The video above was my first project in Convergence Journalism. Overall, I am not 100% satisfied with the turn out of the video. Some mistakes were: not using a tripod, tighter shutoff the interview, and color correct. This video allows me to have room to grow as the year goes on, and as I get more comfortable filming.
It is an informational package over the shortage of lockers at the beginning of this school year. This took me about a week because it took time to set up an interview time with Mrs. Maring. The outcome was very informational, and I thought it it told an overall good story. I learned that I should tighten up the frame when filming an interview.
The scope of this project was to create a final short film that was 3-5 minutes long, and somewhere in the film we had to incorporate a water bottle, a hat, a source of light, and the words "lights out". We got the freedom to come up with our own groups, and from there we had to put our creative minds together. I was in a group with Trey, Makenzie, and Katie after we got paired up we needed to agree on a story, get actors, and story board. We decided our film would be called Escaped. The film shows James (Trey) touch a cube at the very beginning which puts him in a simulation. When he wakes up in simulation he finds Derek(Geoff), who guides James throughout the film. The film is all explained when he touches the cube again, and remembers how everything happened in a flashback.
Pre-Production
After our group came up with the concept of the story it was time to start story boarding. Katie is a quick drawer and story boarder, so Trey, Makenzie, and I informed Katie on what shots to use, and the story because she was gone when we came up with the concept. After the story board was complete, Trey and I started working on the script. There is very little dialog in the film, so when script writing we had to make sure that whenever the actors did talk it advanced the story forward. Our group made the decision the film outside of school, which was a risk that we were willing to take. We set the date to film on Sunday, May 3rd.
May 3rd: Filming
Ernie Miller Park at 4 p.m we met each other; ready to film our final project. We headed into the woods looking for a place to film the opening scene. About 1 mile into Ernie Miller we found the perfect location. We had filmed around half of our film then we ran into a big issue. OUR SD CARD RAN OUT OF SPACE. Fortunately, Geoff, one of the actors was willing to run home and grab his laptop, so we could take some clips off the SD card. Around 5:30 p.m he returned, and we imported the clips onto the laptop. Now, we had to worry about the sun setting, and the film lightening being off. We finally reached the end of Ernie Miller ( 4 miles in) where we filmed our closing scene.
May 6th: Filming
It was time to film essentially, the most important scene of our film. This is the scientist scene where the whole simulation and cube are explained. We called Geoff out of class, so he could come act. We filmed the scene and went to watch them back. At 2:50 when watching them on the computer, there was no audio. The next day we needed to re-film, but our actor, Geoff was sick. We had make-do and film without him.
Post-Production
Fortunately, my group had a 1 1/2 weeks to edit because we filmed outside of school. Finding the perfect music is essential for any short film. Personally I spent a day searching for music, and sound effects on ismfilms.com. In Final Cut Pro I went through the clips and organized them, cut, color and audio corrected them. I met the time requirements and imported my film into youtube.
In the End...
Overall, I was very happy with the end result of my film. Our group met all the deadlines, and even though we had many things go wrong all we had to do was laugh it off and move forward. I am so glad Trey, Makenzie, and I were in a group together because the film would not have been as successful without any one of them. We all contributed in some way. Trey directed and acted, Makenzie filmed and acted everything, Katie drew the storyboard, and I filmed, visualized the filming spot, and acted. I hope you enjoyed the film Escaped!
I thought that this was a good challenge and experience trying to edit, and put together a story in 1 hour and 30 minutes. It was good practice using the J and L cuts, and making sure that I used them correctly. This story had to tell a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning of my story told how incredible the show is because of the whale. The middle explained how well whales move and beautiful they are. Finally in the end a trainer told us how incredible their job is. Throughout the whole video the whales are jumping and swimming. This truly shows how strong, and powerful the whales are. The song I used relates to the name of the show which is "Believe" it says "reach for your dreams" which is essentially what the whales are doing when they jump out of the water. This whole semester has been a good learning experience. We learned the 6 shot sequence, how to color correct, nat noise, audio edits and J and L edits. I used all of these in this project trying to make it as professional as possible. Overall I think this video was a success, the most difficult part was making sure it told a story that flowed together.
Re-editing the music video and making it shorter was
definitely challenging because I had to cut some clips out and make all them
all shorter. When I went back I color corrected a lot of my clips to make them
lighter or darker. The most difficult thing about editing the video down is
making sure the point of you music video gets across to the audience. Using the
markers in final cut pro definitely helped me know when I should transition
into different clips, but some of them wouldn’t line up. Using markers next
film will improve it to be way better because it will flow with the song and it
won’t just jump to the next clip. I think group presentations need to way
better next time around and even for me personally I will talk more confidently
and look right at the client. Over all I thought it was a fun project and I
would do it again.
