Looking Back

Commercial

Our project was to make a commercial to show off any type of product we wanted to. My group s=chose to promote our football team this year since we were all in football. We created a short video that showcased our new jerseys. It took us about a day to get all of the shots and have our editor put all the pieces together. However it took us a long time to actually get the shots due to the fact that none of our actors wanted to come in and film. When we finally got them to agree, they weren't cooperating on set and we had to wrangle them in a few times.  Some feedback was that we lost the black colored jersey in the dark lighting and the white jersey wasn't lit very well at first. Someone also noticed that some of the products didn't match (Addidas shoes with Nike socks). We didn't change anything since there was nothing we could really do to improve it with our feedback other than reshoot the whole thing and that wasn't really an option. I think we made something pretty decent that would get someone hyped up for our football program. 

Music Video

For this music video I chose to do a video for the song Brother by Kodaline. It was a close project to me as the video reflected my feelings towards my brother who passed away and how I found new brothers in my life as time went on. The video took us 2 days, one for filming and one for editing. Some challenges was that the other actor besides me was getting very grumpy as we went along in the video (I'm noticing a trend with actors here). We also had a very small crew so it was a little harder to try and get multiple different things at once and I also had a hard time trying to get my vision across to my camerawoman. I learned how important it is to communicate with others and the importance of giving your friends food to do what you want. Some feedback was that it was a little shaky at parts and that was because we didn't get tripod. People also didn't understand what the story was at first so I had to explain to them. I like the video overall other than the fact that we had to cut out the verse that I wanted in simply because we didn't get enough shots when I thought we had enough. 

Short Film

This project was to make just a short film that was under 10 minutes. Everyone made a script and then we had to pick the one that we thought was the best out of all of them. It took us about 2 days to complete the film, again one for filming another for editing. The biggest challenge we faced was working in such a small room without my trusty 3 point lighting kit (someone stole a light from a 3 point lighting kit). We also didn't get enough shots when we thought we had enough and there was miscommunication from us to our editor. The feedback was that some shots were boring, you couldn't see some things, the actress wasn't clear with her lines, and that you could see the lights in some shots. We didn't change anything considering those were all things we could only change with reshoots and changing the delivery with lines. I didn't really like this one either since I was with most people about how boring it was.

Effective Timing

For most of the time in class, my group is watching videos and seeing what elements we can put into our film. Since my job almost always relies on being on set (i'm usually the gaffer or director) I didn't do much in class other than that. If I had extra time I would spend it reading about film or watching short films.

Muscles

I'm strongest in learning. I'm willing to learn and I'm also a very quick learner. If I don't catch on right away I'll ask questions and stand back and watch. I'm also good with working with others. Another things is that I'm very creative and look for creative solutions. 

Improvement

I could us some work on my confidence behind a camera. I often have to think about how I want to set up my shot and that tends to lead me to overthink how I want the shot to look like. I also have a hard time getting the shot to actually look the way I want it to. 

Guests are Welcome

We had 3 guests speakers come into class but I was only able to meet with 2 of them. One of them being my film Dad, Gordon Lamb. He taught us about how to effectively write a script and some effective styles of writing. Another guest was Drew Conners, who focused on how to write a character instead of dialouge. He liked to focus on making a character interesting, even if we don't necessarily like them. 

Future Feature Film

With our upcoming feature film, I will be reprising my role as the Gaffer, King of Lights.  I can bring lots of knowledge of how to make characters and shots look more interesting from at technical standpoint. I will effectively use this to help us create a much more appealing film. 

Skip Here for Summary

I loved working on films this semester just as a whole. Every time i'm out filming is the time of my life. I also enjoyed writing scripts and making ideas. Some things I would change is that I would work with more people, more often. I didn't make half of things I wanted to simply because I didn't reach out to people. I want to make many more films next year and expand my reach to go farther beyond school. 

Short Film Project

Within my group we had 3 scripts to pick from. We decided to use this script as it was he most simple and could be done in a few days.  Th script was about a young woman who reflects on her life and the loss of her mother. It would involve flashbacks as she monologues her life.

My group created storyboards and we created shot from our already full script. After we created storyboards we picked a day to shoot and got our actors together and prepared them for their role. Once we actually started shooting one of my group members had an idea for a shot so I let them take the camera. She was originally the director and I was the cinematographer. Eventually we just switched roles as we found each other switching better for this project. I was not involved in the editing process but our editor did make her dialogue faster to help fix the pacing of the film.

I learned that I should always take in new ideas and also how to work with minimal lighting to create a scene. Of course there are still a few shots where you can actually see the lights but the was a fault on both the cinematographer and myself.

I would prepare better and have more actors readily available . We ended up not having enough time to film and also didn't have enough actors to get all of our shots. However I think being open to allowing others to take over my job and try to see things from their point of view will help me moreas my career progresses.

Overall I learned more how collaboration is very important and will change the outcome of a film.

Commercial Project

Product

We wanted to advertise our new jerseys to gain support fir our new season. We didn't ned a huge script so the concept would be easy to create without any dialogue. All that my group wanted to do is make a hype video for our school. 

Production

My group started off by trying to find a way that we could make people hyped about our football program. We had about 2 pages for storyboarding that had our player getting ready for a game and then showing off the jerseys at the same time. We assigned ourselves the roles and started to work on dates and times for our actors. We managed to get some time where we could get them into the locker room and get all of our filming done. IT took about an hour to film everything and get everyone in place to get people ready. Then after filming we handed it off to our editor and he picked the music with our sound supervisor. I was a gaffer so most of the lighting was designed by me to give off a look that would hyp people up. There wasn't anything new to be learned from this project so I just appiled some past skills in order to create the lighting.

Changes

Since we got pressed for time and had actors that weren't willing to cooperate all the time, we had to cut most of the story board and make it much smaller and less quality than it could've been. I would've found more cooperating actors and create something that would've been willing to put more time into it. However I wouldn't have changed the tempo of the music or the video because I believe those parts were delivered very well. 

Meeting The Objectives

We didn't meet the part of building a story very well but all other aspects I thought were very well done, such as limited information and call to action. Just having a story would've enhanced these aspects so much more and created something stronger overall. As for the principles of filmaking, i Believe we hit those very well because of our shots that created interest to viewers and our editors great skill. Of course the lighting was also amazing. 

Kansas City Savior Reflection

For our classes feature film I was the gaffer, or the chief light technician, whatever sounds cooler. This means for almost every scene I was the only who lit each character and created moody lighting.  Some of the things that came along with creating such amazing lighting was being able to light every scene without creating hard shadows. Some scenes such as the apartment scenes were very difficult to light since it was so tight and I wasn't very good at the lighting at the time. Eventually as the movie went on I got much better at the lighting which can be seen in the villain scenes and some of the warehouse scenes. Most of the feedback that was given to me was very positive and had very few negative feedback. Overall I think I helped create a better movie with my lighting by making what would be boring scenes to be more dramatic. My impact on the film was very positive and would create a stronger film. 

The time that I spent in class was trying to help keep the film together and help as much as I could to make it even better. I would check with other students as we progressed to make sure my vision with lighting would be able to compliment theirs. Outside of class I would try and find different lighting techniques and just analyse what creates strong lighting.

My strength as an e-comm student is being able to spot details or movement that creates a better scene. I have an eye for creating a nice picture and I maximize that by just taking a video or picture of what I see and seeing if it matched the vision in my mind.

Some skills that I lack is being able to convey my message to others. My ideas are very outlandish and can be difficult for me to explain how I want to it to play out. The way i improved upon that is by simply explaining what was going through my head when I wrote the idea.

During our premiere I like the limo ride and being able to talk to students from both classes. The thing I loved most was the amount of people that went to the premiere and being able to hear immediate reactions from something that we created. I think I would change the location of the premiere as Cinetopia wasn't my favorite theater to go to. I would also improve the seating arrangements. One thing I would take away from being able to create a film was working with others productively and getting things done when we needed to. For next year I'd like to teach the students what I learned so that they could learn from my mistakes and what they will need to do in order to succeed.