Final Reflection

This class was a very interesting and fun experience.  Entering this class, I was excited to start fimling and editing videos because it was one of my hobbies back in middle school.  The first few days of the first semester were slow, talking about values and how people were able to portray the themes of these values through film.  We talked about specific things that we as the viewers don't notice in film, like how the lighting helps portray the mood or how the clothing that the characters wear are important to their actual personality.  As we progressed throught the semester, it seemed that these simple instances helped me look at film in a new way.  Angles, music, lighting, costume design, setting, etc. were all little things that merged together to create the bigger picture.  Those things helped us film our first project.  The project was based on cyberbullying and how it effects people and what you can do to avoid it or stop it.  The pre-work for the filming was all research about cyberbullying.  At first I found this quite boring and tedious, but when we started filming it actually gave me ideas of how the film would look like.  Storyboarding the film was hard but it helped also create what we wanted to show to the class.  During filming we started to get lost because what we created in the storyboard actually was impossible to accomplish due to the amount of time we had to film and edit.  Some of the shots we used were on the spot, a good example of this was in our cyberbullying video the scene where our friend Michael was walking down the hall and the light in the background gave that "heavenly look" as he walked into the light.  Jacob was responsible for that and it actually helped our video greatly.  Another one was during second semester and it dealt with lighting as well but I'll get to that later.  I guess our first project didn't follow what we expected but it still turned out great.  Editing the video was a challenge because again we didn't follow our storyboard so we winged the editing a lot.  We learned a lot after everyone posted their videos.  Everyone had their unique input on how they edited their videos.  One group, which I believe was Ryan's group, had an interesting intro.  The inro started with people walkin in front of the shcool and the music was added to add a technological feel. Then in an instant as the music got faster, the people started accelerating, this showed how he edited his video.  What this showed was different styles of editing.  As compared to our video which was quick and to the point at a slow pace, Ryan showed a longer piece of work but with a quicker pace.  Ultimately after seeing everyone's videos, I realized the many ways one can portray the same subject in film.  First semester was dipping our toes in the water and it gave everyone a taste of what was to come.  Our final video of the semester was using green screen to create a greeting card in other cultures.  This was fun because I never had a chance to work with green screen the way we learned in this class.  The way I learned was totally different, the fact being was that I never used green screen. It still worked, but I digress.  The difficult part of this project, however, was that I was going to the Philippines early so my partner, Ryan had to complete the rest of the video without me.  Even when I left, Ryan did a great job on it and I appreciate having a partner like him.  Working with groups was the best part of this class in my opinion.  Everyone's input may conflict with each other, but with the right people in the group new ideas sprawl from the fray.  It's fun seeing what peope come up with and then trying to play it out.  It may not always work but it helps create new ideas afterwards.  In second semester, our project was to portray a value in our own way.  Me and Jacob automatically lit up when the guidelines allowed us to portray it in our own way.  Here comes the part I mentioned earliler where the lighting comes in to play.  I have learned a lot about lighting and how it affects film physically and emotionally.  Physically the light made it hard to see the subject, which in our video was pizza.  After finishing it, many people like the ideo the pizza was "glowing in the light" and how it disappered for only a few seconds.  To me it was a blissful mistake.  It helped our video just like our first semester project. In learning many things in this class, I learned that there are things you can control that helps make your film better, the special effects, music, shots, costume, etc.  But there are things you caputre on film that are accidents and may even help you out, in my case a lot of things.  This class helped me out in collaborating with others and seeing film in a new way.  Script writing was not my forte, editing and working with the camera was my strong suit.  But having other in my group helped so much.  For example, Dillon created our story that had to revolve around an orchastra piece conducted by Mr. Zuniga.  I wouldn't have been able to think of one on my own so I'm glad Dillon helped.  The abstract project was difficult because I lean towards more representaional art, it's much easier to portray something that's actually there as compared to abstract.  But this exercise helped me see film in a new way as well.  This class really did change the way I look at film and helped me grow and get better editing and filming videos.

Parody: Stride Gum

Our video is a parody to stride gum.  There's nothing much to know about it other than the fact it's funny, at least we think it's funny.  So Enjoy!

"A New" reflection (Water is Wide)

The story that Dillon and I were trying to portray is in the title "A New". This boy is in the beginngin catches interest in this glass of milk. Which if we wanted to could represent it as what we as people always do, find interest in material things. But that's going on tangent. The story continues as the boy sets out to attain the milk but in his progress things get frantic. Things are lightened as a girl approaches him and helps him find something else, "A New". The end is up for interpretation as how things turn out. We decided for them to just be good friends, but it can be seen as a love interest. Our initial idea was to be very random, to have a kid set out to find milk and struggles to obtain it when finally someone actually gets him the milk. What I was most proud of was the intro that Dillon set up while I was gone. It starts at 10 seconds all the way to 40 or so seconds. The intro trully matched thte mood we went for in the beginning our story. It tried to evoke a feeling of a nostalgic day back when you just sat on the grass, a field, a rooftop, anywhere you found most appealing and relaxing. The music really matched a field full of grass or whatever one finds desirably relaxing. The effects set on the butterflies helped set a really romanticized feel to our intro. Around 35 percent of our video is abstract. We didn't have a consistent color or shape to set our mood. But I guess as long as there were vivid colors. That helped set either a mood or relaxation or frantic design. The use of abstract images in film is just like abstract paintings and the like. It helps the audience try to percieve something that may not be even there. The amount of feelings can be seen in abstract art and it helps show how the director or artist derived at that type of emotion or portrayal of an idea. The music behind the images only bolster the ideas that the artist or director has tried to manipulate all together to blend emotions. The most important contribution that my partner made for this film was the conept we based our whole story on and the intro to our video because I was out during that time we started editing our video. The most important contribution I made was the editiing of the frantic effetcts to our video and the end of the video. Reflection for "The Water is Wide" music video assignment: 1. In 5-6 sentences, summarize the story you were trying to evoke (suggest) to go along with the music. 2. Choose the sequence of images in a 30 second segment that you are most proud of. Identify the time sequence (e.g., from 1 min. 10 sec. to 1 min. 40 sec.). Describe in detail what part of your story you were trying to suggest or evoke in this sequence. Describe how your choice of images helped suggest the story. Describe how your consideration of colors, shapes, and abstract images helped suggest a mood for this sequence. 3. What percentage of your film is made up of abstract images? Did you have a consistent idea about using a color or shape to suggest a mood? Explain. 4. What did you learn, realize, remember, or discover about the use of abstract images in film? 5. What did you learn, realize, remember or discover about the interaction between music and images. 6. What was the most important contribution your PARTNER made to this film? 7. What was the most important contribution YOU made to this film?

A New

The special effects that we used were lens flare,turbulent displace,and rgb curves. We used this to describe the word brillig which is of course abstract so we decided it sounded like a red, sunny, day in a swamp whilst the tubulent displacement made it look wavy which gave the whole brillig part of the word. We used wave warp and sharpened the waves to show how the "animals" gimbled in the wabe. We felt that it gave a more cacophonous tone. The words gyre and gimble seemed to fit the effects we chose.

Special Effects

For the first effect, you choose “wave warp” in the “distort” folder.
You want to adjust the height of the wave to 33. Changing the Direction to 128 shifts the angle at which the waves look. You might use this as a transition into a flashback.

For the secnd effect, you choose “strobelight” in the “Stylize” folder.
You want to adjust the strobe perod to .9, the strobe duration to .5 and random strobe probability to 9%. You might use this effect to simulate flashing lights from cameras, paparazzi.

For the third effet, you choose lens flare in the generate folder.
You want to adjust the flare center at 288, 192 to -22, 329. You might use this effect to emphazise how bright the sun is shining to simulate summer time.

Joselyn and John

STAR Test Promo Revised