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.

Semester One Portfolio in Animation

A Worm

Here is my favorite and smoothest animation, a worm guy. I decided to convert it to a gif, so it keeps playing! For this, we learned how to manipulate and bend 2D objects, and use a null. Isn't he just a cute worm? Possible Future Disney Animator, right here. I said this is my smoothest animation, although the more I watch it, the more noticeable that bump that means the animation cycle is repeating becomes. I kind of want to smooth it out more. But hey, I still like it.

A Pen

This one isn't a moving animation, but it teaches a skill required to be a modern animator: 3D modeling. Everyone's pen looks a little different, that's because we base it off of our real life pens. For 3D modeling, we learned a lot: polygons, booleans, texturing, and lighting to name a few. Most of the time, I was having trouble with Maya, but this pen didn't turn out so bad. It looks like a pen you would see in a 3D animated movie, and that is good enough for me. However, some parts should be more transparent, but I've finished it.

A Ball

Here is a remake of something I made in Freshman year, and something I was drawing on paper long before that: A Bouncy Ball. Only this time, I used Adobe After Effects for the first time. I learned how to use keyframes for animation, instead of just drawing every single frame. It definitely looks more realistic than my Freshman animation, the squish and stretch method is a bit more subtle. It stops when it reaches its highest point though, and that does annoy me a bit. All in all though, I like it.

A Panorama

This is probably my most majestic animation. We studied Bambi, and learned that Walt Disney used a panorama machine for the opening shot. This made the forest move with the camera, while the sky stayed still, like looking out the window of a moving car. Instead of a big machine though, we used layers in Photoshop, some of them longer and traveling faster than others. The only problem I had was this (and it was very minor) is that I can't draw. So the grass in just a brush option, the moon and sky aren't blended very well, and the wolf was attempted. But the most important part of animation is appeal, so I added music to complement the night sky. I was also going to add trees, but ran out of time. But I still really like it.

A Story

This one has its own blog post about the whole process of making it, and I really like it. I may be, well, not good at drawing, but I definitely hit the appeal principle. This was putting everything I learned in Adobe After Effects together to create a short film. Although a few things could be improved, like opening the setting a bit more, I'm really proud of it.

Final Exam In Video

This semester, I took video production, and we've focused more on the journalism side of video. Here are 2 projects I made:

ONW 1 in 200 Interview

This is a news interview of my friend, Lizzie. This took 2 classes to film, 3 to edit, and I chose not to revise. Some challenges I faced was finding a good location in the building to film. I found a well-lighten hallway, yet students occasionally passed through. However, I learned how to use white balance. The feedback was positive, and I was praised for the creativity of the interview. This is probably my best video of the semester.

Feature Story: The Culture House and The Arts

My most recent project is another shot at the whole feature story thing. This took around 2-3 hours to film, 3 classes to edit, and 1 to revise. Some challenges I faced were finding subjects and classrooms to film in. I wanted to interview teachers, but obviously teachers have to teach, so I didn't interview my first choices. But the very nice receptionist helped guide me, so props to her! Some feedback I received was that the subjects were looking in the wrong direction while the camera was rolling, but it was on me because I didn't realize this. Lesson learned: YOU direct YOUR interviews. Obviously I wasn't going to re-film the whole thing. When I was revising though, I noticed a few jump cuts from when I was cutting the interviews, and covered those up with b-roll. I really like this one though.

Now how did I use this time to film, edit and revise?

How I used my Time

Of course, the first step was the concept. You can't just walk into somewhere with a camera and start filming random stuff, you have to plan out how you are going to use your filming time. In my freshman year, I would storyboard, but this semester I used writing. I would write out my interview questions, describe b-roll I could get, and voiceover.

The next part is filming. I would interview my interview subjects, and film my b-roll. Just in case I didn't have enough b-roll, I would film some more.

Then I would edit. I would try to get my video in the time limit, and cut my interviews so that it flowed without me asking questions.

When I was done, I would rewatch it, export it, and upload it to YouTube. We watch all the videos in class, so I know what to revise through feedback. Then I would export and upload the final project.

Strengths

I think I was doing the best as creativity. I knew cool shots to get, and how I would get them. I was also good at cutting videos just right, so that the b-roll was interesting and the interviews flowed nicely.

Improvements to Make

Definitely need to improve my use of the camera. I still don't feel comfortable holding and operating a camera, with things like the tripod, white balance, and focus.

Summary

This semester was a good one, and I liked journalism more than I thought I would (even though I still prefer Entertainment). I would take more control of my interviews though. Next semester, I would like to unleash my creativity and have fun making the short films. Well, see y'all 2017!

Article Study: The Fur in Zootopia

Here is an article I found on the world wide web: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/the-fur-reaching-tech-of-zootopia/

So go ahead and read it.

And now, I will just talk about this article here. Isn't it really cool? I've heard about how the team of Zootopia had animated every hair on every mammal in the movie, but this article goes really in depth. To make all that fur, they used a program called XGen. Watching the video, you can see how layered and detailed the hair on the koala is. Each strand is in a certain direction. The animators went to zoos to see real animal fur, and that's how they knew precisely how to model it.

The article goes into other aspects of Zootopia, like the vegetation.

Tutorial: Making a New Project in Adobe After Effects

The Video Helps You Learn

Here's a little something I did: How to Start a New Project in After Effects, and the wordy title says it all. All you have to do is open the program, create a new composition, and then import your footage. Yep, it is really easy. It is import to make the compositions though, because those act as scenes for your video, and you can organize them. Hope this helped, and good luck starting out!