"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.