail you can tell this is about a girl going through a rough time. Emily dares to touch sensitive topics like depression and suicide, and if executed poorly, it would have offended a lot of people. But the film crew knew this and were very careful with how they portrayed it, while still giving enough to stab the viewer's heart. Very sad and very good. Congrats on the award, it's well deserved.

The Hit

So after the previous two films, I needed some comedy to lighten up. I clicked on this one because I once had a film idea of the same name. It was pretty short, but creatively executed in that short time. The humor felt original, and I held back laughter in class.

The Gunfighter

I don't watch a lot of Westerns, but I felt I wanted to branch out. Overall, this was a very clever idea I didn't know I needed until I watched it. I've bet all of us wondered how the story would play out if somehow the characters could hear the narrator, and The Gunfighter executes that concept well. It was also a little unexpected that it'd be a comedy, but not that that's a bad thing.

Time Trap

I also don't watch a lot of Sci-Fi, so I felt I wanted to branch out a bit more. I really liked this. Usually when I do watch Sci-Fi, it confuses me too much since all the characters talk about complex math and aerospace. This helped by not having much dialogue, and the viewer is focused on what the robot is doing, not what he's saying. The humor whenever he goes back in time was also nice.

Alone Time

This is probably the most life-like one here next to Emily, except there's no obvious conflict. The main character is just exhausted with her average life, and goes camping to find peace and relief. The editing of the forest and shot choice is very beautiful though, so "Alone Time" is more aesthetically driven.

Nadia

This has to be one of the most interesting films I have ever seen. It is a short film with the way it has characters, a plot, and conflict. But if you watch it, you'll notice it's also a PSA about abuse, and it doesn't try to subtly hide that. The man tells us facts and statistics about child abuse in the UK, while also tying it into a fictional, yet sadly realistic story.

Sentio: A Short Film

So we made this and recently presented to the class. This was the short film me and the group (Brett, Lizzie, Damien, and Brandan) created. We each had our own ideas for a short film, but we chose to make Brett's because we thought his was the most compelling, yet doable for a high school project. And then we got to the process.

Pre-Production

We started by splitting production team roles. Brett was the director, screenwriter, and editor. Damien was the cinematographer. Lizzie was the production designer and makeup artist. Brendan was in charge of sound. I was the art director and location scout. To find actors, we decided to hold auditions. However, we only posted flyers day of, so we ended up having to go around the school and find people willing to audition. Yet, we managed to find good actors.

The storyboards took a while, since the script was 18 pages. Lizzie drew up most of them, but we all drew a few scenes to help get them done.

Then I went out to scout a location for the restaurant. It's actually a church youth-group room. The lack of windows meant we could make it dim and evening-like while filming in the middle of the day. The only tables they had were quite big, but that's easy to compromise. The other location was at Brett's house.

Production

This only took two days. The first day we all showed up to the church in the morning. Korbin and Avery were dressed formal for the scene, while Connor put on the entity costume (and scared us all when he emerged from the hallway). Brett and Damien had the DSLR camera with some changing lenses. I was in charge of continuity, so for those scenes it meant keeping track of whether or not they had food in front of them in the shot. While this was happening, Lizzie was practicing her makeup skills for when we would need them. The first day went very well and we were done within 3 hours.

The second day I could only be there for an hour. This was at Brett's house. Lizzie couldn't be there at all, so Damien and Brett were the only crew members seeing it through. That day, we had the boom mic, so I was operating that while I was there. I heard the rest of the filming went well.

Post-Production

This was pretty straightforward. Brett is a self-sufficient editor, so there wasn't much for me to do at this time. Still, I made a few suggestions. At this time, we found out that some of our audio was too quiet. Brett met up with the actors to redo those shots. Since we finished production quickly though, we had a lot of time to edit and really make it good.

In Conclusion

I am super happy with the way this turned out. I daresay it's probably the best short film I've ever worked on.

Public Service Announcement

My First Project as a Junior!

Hello everybody, it's good to see you again after a long summer. I'm now a junior in entertainment video, and in a class with both juniors and seniors. You've got a lot to look forward to this year. To start the year though, we got into groups and made a PSA of our choosing. Between us, we could either do internet addiction, bee protection, suicide prevention, or teen smoking. We chose the latter. So now I'll take you through the process.

Pre-Production

So of course the very first thing we did in our groups was write down our ideas and pitch them to each other. The idea we decided to go with was Lizzie's. She wanted to do an anti-smoking PSA based off a video she saw:

Well, as much as we wanted to use a fire extinguisher, we couldn't. So instead we decided to use a water cup.

Then we assigned roles. Since it was Lizzie's vision, we decided it was best she was the director and production designer. I called the role as screenplay writer. My friend Damien was the cinematographer. My friend Piper was the art director and one of the actors. And last but not least, Darby was the main editor (we all had to do our own edits, but her's was the one we showed the class). We also got a note for another actor, Nick, who is in another class.

So then I wrote the script and Lizzie drew the storyboard. The storyboards were pretty forward, but I had to revise the script a few times. I discovered you have to read the lines aloud and decide if a character would naturally say that. In the end though, it was pretty good.

After we had both of those done though, we were ready to move onto:

Production

The morning before we filmed, we brought all the props we needed to school. The main prop was fake cigarettes from Party City. To make the smoke we needed for some of the shots, we used Pixie Stix dust. And finally, a water cup Lizzie has.

The first day, we got a few shots. However, we could not get a tripod or dolly, so the first few shots were quite shaky. Then the second day, we had a camera with a messed up exposure. So believe it or not, 99% of the shots used in the PSA were shot on an iPhone. Surprisingly, shots on the iPhone looked better than shots on the film camera; they were stabler and clearer.

Nick actually did not remember to wear the same shirt for the shoot, so we had to reshoot everything. That was good though, we ended up with more high-quality shots. We managed to film everything the second day.

Post Production

Darby was the official editor, so we showed her edit to the class. However, we all had to do our own edits.

Editing was pretty straightforward for me. However, my goal this year is to create more cinematic videos, so I paid more attention to everything in editing. Unlike last year, all the shots are color corrected. Raw footage films are something I'd like to leave in the past. I also want to practice cutting more precisely, so the actor's movement flows more naturally.

The only problem I really had was at the very end, when Nick says,"Before you light up." The water cup hitting the ground was very loud, so I tried to lower the volume for that specific area. However, when I did, you can hardly hear that line. I had to decide between the audience yelling in pain because of the sudden crash, or lowering the volume and hardly hearing what Nick said. Obviously, I chose the latter. I tried to make it up by writing the same message at the end. Sorry guys.

This is also the time I looked for statistics about smoking to put on the last few cards. Smoking is scary people, don't do it.

Conclusion

Overall, I'm quite proud with how this turned out. Sure, it's not quite up to the par I set for myself this year, but hey, it's really good for the first project of the year. The only thing I would do differently is to be aware of sound during production, and I just explained why.

Well, that's all I have for now. Can't wait to make more films!

Animation Final Reflection

Well, now I will post my animation final reflection. I'm not going to continue animation, since I already chose entertainment video as my main focus, but here is one of my last blogs.

Valuable Takeaways

This one is a bit different from the video final. I'll address each focus of eComm (Technology, Collaboration, Communication, Project Management, and Leadership) and how this class helped me grow in each.

Technology

There's a lot I learned here. I learned pretty much most of Adobe After Effects, whether it came to how to start a new project, or chromakey (a fancy word for green screen). I also learned some 3D modeling and animating in Maya. Our teacher showed us how to do most of it. To me, this stuff is important because it didn't only get me an A in this class, but no doubt I'll also use these concepts in video. However, it was hard sometimes, mainly because Maya likes to crash. But other than that, I learned a lot.

Collaboration

This is a skill that every person has a little or lots of knowledge for, because we live in a world surrounded by other people. In work, it means working with your coworkers, and not hurting them in the process. In eComm, we worked on a group project for a short film using special effects and chromakey. Even when we weren't working on the group project, sometimes I was stuck and asked for the help of people around me. Other times, they were stuck, and I helped them. Other times, we all didn't know what we were doing, and had to ask the teacher or look at the instructions.

Communication

This is another skill that everyone has to some degree. In eComm, we had to communicate a lot. I mean, it's in the name: eCommunication. When we worked on that group project I told you earlier about, we had to text our partners when we wouldn't be able to film or if we have a camera. Communication is what makes everything run.

Project Management

This is an important skill for school and work. If we want to succeed in anything, we have to get all our projects and assignments done and turned in. So we all had some experience with it. With eComm though, it was about getting through our group and individual work. I did pretty well on this, but a few times I had to come in early or stay after school to get things done. So I learned to use class time well.

Leadership

It doesn't matter if your a natural leader or have to rehearse conversations with people, all of us will have to lead something sometime in our lives. In eComm we had to show people what to do and how to do it, and organize locations for our group to shoot. Animation is a bit more individual than video, so our leadership was mainly helping people who were having trouble.

What I'll Do with All This

Of course, I'll bring it all into next year, and then expand my knowledge for it. Then when I graduate, I'll go into college with a head start. I'll still expand my knowledge of these skills there. Then I'll graduate and go into the workplace, and I'll still expand my knowledge of these over my life.

Conclusion

Well, I suppose that's enough of this. Have a great summer everyone, and I'll see you next year when I'm a junior!

Video Final Reflection

Well, school is almost out, and I can't wait for summer. But before that, we have to do finals... so here I am for one last blog post for my video class. This semester, I worked in entertainment, and made three main videos: a music video, high school film trailer, and short film.

We Didn't Start the Fire Unofficial Music Video

Well, here is the first entertainment project we worked on. It's a music video for the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel. We were planning it for a few days, took one day to shoot it, and then it took about a week to edit it. The main challenge was, ironically, starting the fire. It was windy and cold that day. But with persistence and lots of lighter fluid, we mananged it. Another challenge was just making something out of footage of verses and a lot of fire clips, while keeping it interesting. I had to learn to cut the same shot differently, so to speak. It was well liked throughout the class, although a few people said I could have some other things besides fire shots. Overall though, I think it was the best out of everything on this reflection.

The Duff Student Trailer

This project was a trailer remake for the movie "The Duff." It took a few days to plan this, and it was the first video which I wrote a script for. It took about a week to film, and a week to edit. The main challenge I had was working with extras, especially for the party scene. The set had to be quiet enough to hear the two main characters speak, but everyone almost treated it like a real party. We didn't get as much as we wanted to film that day. Plus, I lost those clips and my friend tried exporting them from her Premiere project, but I lost the audio. The feedback was mainly about that aspect. There was also feedback from the teacher about how some clips were not in focus. Honestly, I didn't really like this project overall. I found it uncreative and unoriginal, but I did it anyway. It didn't turn out the way I would've liked it, but I'll accept it.

Short Film: The Reunion

This is the most recent project we did, and the longest. It took about a month overall: a week of pre-production, two weeks of production, and one week of post production. I was the cinematographer, as well as working a little bit on the storyboarding and editing. Some challenges faced was planning. We originally wanted to film in an airport, but they didn't give us a call back the day we were filming, so we had to find a place at the last minute. One of our actresses knew people at a coffeehouse, and they let us film there. The feedback we got praised the story and our variety of shots. I liked this story, and the way we executed it. It was fun to do.

Using Time in/out of Class

I didn't work every single day. Well, if I had work to do, I would do it. I mean if I have free time and have no work to do. I usually spent it watching other short films on YouTube to see what shots they used, and how the screen looked cinematically. Other times, I would look up tutorials on how to do certain things film-wise, like how to write a script or achieve a cinematic look. Outside of class, I used my camera to take random shots of my house. Not to use in a project, but just to practice filming.

Strengths

My main strength this year, I think, was definitely having an artistic eye. I paid attention to things like the rule of thirds, shot type, and focus to get the shot I wanted. If I didn't have the shot I wanted the first time, I would call for another time.

Weaknesses

My main weakness this year was probably time management, especially when it came to editing. I had a few projects overdue from trying to edit them. Often I took too long for production (or didn't get production done on time) and had to rush to edit.

Summary

I really liked this semester. I loved doing entertainment video, and will go into next year. If I could go back though, I would probably use more cinematic editing, and that will be my goal for next year. Well, I just have to do my animation reflection tomorrow, and that will be my last blog post for the year. Well, until then, see you all!

Music Video

Well, here is our first project in the entertainment semester. We were assigned to create a music video from a song, and it could either be a recreation of the official music video, or our own cinematography. So we chose to create our own. I teamed up with Liz and our other classmates: Austin and Brett.

Austin's grandma had a lot of land, so we decided to film the music video over there on the weekend. The trouble was though, that it was a cold, windy, and slightly damp day. Somehow though, with a lot of determination and lighter fluid, we managed to get a good fire burning. But we came upon another problem: we barely had any footage when it was getting dark. We only had two verses and a few fire shots. The third verse was rushed and I tried my best to fix the lighting. So we decided that we had to make a few changes, like using the fire as a light source for the final verses.

Most of our b-roll was just fire shots, so it was a bit hard to fill up all of the non-verses and keep it interesting. I think I managed pretty well, though. It did reuse some footage, but used effects and different cuts of it to make each clip look new. A lesson learned: get a better variety of b-roll, and don't procrastinate when it comes to outdoor filming.

The Duff Student Trailer

Here is something we did for entertainment video, before the big short film. The concept was to find a movie with a high school theme, and recreate the trailer. Most of us did movies like The Breakfast Club, Mean Girls, and things like that. A girl in our group named Mackenzie recommended that we do The Duff. Before, I had never seen nor heard of the movie, but I rented it and watched it for this project. We did a section of trailer #4 and most of the actors and extras are from our class for convenience's sake.

However, we were never free from problems, whether it was the wind, loud extras, or the one part where I didn't get sound (since I couldn't find the SD card with the original clips, I had to export them from Lizzie's premiere project. The sound couldn't export successfully. At this point, I was so done I just said "Whatever!" and added captions). As you can probably tell, it wasn't my favorite project of the year. But, I still got it in and done. And I learned one valuable lesson: Export clips the day you film them.