Entertainment Semester 1 Final

Over the course of the semester, we did three video projects. Those were a Profanity PSA, a Beats commercial, and a short film called REDACTED.

The PSA

The PSA took us about a week and a half to make. I wrote it, and I did act in it a bit. Some challenges I faced were differing ideas and methods with my team mates, and that they really didn't give me a lot to do for some reason. Along the way, I did learn how to work with people that had different methods and also difficult actors. Some feedback we got was that it was cringey and that it wasn't very good, so that was fun. We really didn't change much because that would mean reshooting the whole thing. I didn't like it, the rest of the team sort of threw out a good chunk of my script in favor of improvising it, which resulted in it being a lot messier.

The commercial

So, the commercial took a LOT longer than it should have. It ended up not getting done until about a week after the due date. On this project, I was the editor. We faced a lot of challenges, especially a severe lack in communication from our director. We were unable to shoot a lot due to that fact, the rest of us were on the same page but our director was off doing their own thing until we had a chat with Mrs. Smith, which I would like to say fixed everything but that would be a lie because we continued having communication issues, but in the end we got it done. I learned that communication is crucial to a project and a team working.  We did not get feedback because we never got to present it.  Due to that we did not change anything.  I felt that the product was just very mediocre and was not my best work, especially considering, editing is not my strong point.

Short Film- REDACTED

Our most recent project was a short film, the title was REDACTED. I was the art director and a main actor in this video.  It took about a couple months to make.  Most of our issues were schedule related, like for example, our main actor dropped out on the day we were set to shoot, and we had an extremely hard time finding a different actor for it. Once we did find one, we could only shoot on one night because we were all busy the rest of the week. I learned that it is easier to have a smaller cast to work with because then you don't have to account for so many different schedules. We haven't presented yet so we have no feedback or any changes to be made.  I think it is good for what it is, we had to severely cut down a lot of it and change many plot beats.

Class Time

During class I would work on storyboards, touching up the script, and getting cast members, which takes a good chunk of that time. When I finish early I usually like to play around with After Effects to learn new fun skills on there, occasionally I will watch a movie or two but only if I am sure I am done with my work. Outside of class, I enjoy making fun videos with friends, and as I stated above, I also mess around on after effects.

Strengths

My strengths in this class include cinematography, directing, and acting (I think).  I am also rather efficient and get the work done when it is assigned. I keep myself focused not he task at hand and I am more often than not, very determined. For example when we couldn't find actors, I stayed on course and kept asking people, and wouldn't stop until we found an actor for our short film. I did not do any client work. As a student or employee, these are very helpful. Employers like those qualities such as determination and focus, and that helps me be more efficient with my work. I can hone all of these strengths by continuing to do video projects.

Areas I Can Improve In

I can improve in my collaboration. I'm a rather quiet dude, so sometimes I really do need to speak up and stand up for my ideas. Something I did not do in the PSA project, and I feel like that led to the video not being as good as it could have been. I can improve this by actually speaking up and standing up for my ideas. 

Guest Speakers

I learned quite a bit from from the guest speakers, especially Morgan Cooper and Ryan Burnett. Morgan Cooper gave me a greater insight into what it means to be a director, and how you can communicate effectively with your actors. Ryan taught me a lot about editing, an example was the scene from Harry Potter, how he explained the cuts and how the scene flowed, will help me quite a bit when editing in the future. Another thing I learned from the speakers was how the colors used in the film affects the overall feel and mood of it, basically they showed me how I can utilize color effectively.

Looking Ahead

So this next semester we begin our feature film, The Most Dangerous Game. I am the unit production manger for the film. From what I understand, I basically make the call sheets and ensure that we stay on track for our release date. I am very conscious of scheduling and that will help the film, and ensure that we stay on track for the film and make the release date, which I'm sure we will considering that Carson had the script prepared in advance for it, so I'm pretty sure he has a very strong vision for it.

Conclusion

This semester I enjoyed working with new people and seeing different style from mine. If I could have done anything differently, I would probably have chosen my groups more carefully. That's not to say the groups I was in were terrible, we just had many issues, and it was overall not a great fit. I learned the most about teamwork and collaboration this semester. Next semester I would like to improve on standing up for ideas I have. overall, this last semester has been a bumpy ride, I'm not sure if it was worth it yet, but we will see next semester, I sure hope it was.

Other stuff I did this semester

I made a film reel. It isn't great (yet) because I don't have a ton of cool shots for it quite yet, but I will update it in the future. I made a website, it is pretty sick if I do say so myself. It is comprised of most of my major projects and then some, including graphic design.