Revisting Year Goals

Look back at your goals for the Fall and Spring Semester blog posts.  Were you able to achieve your goals?  Why or why not?  What could you have done differently?  Looking back at them, what could you have done to focus more on your goals in the course?

    Looking back at my goals from both the Fall and Spring Semester, I was able to achieve some of my goals to a pretty good degree. From my Fall goals, I have successfully met the first goal and have achieved a level of technical proficiency that satisfies my third goal as well; however, I feel that I haven't met my second goal yet. As I said in my Spring blog post, my mindset was to have created my own original narrative film. I do believe that I have partially met the goal that I had laid out in the Fall blog posts as I do feel much more equipped to create that narrative film, but I still have not done so. When looking at the goals I laid out in Spring, I believe that I have met my goals. This second semester has given me the chance to practice my skills and participate in projects so much more; with Iron Gun and the PSA, Parody, and Documentary projects. I was able to exercise my camera skills, learn and practice my sound skills, and also act. On the other hand, I didn't do as much as I could've and wanted to and there were definitely a few projects that I wasn't as proud of for both the final project and my level of contribution. I could have been a lot more proactive in regards to my goals a have met them at a higher level.

    Next year, I hope to be much more proactive with what I want to create and actually produce the projects that I wanted to, now with less limitations technically and with more skills to support them. I'm also looking forward to learning the curriculum for the advanced class and to further my knowledge and skills.

Film Festival Reflection

Reflect on your experience of the film festival.  What was it like to see your or your classmates' work on the big screen before a live audience?  How did this make you feel?  How could you improve in the future?  What would you do differently?

    I thoroughly enjoyed the film festival; it felt incredibly rewarding to see all of our work and effort from the year be shown off to an actual audience. It was very exciting and being able to see and hear their reactions made me feel so much prouder. It was thrilling and felt surreal. I feel like I can draw inspiration from the films that made it and strive to create better projects in the future. The biggest takeaways are to start projects with creative concepts and to really hone in on the edit so that the product is the best it can be. I'm going to now use my free time to brainstorm ideas and concepts for future projects, writing them down in my idea journal, and also practicing filmmaking with quick projects on my phone.

Comic Book Heaven

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2014/12/19/comic-book-heaven/

What kind of mood do the filmmakers convey in this short?  What are 3 techniques that you noticed that help convey the mood of the film?

    The mood that the filmmakers convey in this short is ... Three techniques that I noticed helped convey that mood of the film were ..., ..., and ...

Terrance Documentary

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2014/11/13/terrance/

What are 3 techniques that it uses that you learned about in the documentary?  How does the documentary use them effectively?  Are there any techniques it uses that weren't in the keynote?

    Three techniques that the documentary uses are..., ..., and ... The documentary uses them effectively as... Some techniques that were in the keynote were.

If I Die on Mars Documentary

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2015/02/12/die-mars/

What are 3 techniques that it uses that you learned about in the documentary?  How does the documentary use them effectively?  Are there any techniques it uses that weren't in the keynote?

    Three techniques that the documentary uses are ..., ..., and ... The documentary uses ... effectively as ... 

Bull Rider

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2015/04/23/bull-rider/

What are 3 techniques that it uses that you learned about in the film?  How does the documentary use them effectively?  Are there any techniques it uses that weren't in the keynote?

    Three techniques that the documentary uses are not using any A-roll, only using one interviewee, and using storytelling. The documentary effectively excludes a-roll through the use of b-roll and the visuals and story that is told through the b-roll. This goes hand in hand with their choice to never actually show the narrator speaking. They used only one person who narrates throughout the film. By never showing the A-roll of that person, the entire film feels as though it is being seen through his eyes and his thoughts. The film also takes on a more narrative approach, utilizing visually stunning shots, parallelism, and by focusing the b-roll on one event and the prep for it. Some techniques that it uses which weren't in the keynote was the use of slow motion to better showcase the bull riding and the previously mention choice of not including any a-roll.

Enjoy Your Intermission

https://www.shortoftheweek.com/2015/01/29/enjoy-your-intermission/

What are 3 techniques that the filmmakers use to tell a compelling story?  What kind of mood do they create?  How do they accomplish this?

    Three techniques that the filmmakers use to tell a compelling story are a gradual build up, only using music at the end, and allowing the audience to connect to the people in the film. The way that the documentary starts is quite slow; with Roger Babcock mowing the grass and explaining how the process is therapeutic for him. However, this actually sets the tone for the whole film as it reveals the amount of love for this work that Roger has and adds intrigue. Another aspect of this is also the way that they used music. Throughout the film, there was no music; only natural sounds and the interviews. It was only by the 8 minute mark did they start playing music and they did so at the perfect moment. After establishing how much they love the drive-in and the reasons why they do, the filmmakers then reveals the biggest setback that they're facing; replacing the film projectors with digital ones. They explain how they need to make this expensive change or else they will go out of business. At this reveal is when the music starts, amplifying the emotions for the audience. The biggest technique that they used was by giving the audience the chance to connect to and sympathize with everyone in the film. The filmmakers don't just focus on the drive-in during the interviews, they also emphasize the personal stories behind these people so that you can feel their plights more personally. We learn about their motivations, what they love, their relationships and so much more, making the reveal of the potential risk to their business that much more impactful for the audience. The mood that they create is one that gives the audience a greater feeling of wonder for the drive-in business through the choice of interview responses and b-roll and, by using a conversational tone, they create a more personal atmosphere that helps the audience connect to the people running the drive-in.

Documentary Status

What is the status of your documentary?  What is each of your team members doing to support it?  What exactly have you been doing?  What are some challenges you've been having?  How can you overcome them?

    My documentary is fully complete; I finished the rough cut on the due date and then made some finishing touches to improve the quality afterwards. We got all of our shooting done in one week, getting a very good amount of b-roll and responses from our interviewees. Throughout the process, each team member did a very good amount of work. Nicole managed the communication with the teacher and class and also acted as a secondary camera operator, Amaya directed us and managed all the sound (getting very good quality as well), and I was the primary camera operator and DoP. During the week of editing, I did my best to work around the time constraints that I had due to AP testing by logging all the footage right after importing it and managing to complete the project to some degree on time. Some challenges that I had was in regards to the footage and premiere pro. I had merged the audio and video for the interviews so that they would be in sync and I would be able to more easily place in into the timeline without it going out of sync. However, every time I tried to drag the video (the audio alone could be dragged in but not whenever I tried with the video), premiere pro would freeze and remain unresponsive until I force quit the program. This issue was the same on a different computer so I had to figure out a way to include the interview video without running into that issue. I overcame this issue by testing if the freezing would occur with the original, un-merged, video and it didn't. Thus I had to instead sync the footage by using the merged clip to add markers then going to the separate video and audio clips and set the in points to those markers that I made.

5 Documentary Mistakes

https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/5-simple-mistakes-documentary-filmmakers-make-69298/

In your own words, which of these are the most important?  Why?  If there were one more mistake that could be added to this list, what do you think it would be?

    I think that the most important thing to keep in mind is the driving question and theme. The reason why having a strong driving question and vision to start is important is because that is the foundation of the entire documentary; if you start on the wrong foot, it'll lead you down a path of destruction. The driving question is supposed to help guide you throughout the documentary process; dictating the entire production process through what you shoot, how you edit, and the story you plan to tell. If there were one more mistake that could be added to this list, it would be not shooting enough b-roll. The b-roll fills up a very large portion of the documentary and not shooting enough will make it that much harder to create the finished product.

3-Point Lighting [Unfinished]

What are three key points that the presenter makes about lighting?  Why are each of them important?  What is one point that you would like to learn more about?

How to Shoot an Interview [Unfinished]

What are three key suggestions that this video brings up?  Why are each of these so important?  How could you use them in future productions?

How to Interview People on Camera [Unfinished]

What are three tips that you think are the most important from this video?  Why?

Understanding A-Roll and B-Roll

What is the difference between A and B roll?  Why is B-roll needed?

    A-roll is your primary footage while B-roll is the supplementary or alternative footage. In documentary filmmaking, the A-roll is typically the interviews and B-roll is any footage that you use to back up the interviewee's answers. 

What is B-roll

https://www.videomaker.com/let-b-roll-be-your-guide/

What is B-Roll?  Why is it important for a project?  What are 3 things to keep in mind when you're shooting B-roll?

    B-roll is additional footage that can supplement your main footage. This is most typically used in documentary filmmaking as your interviews are considered the main footage (or A-Roll) and any cutaways to other footage is typically the B-roll. B-roll is important for a project because it can show the viewer visually what someone is talking about. For example, when someone is talking about doing lab work, showing footage of them or someone doing that type of work can greatly support the idea and help it be more interesting to the viewer. Three things to keep in mind when you're shooting B-roll is to take notes during interviews, focus the B-roll on your goals, and to use footage that doesn't distract. It is a good idea to shoot your B-roll after interviews so that during them, you can take notes on what they talk about and get shots based on their answers. This will make sure you have footage for the points they make and help produce a more cohesive video. Having your B-roll focus on the goal is incredibly vital for your project as it will affect how the message lands with the audience. The article explains how an instructional video would want B-roll that demonstrates the product whilst a video about retiring officers would want to show off their accomplishments. It is important that your B-roll doesn't distract from your interviews because it will weaken your message and goals. This can occur from having footage that simply doesn't match with the dialogue, which can also be from having shaky footage as well.

Writing a Doc Treatment

https://thestorydepartment.com/story-for-documentary-2-delivering-the-goods/

What are the 3 key things that this article tells the viewer to keep in mind?  Why are they important?

    Three key that this article tells the viewer to keep in mind are that treatments have be as good as they can be to engage the audience without the help of sound or picture, to write to guide the process, and that story is what motivates the viewer to watch. It is very important that your treatment is engaging and highly interesting because your audience won't be able to hear or see the moving you're trying to explain. Thus, the treatment will have to work harder to maintain that level of interest. Writing to guide the process means to create the treatment to not only interest investors but also in a way that it can provide a guide the filmmaking process. This can be done by planning an idea of what you want to achieve and using that to create the treatment. A very important part of a documentary is still the story. Despite the fact that it isn't a narrative film, a documentary still greatly benefits from having a narrative within it. Through the narrative, the audience maintains their attention and interest, which helps them to understand the message you're trying to put out.

Nanook of the North

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-nanook-of-the-north-1922

What are 2 things that the filmmaker did that are controversial?  Why were they?  Do you think the film was "authentic" after reading this article?  Why are why not?  Why is this film so famous?

    Two things that the filmmaker did that are controversial were staging scenes and choosing the cast of Inuit. This was controversial because it led people to put into question the authenticity of the film. One major point of discussion was the scene where Nanook was hunting a seal. As the seal was never shown to be pulled up, some argue that it may not have been authentic and that someone could've likely shot it. However, despite some things having been staged and the cast being chosen, despite not actually having the relation with each other shown in the film, I believe that it is still authentic. As the article says, "If you stage a walrus hunt, it still involves hunting a walrus, and the walrus hasn’t seen the script." Although staging and casting may not have been "authentic," the reality shown still was; the environment, the traditions, the daily lives, the hardships, and the people were all still real. I think that it's because of this that the film is so famous. It incredibly displays the true experiences that the Inuit people have and their way of life.

What is a Documentary

Imagine you are talking to a person who has never before seen or even heard of a documentary film. How would you describe it? What are some essential elements of a documentary film? What distinguishes a documentary film from a narrative (Hollywood) film or a broadcast news story?

    I would describe a documentary as an informative film that intends to answer question(s) and reveal the truth about a topic. Some essential elements of a documentary film is b-roll and voiceovers, which can come in the form of interviews or narration. The difference between a documentary and a narrative film is that it is non-fiction and isn't focused on making the audience believe what they are seeing as real because it already is. The difference between documentaries and a broadcast news stories is that documentaries are much more in-depth and narrative compared to news which is focused on delivering the now. Documentary could be considered an in-between of narrative films and news as it can utilize storytelling methods and the specific order of clips and interviews to paint a specific picture of a real life topic.

Music Video Reflection

Reflect on your performance in your music video group.  Look back at your pitch.  What was your role in the project?  What went according to plan?  What didn't?  How could you improve future productions?

    Looking back at what we pitched for the music video, I'd say that the finished result had improved from the original pitch. We took into account the feedback about having a stronger parody and leaned much further into the clumsiness and emotionally unstable protagonist. We included more scenes to flesh out the story and additional moments for the character to show off these traits. The overall look and goal went well and according to plan, but some of the things that we had intended to have were scrapped. This includes the original locations, extras, and one gag that we wanted to include. Fortunately, new dancers and locations were able to be secured and it didn't disrupt the shooting schedule whatsoever. Another thing that went well was the vision as throughout we maintained a solid aesthetic and knew what we wanted. In the future, to improve the productions, we could create better pre-production documents so that there is more structure and rely less on outside extras who may or may not be reliable—either by using people in the class, that we already know are reliable, or by decreasing the amount of actors we'll need in the story.

The Art of Sound Design

After watching this video, what do you notice about the importance of sound design in film?  Why is it so essential?

    Sound design is important in order to bring your film to life; it's able to elicit emotions that the visuals alone could not have achieved. Sound design is able to make a scene much more dramatic and immersive, which is one of the greater effects that sound design has on the audience. This is so essential because the biggest factor of any film that you need to consider is the emotional impact and value that it has. Emotions are one of the most powerful tools that can be used to tell your story and message. Audiences will leave remembering what they felt during it the most. Emotions are how you connect to people, which is why sound is so vital in film. Without sound design, that impact and emotional value would be greatly diminished and the tone would be harder to discern. Additionally, sound design can be used to tell a story. This can be by adding emotion but also by adding context or emphasizing specific points.

Using EQ to Make Dialogue Sound Better

Explain the process of using the EQ to enhance your dialog.  Why would you want to use this process?

    To begin with, when using Adobe Audition, to open the equalizer, you must go to the effects tab and find filter and eq (in the video, he uses the Parametric equalizer.) The first step is to turn on the high pass filter and set it to 60Hz as there's generally not anything in the human voice below that level. Next is the low pass filter set to 18kHz (18000Hz) for similar reasons. The next steps are to reduce the harshness of the voice, then sweeten it up. For this process, it must be done by ear as there are no set of "ideal" values or numbers that can give you the desired outcome. First, you should boost a mid tone to 9db and narrow it by increasing the Q/width to 20. This creates a tool that you can use to more easily identify where the harshness is by amplifying specific frequencies. Once you find it, you should then lower the db to around -4 or -5 in order to reduce the harshness then widen the Q. Lastly, you should sweeten up the voice to make it sound better by adding bass boost and increasing articulation. To add bass boost, you simply just have to increase the db of some of the lower frequencies. When equalizing feminine voices, you'll have to boost in more as masculine voices tend to have more base already. To increase the articulation, you increase the db of higher frequencies. The reason why you'd want to use equalization is to improve the quality and have more professional sounding audio.