#5

One final thing this class has done for me is ruin movies. I can no longer watch a movie without thinking of the rule of thirds. Now I always have to see which scenes fit the rule.

Teledramatic Art Final, Spring 2012

From the first day of this class i learned that I underestimated filmmaking and editing as a whole. Even simply getting the video in the right format was difficult. In my third uploaded film, (my first edited film) you can see that I did not "Export Media" the correct way. The screen of is super tiny and it is difficult to see. Another thing I learned early on in the year was the importance of making clean in and out points. It is also important to know where where to make a good cut. In the same film, you can also tell that I did not choose good spots to cut the interviews. The clips that I used had people whose answers were long and lengthy. I obviously did not cut the clips in apropriate places. Later on, on the next few videos were practice showing that I knew how to do certain edits, titles, and cuts. Specifically, you can see that I learned how to do an instert, overlay, and extract edits. And after that you can also see the short videos where I learned how to add two different types of titles. One video that shows some of these edits and the titles is my cyberbullying video. In the video we have both types of titles; lower third, and the normal one that takes up the whole screen. Later in the year, addig titles became easier, and that was the least of my worries for films. The next big thing I learned was the special effects. At first, it was difficult to learn how to animate them because I got confused with the key frames and which one to press. I eventually learned how to do this and it is shown in the "Thomas the Train" video. Practically all that video is is animated pictures. This is one video where I am very proud of the animated effects. My final video is very short. 53 seconds isn't long enough to include everything i've learned. However I am proud of it because I got it done in a short amount of time, and I know in the beginning of the year, getting a short video done in 2 days would have difficult for me to finish. It does include some things I've learned such as an overlay, an animated title, rolling credits, and breaking up one lenghthy clip into two simple clips.

"The Water is Wide" Reflection

1. The story my partner and I were trying to convey in this film was Thomas the Train Engine and his daily life. It starts with dawn and the world waking up, and then Thomas waking up and starting his day. It goes on, and the toward the middle, Thomas comes to an obstacle, and to overcome this obstacle he needs to believe that he can do it. The obstacle is making it up a hill with a bunch of cars to pull. As the music begins to get intense, Thomas is going up the hill. He finally makes it, and rejoices in his hard work, and then he rides off into the sunset. 2. I am most proud of the images from 2:32 to 3:05. During this moment of the film, we were trying to get the point across that Thomas was working hard to get up the hill, and then he makes it and is happy because he had accomplished his difficult task. The flashing picture of the steam coming from the engine was supposed to evoke the idea of actual steam coming from the engine as he worked to get up the hill. During the happy part of the sequence, we used bright colors because most of the time, happiness is associated with many bright colors. 3. I believe about 20% to 30% of our film was abstract images. No, we did not use one consistent color or shape throughout the video. 4.I realized that abstract images or videos makes the idea behind it much more hidden and complicated to figure out. When an artist or filmmaker makes something with the intention of it being abstract, they have to keep in mind that that will also mean that it is the viewers discretion on what the piece of art, or film, means. 5. I realized that music has a large effect on images. For example, if you show a picture of a gift on a front porch with happy and upbeat music, it is easy to assume nothing bad will happen. Most likely it is a holiday, or someones birthday when there's a gift. If you chose the same image, but put suspenseful music with a lot of quiet, or low sounds, it can be assumed that the gift is bad. Depending on the context, it could mean something is going to pop out, or it will blow up. 6. My partner finished adding titles and most of the special effects to the video. 7. I think I did a good job in editing the pictures and timing them with the music. I also did a few of the special effects in the beginning of the video. I was absent for AP testing, so that's why my partner had to do most of the special effects.

Birds

Zoie and I chose this topic because we couldn't think of anything better to do. Later on, we decided that birds were symbolic of this school year, and highschool in general, and how it goes by so fast.

Thomas the Train

Special Effect Two

For this effect, I chose "Lense Flare" in the "Generate" folder. For the first part of the effect, under Effect Controls, you want to adjust the first number next to "flare center" down to the 100 range. Doing this will cause the flare to move to the left. To move the flare back over to the right, you toggle with the first number next to "flare center" again, but this time the number will be up in the 400-500 range depending on where you want the effect to stop. Do not change the second number next to "flare center," Flare Brightness, Lens Type, or the Blend With... sections. You might use this effect if you want to give the impression that it is really hot outside, and the sun is hitting the camera/character in direct light.

Reflection for Jabberwocky

I think I used the "Bend" effect the best because I timed it perfectly to start "bending" faster right when Michaela's voice changes in tone and gets louder. This worked because it adds to the feeling of intensity when someone is dying. We were trying to communicate the mood of violence and the idea of disorder and ruckus because our stanza talks about the Jabberwock dying.

Jabberwocky

Special Effect One

For this effect, I chose "Turbulent Displace" in the "Distort folder. To do this, you adjust Amount and Size to 100. The first number next to Offset is at 360 and the second at 240. Complexity and Evolution are not changed. For the second way to use this effect, adjust Amount to -65, Size to 83, Complexity to 1, and Evolution to 0 degrees. Do not change either of the Offset numbers. You might use this effect for someone looking into a pond, and their reflection becoming distorted because the watere is moving.

Directions for the Effects

Effect 1:
I chose "Mosaic" in the "Stylize" folder.
To do this you need to adjust the Horizontal Blocks to 16. You also need to set the Vertical Blocks to 12. If you change only one , such as only the Horizontal Blocks, or only the Vertical Blocks, then the picture can look like it has long, rectangular looking blocks.
This effect could be used if something needed to be censored. They use it on the news when they want to protect the identity of someone.

Effect 2:
I chose "Solarize" which was also in the "Stylize" folder.
To do this you need to first set a key frame where the effect is normal. Then move the time marker thing to where you want the effect to end, play with itm, and move it around to change the effect. Then set the second key frame. The Threshold should be 39 at the second key frame.
This effect could be used for showing the passing of time, like shadows when the sun is moving throughout the day.

Video Effects

Director's Cut

What did you notice in putting together your directors' cut about the work that you did to make your Values film?
We put alot of effort into the film, but we also had alot of fun while creating it. We were able to get everything done without having to spend extra time outside of class on things such as editing and filming.

What did you realize by putting together the directors' cut about your group, and the process you went through to create the film?
Our group worked really well together. The process we went through in planning to create the film turned out dramatically different than what we had planned it to be. Props were different, and some of the lines got altered, but it all worked out for the better.

The directors' cut is supposed to help us see the steps you went through to create your Values film. What did you leave out about planning, writing the script, storyboarding, filming, re-shooting, editing, getting feedback, re-editing, and creating a final product?

We definatly left out the part about re-shooting because we never really needed to film twice. We left out stuff about getting feedback because that was all done in reflections on the computer, so I wasn't sure how that would fit into the video. Some things we had but just didn't feel like including were some pics of our planning, and a picture of the original props we were going to use.

Final Video

Short Film Rough Draft

STAR Promo Video

I think my video should be chosen because I worked hard on it, and I think it conveys the tips and reasons why we should take STAR tests clearly.

Thinking about Our Final Values Video

The 6 best comments:
-The most important sound effect was the beep after when Dillon spat the apple out. It was very funny. John and Joselyn
- Over all we think you did a good job you made a value hilarious and random. Michaela C, Ashley T
- We especially like the extreme close-up of Dillon's eyes. Brad and Chris
- We especially like the extreme closeup shot of Dillon because it helped emphasize the idea that the apple was bad. Michaela and Cole
- the rapid zooming in and out on the chocolate milk Kelsey
- the close up on the kids knees when he came out of the bathroom Kelsey
-the rapid zooming in and out of the kids face at the end of the film Kelsey

Suggestions:
-One edit you could change wene jake is comeing out of the bathroom an he said something i could not hear him. we felt that point was right there it was good. Jake and Alex
- There wasn't any music but we suggest maybe a strolling type of music in the beginning until the guy gives the apple to Dillon. John and Joselyn
-. If you could re-film your shots some things that you could do would be to speak louder when filming and make the opening shot less shakey Kelsey
- The credits were not done. Sabrena, Ashley P, Eddie E




This post is from Kaycee and Marleen.
The positive comments that were most meaningful to us were from Kelsey, John, and Joselyn. Kelsey told us that she liked a lot of our angles and our zoomingand that was helpful becausewe weren't quite sure if anyone would like them or if it would even be effective at all. In addition, John and Joselyn told us that our beep sound effect was cool, and that helped us see that kids our age like potty mouths.
The two best suggestions we got were from Jake and alex, and John and Joselyn.

Jake and Alex suggested that we turn up the sound because they couldn't hear the funny parts. We agree with this suggestion, and our plan to address it is to turn it up!John and Joselyn suggested that we add music to our walking part and just to add music in general. We agree with this suggestion, and our plan to address it is to possibly add some tunes that fit with our video.

Reflections on Rough Draft

What value are you trying to represent?
Our video is on the value of Honesty.

What do you think your group has done well?
I think our group has done well on managing our time and working together. I also think the day we did all of our filming went pretty well. I like alot of the angles we chose, or the way we chose to shoot a specific scene.

What do you still need to complete?
We still need to complete our directors cut. We have all the pictures and video we need for the final cut, we just need to finish editing it together. We might need to do a slight more editing, but Dillon and Marleen might have already finished it while I was at the assembly.

What are you most in need of feedback about? (We want to know if..., We're wondering if this camera angle worked when...etc.)
I want the feedback of anything pretty much. I am personally pretty confident in our video, but I just want to know if the overall presentation of it looks good. Are there any further changes that need to be made? Is our video long enough to portray our value and get the full point across?

Identify a challenge your group discovered and faced in creating the film. We had a few challenges. One main thing from the very beginning was finding Dillon a best friend. The issue was that it was a guy part that neither Marleen or I could do. We also had prop issues. We were originally going to use a pepper, but we were never able to get a pepper, so we just changed it to an apple. Another thing that was an issue was cursing. A couple times when we were filming, someone would say their line, but accidently say a curse word in their line, so we had to do a couple takes. We also didn't want to use a tripod for the filming, but Dr. A said we had to or else we would have gotten points taken off, so we had to figure out where we were going to put the tripod for filming.

Over the Shoulder Video Reflections

We didn't do too much planning. Only that we planned to have one person do all their lines first, and then the other, instead of going back and forth.
I'm not sure that we followed the rule of thirds correctly. In both shots, the person who is talking is in the middle of the screen.
Over the shoulder shots create the sense of a conversation between two people. It is somewhat more personal than just filming the conversation as if from the viewpoint of a random passer by.
The dialouge seems realistic, but you can tell that it was being acted out. One thing we forgot to think about was how we were going to plan the reaction shot. We shot the dialouge at a seperate time than the reaction that was supposed to go with it. This was a mistake because it was difficult to make the reaction shot look real because the sound was off.
There really isn't a dominant mood or tone, it's kind of monotone.
Over the shoulder shots are very effective and they help change things up when you need a new kind of shot to use.
I realized that when there needs to be acting in a video, the actors really need to try their best at making the dialouge real, or else the video can come across boring and bland.

Ovedr the Shoulder Video