It's the end of junior year, and I am no longer by anyone's standards an underclassman. Which is very cool and a little nerve-racking. But, the nerve-racking stuff won't really start until after summer so I have some time. Let's reflect, why don't we? Junior year.
I always forget I didn't start the year in entertainment. I started with animation and I did a project and a half. By the time I got to entertainment, I had missed the first two projects. I think my favorite two projects from this year were the short film and the feature film.
The short film was my first full project in that class. I worked with my friends and directed my script. I picked it as one of my favorites because it was my first one and I was proud of the way it turned out. It took us a couple weeks to make start to finish; it was hard to find days we could all make it on set. That was the most difficult challenge, finding time to squeeze in filming in our's and our lead's busy schedules. This project helped me learn a lot about directing and taking the lead in projects. The story didn't have a very strong ending and that's honestly because we couldn't figure out how to end it. I've always struggled with the fact that stories can be anything you want them to be. That just seems like so much pressure to choose the right ending. We also could have been more creative with our lighting choices. I'm still proud of the fact that we finished this piece on time and the way we wanted it to be. We fit filming into any time we could and it was usually a couple hours after school until as late as everyone could stay and long Saturdays. Abby and I work pretty well as a team and we bounce ideas off of each other really well, so filming was mostly a breeze. I need to improve my script writing because I am not great at creating characters. Well, here it is.
My other favorite project from this year was the feature film we made called Get Real. I was on the post-production team as an editor and colorist. I liked this project because I got to become friends with a lot of the seniors and I learned a new program. I loved getting to work with my class and my friends every day, even if it did get super stressful at the end. I started as an editor and then graduated to a colorist as it became time. This project took all of second semester to make. It was challenging right at the end because we got a little in over our heads as I was coloring the whole thing by myself. Luckily the other colorist finished his other project and could take some weight off my shoulders. We had editing parties where we would all stay at the school late and then we would go to someone else's house and keep editing. I need to work on coloring faster, each grade and recolor took me a lot of time because I was so worried about it looking bad. I also could have made the colors pop more than I did. I was pretty critical of myself when it came to watching the finished project on the big screen, but I was still really proud of what I accomplished. The finished movie was really good and I almost cried in the theater at the climax. They haven't uploaded the movies to Youtube yet, but when they do it will be under ONWStudios.
The thing I loved the most this year was getting to work with my friends and see the things they create. If I could change one thing, I would have gone straight into entertainment so I could do the commercial and music video. My main take away from this year and my goal is how hard I want to work next year to make each project the best it can be. (Here's my direct address to Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith, I really want to step up my production value next year and make you, my class, last year's seniors, and most importantly myself, proud.) Next year will be the year I jump head first into the arts.
I'm really hoping that next year I stay in sixth and seventh hour because I love having e-Comm at the end of the day. I really don't like the idea of having it at the beginning or middle of the day and having classes afterward. Next year, I don't mind doing coloring since I'm the only person to get taught Da Vinci, but I really want to be the script supervisor. In our theater department, I am an assistant director and the closest comparing role in e-Comm is a script supervisor. I have already gotten to assistant direct couple shows and I got to learn from this year's script sup Piper. She was a really hard worker and really good at her job and I would love to fill her shoes. I also got to fill her for her a couple times on set and I loved it. Whatever I end up doing, I cannot wait for next year.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
Friday, May 17, 2019
Where's Ray?
For our last project in e-Comm of the year (besides the Get Real), we were tasked with creating a mini documentary. We were to choose a subject or topic we found interesting, and, well, document it. We had to have interviews and a plot. With that, our team got to work.
While brainstorming for topics, my friend Abby came up with a bit of a nonconventional idea. What if we, took to social media and it's influential abilities?
We took that idea and ran with it.
I wish I had a copy to show, but team has had some personal problems come up and we do not have it exported yet.
So, we had our idea. But how were we to actually apply it, and how were we going to document it while we ran around praying that it actually worked? We were lucky that Abby had already had some experience growing an account fast, so we stuck her with posting and growing duties. Most of my work was in pre-production, getting logistics figured out, planning posts. The idea behind the account was that someone had "kidnapped" our school's mascot, Ray the Raven. Players had to decipher clues and codes to figure out where and how to get him back.
We had one major filming day. We are all friends with the girl who plays our mascots we borrowed the suit for a day. In an old video my friends made, they used this cool trick to get a silhouette on a colored background fast. We staged our friend Mario as the kidnapper and had another friend wear the head and crouch next to him. Then, we went outside and filmed a little video of the raven actually getting kidnapped. The whole time, Abby and I filmed behind the scenes. We also did a little photoshoot in the basement so we had some more content for the page.
Most of our class time earlier on went to figuring out posts and clues. The idea was there, but we didn't know how to accomplish it. I came up with the idea to hide the main clue throughout the entire project, so we took each letter of our final clue and had the capital letters spell it out. We also did a little clue at the end where A=1. One post would go up daily over the span of two weeks with all the clues leading to real life.
Abby really took the leadership role with this project since she was in charge of the account itself, but we all worked together to make sure the whole thing ran smoothly. Project management was extremely important to the success of our documentary. If we missed a day or two of posting and weren't always checking up on the account's stats. If we were lacking anywhere it was technical skills. Our documentary itself was pretty simple since the majority of our work went into pulling it off.
Our last day came as a bit of a surprise. We posted our final clue and could only hope some people would show up. Lucky for us and the success of our project, they did. People participated! We had a large group show up all at once. One student followed it very closely and another had found a program to try and take off the voice changer we put on our original video. The account at its peak probably had about 145 followers.
If I could go back, I would have been a bit more diligent about making sure all the posts got out on time and tried to get more footage during class of posts and updates along the way, making the whole thing a bit more cinematic. I really liked our idea for the project, though. It felt different than what is normally expected and we stepped out of our comfort zones with the uncertainty of the fate of our project. I wouldn't change that. When it comes to the next project, I want to focus more on cinematography and making sure the visual aspect is there.
I really enjoyed watching this project unfold from beginning to end and I'm really glad we stuck with this idea in the first place. Our school tends to be a little lazy when it comes to things like this so the odds were stacked a bit against us, but I'm glad our worked paid off the way it did.
While brainstorming for topics, my friend Abby came up with a bit of a nonconventional idea. What if we, took to social media and it's influential abilities?
We took that idea and ran with it.
I wish I had a copy to show, but team has had some personal problems come up and we do not have it exported yet.
So, we had our idea. But how were we to actually apply it, and how were we going to document it while we ran around praying that it actually worked? We were lucky that Abby had already had some experience growing an account fast, so we stuck her with posting and growing duties. Most of my work was in pre-production, getting logistics figured out, planning posts. The idea behind the account was that someone had "kidnapped" our school's mascot, Ray the Raven. Players had to decipher clues and codes to figure out where and how to get him back.
We had one major filming day. We are all friends with the girl who plays our mascots we borrowed the suit for a day. In an old video my friends made, they used this cool trick to get a silhouette on a colored background fast. We staged our friend Mario as the kidnapper and had another friend wear the head and crouch next to him. Then, we went outside and filmed a little video of the raven actually getting kidnapped. The whole time, Abby and I filmed behind the scenes. We also did a little photoshoot in the basement so we had some more content for the page.
Most of our class time earlier on went to figuring out posts and clues. The idea was there, but we didn't know how to accomplish it. I came up with the idea to hide the main clue throughout the entire project, so we took each letter of our final clue and had the capital letters spell it out. We also did a little clue at the end where A=1. One post would go up daily over the span of two weeks with all the clues leading to real life.
Abby really took the leadership role with this project since she was in charge of the account itself, but we all worked together to make sure the whole thing ran smoothly. Project management was extremely important to the success of our documentary. If we missed a day or two of posting and weren't always checking up on the account's stats. If we were lacking anywhere it was technical skills. Our documentary itself was pretty simple since the majority of our work went into pulling it off.
Our last day came as a bit of a surprise. We posted our final clue and could only hope some people would show up. Lucky for us and the success of our project, they did. People participated! We had a large group show up all at once. One student followed it very closely and another had found a program to try and take off the voice changer we put on our original video. The account at its peak probably had about 145 followers.
If I could go back, I would have been a bit more diligent about making sure all the posts got out on time and tried to get more footage during class of posts and updates along the way, making the whole thing a bit more cinematic. I really liked our idea for the project, though. It felt different than what is normally expected and we stepped out of our comfort zones with the uncertainty of the fate of our project. I wouldn't change that. When it comes to the next project, I want to focus more on cinematography and making sure the visual aspect is there.
I really enjoyed watching this project unfold from beginning to end and I'm really glad we stuck with this idea in the first place. Our school tends to be a little lazy when it comes to things like this so the odds were stacked a bit against us, but I'm glad our worked paid off the way it did.
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