1st semester Entertainment final

1.This semester I worked on these projects, the PSA video, and the short film.

The first project was the PSA video, it took us about a week to make. I was the production designer for this so I decided the feel and how the film looked. some challenges we faced during this were the actors not showing up and not having enough actors as well. I learned that we should get the actors in place and ready way before filming, basically, better planning. I don't exactly remember the feedback for this one but I think it was along the lines of, needs better lighting and audio.

The second film we worked on was the short film. This project took us about two weeks to make. some challenges we faced during this were things like lighting, audio, and special effects not working out. Also a major thing was that our original script didn't work out at all and we had to change it half way through. I learned that some project just don't turn out but thats good because you can learn from your mistakes and improve on then next time. Some feedback were given was that the silent aspect didn't work out because we did eventually add some of the video audio to the film, we probably should have just kept it out. I really liked dong this project, it was very fun to film and I Really liked working with the special effects 


2. I would say that my time in class has been.... well spent. I know that I do watch youtube and play on my phone a bit to much but I also think that I did my stuff. when I finished early, I wouldn't just watch video games or something like that on youtube, I would watch things that relate with film and that expand my knowledge of film.
If my boss gave me 8 hour to finish and I finished in 7 I would probably use that other hour to analyze the film I made and pick out the small stuff that I may have missed or I would research other ways of improving on it.
Outside of Ecomm, this semester I made a music video for my math class.

3. I think that my area of strength for this would have to be my idea making and my drone skills. Now I know that just having a drone doesn't take skill but have knowledge on how they work, how to fly them, and how to use the shorts you get from them. I maximize my strengths by bringing y input in on things and using the drone when it is needed.

4. Areas I would like to improve in would have to be my Camera skills and for some reason I have really started to like working with audio lately. I didn't do much with camera skills this semester, but I did work with Wes on audio in the sound booth this semester.

5. I really like the 2 guest speakers we had this semester. I liked how I felt like I could connect with both of them on a certain level. the first one, it was cool to see someone who is in the actual industry and could show us all of the awesome equipment they get to use. the second one was really cool in that he was just like us, he was a kid that liked film and got to go into the industry after college. I could really connect with him because we was somewhat our age and we could relate to that.

6. the MX4D was not what I was expecting. I learned that some ideas sound cool on paper but in real life, they can fail. I think in 10 years the MX4D experience will be much better. if I were to apply things to my film that deal with MX4D, I would addd more scenes with wind and lightning, that was my favorite part of the MX4D. I do not think this tech will support the industry. I think that films make enough money, but in the future is when we willed the technoloy.

7. My favorite part abut this semester would have to be the prep night for the lip dub. it was fun to get to know my classmate and finally take to them. If I were to change anything in this class, it would be the menu items. I thinks its a good concept but it needs some improvements and clarification. My overall take-away from this semester is that I found out film making is not what I want to do in the future. Thats not to say I don't like it, I love making films and stuff like that, I just think that the chances of making it as so slim because people much better than me are out there and they deserve it. My goal for next semester is to make an amazing behind the scenes for our film, I am so excited to make it! my final thought for this semester would have to that it has been a fun semester.

justice league in MX4D

MX4D is a new way to watch movies by making you part of the movie. With things like air in your face, smells, snow, strobes, water, and much more, MX4D is an entirely new way to watch movies. Now that being said, does it really enhance your experience, in my opinion, not a all. If anything it made the movie worse, I would have much rather seen the movie in the regular theater. Before going I was really really excited but then after experiencing it I was very disappointed. I was hoping for something that would make the movie I have been waiting for since I was a kid, even better than before but in the end it just made it worse. there are a lot of things that contributed to the MX4D being bad, for example, there should have been different color strobes for the gun shots and explosions, the contrast of orange on the screen and blue strobes was very distracting, they need separate strobes with different color based on the specific thing happening in the movie. Thats not to say they were bad, the stone light were actually my favorite part of the MX4D, during the flash scenes, it was absolutely amazing and it was giving me goosebumps during it and even on top of the building with the lightning, it was awesome. The MX4D did not enhance my experience of Justice League. The entire experience was a big gimmick and it was very distracting. I would love to kind of simplify what is in the MX4D experience, take out things lie the smells and find better ways of doing the sports of water and air to take away the loud noise it made. I much more prefer the 2D experience over 4D and even 3D. like I said before, 4D is very distracting and when it comes to 3D, I wear glasses so I just don't like having to wear 2 glasses at once. I like 2D because there is almost nothing to distract me from the film I am watching. I think we could invite something lie the MX4D but have movies that are exclusive to those theaters, thats why the ones at the theme parks are so good because the film you watch id made for the 4D unlike the feature films you watch now. So in conclusion I think that the MX4D is a very cool idea but it was not executed very well, I think that 10 year from now, they will have a very cool experience. All they need to do is get as much feedback as possible and use it to fix what they have and make it great.

Short Film: chopped

The original script we were going to use was my script about the guy at the dinner and the waitress loses her finger. Problems arose and we were not able to use that script because of location problems and not being able to get actors for the characters we had. 

So our process started with me writing the treatment for then story and then eventually writing the script for the film. We then chose this script for the project. As we started to try and find locations and actor, we soon found out that we could not use the original script. We then changed the script, got actors, found locations, and made a story board. On the weekend we filmed at someone’s house and got the footage we needed. After looking at what we got, we realized there was not enough dialogue for the film so we made even more changes. We had decided to make it into a silent film so that the small amount of dialogue would make a little more sense. As we did the editing, we researched silent films on our own and applied what we learned to our film. We eventually had a final product and we were finished. 

My role in all of this was that of director so I was in charge of the film so I needed to help with everything. I learned that being the director can be stressful when you have as many problems as we did during this project. I am glad we had all of these problems because I learned a lot about what not to do next time.

 For this film we use Final Cut Pro to edit and a 70D DSLR. Professionally I think this film was not to bad, it was short but I think the quality makes up for it. We all worked well together and figured everything out as a team and eventually had a final product. 

There are not to many things I would do different because while doing this I learned a lot. First off I would have gone with a different script and figured out if I could actually carry out the script before we decide on it. I would also plan out more in general, we had to do a lot of last minute decisions and I would like everything to just work smoothly, but that never happens in film making. 

There is a lot I would do the same, that being, I would have the same people in my group, we all work together well and we all have our own pros and cons. I really liked our editing style and I would like to do more with silent films, they interest me quite a bit. I think I will do much better doing the next project, this was my first real project this year and now 

I'm back into the film making mood and want to do more with film this year. This also makes me excited for making our feature film. in conclusion, I think we did a very good as a group for what we had to deal with, we took something very unorganized and not planned very well, and turned it into something.... better.

PSA Video

The concept that my group had for this video was a PSA about racism. We were going to have the silhouettes of a bunch of people and they some of them would say statistics about racism. After this part, it would cut to a shot of all those people holding hands and "being one".

The hardware and equipment we used was the same as usual. we used the DSLR to take pictures of the people and video of everything else. for the editing of this video, I used Final Cut Pro. The rest of my group used Adobe Premier. The reason I Final Cut Pro is because that is what I have been using for the last 5 years and its what I'm used to.

So we used our technical skills in that we could operate the equipment and know how to use the software. Communication was used in that we all collaborated in what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it. Eventually we came to a conclusion based off of what everyone wanted to do in this video. Leadership was used when two people in our group took charge and kept everyone on task. Collaboration was used when we all got together and decided on what we were doing too do our video on. Project management was used when we had to work, we did and we didn't get off ask.

The things I would do different would have to be getting actors. from my experience as a high school video creator, one of the hardest parts is finding and keeping actors and getting them to show up. The only other thing that I would change would be that I dint really like being production manager because I didn't really feel like I had much to do. Some of the things I would keep the same is the concept, we had a great idea and if it had been executed right, it could be really good.

Some of the experiences I will take from this experience would have to that I need to work a bunch of stuff and I need to keep doing a bunch of stuff. So in conclusion, I think this project did pretty well, there are always things that could be improved.