Week 14: Project Ratings

(1) Crowdsourcing

Before this class, I have never been introduced to this type of filmmaking. I believe the extensiveness of its collaboration is absolutely beautiful and unique. I also had a fun time getting several friends of mine to contribute to it and they enjoyed it as well. It was great to get back into some arts and crafts as well as applying my artistic eye in a different media than I am used to. I really do hope I will be able to see the final product of our class's film. I would personally like to pursue a similar project in my spare time.
(2) Free Style

This project provided me with the most creative freedom for this semester, however the phrase "Make America Great Again" was kind of a challenge to work with without being political. However, I think allowing us to combine filmmaking methods and research new methods allows use, as student filmmakers, to increase our innovation towards our craft. I have never heard of HitRecord before, but this is definitely a crowdsourcing tool I will use for future projects.
(3) 16mm Film

Today, it is a sad truth that most filmmakers have never had experience with celluoid. The only exposure I had to film stock was during my photography course in high school. There is a beauty with film processing and development as well as a texture that cannot be captured digitally. I also loved learning the artistic ways to manipulate film, particularly the scratching, bleaching, and ink application. It created a gorgeous effect as it was projected and it was interesting to see how these different elements altered the film.
(4) Rhythmic Edit

It was a challenge to create a rhythm within a rhythm, but I still loved the concept of this project. I do, however, wish I could have picked my subject for the portrait. The most difficult part was finding music that complimented the energy of the rhythmic formula and the images. It was a fun project to shoot as well, but I do wish a captured more footage so I had more a of variety to select from for the edit.
(5) Multiplane Animation

I was extremely excited for the project, but no one seemed to be prepared for the production day. I also wish we were allowed two class periods to complete this project. Multiplane and stop-motion animation is something I have always wanted to experiment with, and I plan on using what I have learned to pursue my own stop-motion project in the future. It is an animation style that is slowly dying out, but I am glad some filmmakers still find a beauty in this method.
(6) Bolex

I have had the pleasure to work with the Bolex before for my 302 Doc course, however, I have never had the opportunity to process it. It was interesting to see how everyone's film developed differently as well as how the Bolex captured the action due to different exposures and frame rates. I do wish we had to opportunity to work on the project at a location rather than campus. It was a bit limiting. 

Week 11.5: My Experience of the Saturday Shoot

I thought the Saturday shoot was a lot of fun! It was interesting to see how each group was approaching their project, especially within the restriction of only being able to film one take. My group first helped Group 1. They required a sufficient amount of time to set-up and rehearse because they has to coordinate with a dolly. I think their project will look great, the guitar smash will look phenomenal when it is screened.

It was also nice to work with film processing again. I think it is a beautiful process that is sadly being filtered out by Hollywood's digital age.

My group decided to make our short more like a comedy. Our scene was a water balloon fight where an innocent bystander gets killed by a water balloon. As the perpetrator looks up, she sees an army of avengers standing around the dead victim's corpse. They then ensue in a chase pelting the attacker with water balloons until she is dead. Our group intended our short to appear like a Charlie Chaplin-esque chase scene. We shot at 12 fps with a 5.6 aperture. To give our footage a more rugged, on-the-scene look, we did not use a tripod but went with handheld instead.

I think the greatest challenge of the day was the fact we all had to rehearse our scene and camera work several times before actually shooting. It was a different experience acting out a scene as if during a theater performance for a film take. This was a very interesting project to practice improvisation, detailed and clear blocking, and the challenge of one take.