I had never used an Adobe product, or any decent film equipment before going into e-Comm. Throughout the years, I have been able to learn how to use multiple Adobe products as well as different pieces of film equipment as well as what they all do. Now I use Photoshop, premier, Illustrator, etc. almost every day. Through the help of many teachers and practicing on my own at home, I became proficient in the different products and using a camera. I often came across problems where I wasn't sure how to do something, but with the help of teachers as well as Google and YouTube, I managed to produce amazing projects.
Going into High School, I only knew 1 person from middle school. I was super worried I would never get to talk with anyone throughout the next 4 years because I was super awkward in conversation. However, that was not the case. thanks to e-Comm, I got to meet many amazing people who enjoyed doing the same things I did and I got to talking with people in no time. The years in e-Comm taught me how important it is to keep in constant communication with the people you are working with. Many projects went wrong because information or scheduling wasn't communicated with group members, and while it was rough at the time, it taught me how important communication was to the success of a project.
As stated previously, I was super awkward going into High School and was worried I wouldn't get to know anyone easily. I got to work with many different people on a variety of projects, and I learned how important collaboration is. Working together on a project makes everything easier. The project gets done faster, and group ideas help make the final outcome as perfect as it can be. It is often difficult working with new people for the first time, but once you get to know to people you're working with, everything becomes easier as well as much more fun.
Not only was I awkward in conversation, but I was a massive introvert going into e-Comm. I never thought I would ever love directing a film I believe would be fun. However, the many directing roles I put myself into helped me realize just how important it is to have good leadership in a group. Without good leadership, collaboration and communication can also be destroyed and the entire project will go wrong. A good leader will help make their vision a reality and ensure everyone in the group is a part of it. There were many times where I couldn't take the stress of leading a project, but those experiences are exactly what helped me become a better director in the future. Learning from your mistakes is the best thing to do when something goes wrong, and good leadership helps ensure that nothing does go wrong.
All of the guarantees together help ensure efficient project management. Good leadership helps keep everyone on track through good communication with group members who all collaborate well together when pairing their technical skills together. Making a film wouldn't be possible without good directors, editors, scriptwriters, etc. This is possibly the most important skill I have learned throughout these last 4 years. Project management is hard and very often went wrong. Not enough time to film, an actor drops out last minute, rain cancels a film day; project management helps work around these things that can cause a project to go wrong. Project management is something I definitely learned firsthand through various different experiences.
My Strengths and Weaknesses
My greatest strengths are definitely my strategic thinking and friendliness. Strategical thinking helps with starting a project and working through difficulties that come up whilst planning and filming. Being friendly with your peers is always a good thing to do, as it allows you to work well with anybody as well as have reliable people you can go to when you need help on a project.
My weaknesses would have to be organization and awkwardness. I continue to be awkward in conversation throughout High School, though not as bad as when I first started. Communication and collaboration can often be difficult when you don't have the guts to ask a group member for help or get stressed out about making a decision on a project that could also stress out your group members. The organization is important to keep a project on track. I plan to work on improving these weaknesses and becoming a better filmmaker.
These strengths and weaknesses have developed throughout High School and my strengths will help me continue to work well in the future, while weaknesses will tell me exactly what I need to focus on improving.
Top 3 Videos
Pac-Man Fever Music Video
The first project and my favorite project throughout all of e-Comm is my Pac-Man Fever music video. The music video is my favorite project because of the time I put into it with my group. We spent a lot of time location scouting, filming, and editing. I was able to get an awesome arcade location for the video, which is the first location I've ever gotten that was a public place and not in a family member's house. I worked myself to death editing the music video and I believe it was worth it. It was a combination of all my skills I have learned throughout the years all put together. The week it took to make the project was a super busy and stressful week, but we pulled it off even under the time crunch we were under. Our original few ideas weren't going to work, and we didn't know what to do. I remembered an old sound I used to listen to as a kid, Pac-Man Fever, and we decided to use it. Location scouting was brand new to me, so even though I failed at finding a location for the first few ideas we had, I managed to get a great arcade location for the video. I was given tons of good feedback from my peers, who all loved the music video. The compliments I got made my day and told me I finally succeeded in making something I can be super proud of.
Monopoly Commercial
I also chose my Monopoly commercial for my top 3 videos. While this commercial wasn't the best video I've ever done, I'm proud of it because it was done during COVID when filming was super difficult. It took my group a few days to make and a few days where we were filming another idea for the commercial that didn't work out. The commercial was the first time I ever tried setting up propper lighting on a set. After I learned to set up lighting on the commercial, I was able to use better lighting on my other projects throughout the year as well. I am quite happy with the commercial we were able to produce in a COVID setting.
2021 Final Film Reel
Finally, I chose to make my final and favorite film reel of 2021. I tried to edit this reel slightly differently compared to my reels in the past and I think it turned out pretty good. The beginning freeze frames of myself turned out almost exactly as I wanted them to, so I am super happy about that. I also had a lot of new clips to add to the reel, so I believe it shows my best work from my years at e-comm. I spent a good week editing the clips together and got to learn new editing skills in the process.
Final Thoughts
I didn't do tons of editing in class due to COVID, but I did watch a lot of videos on how professionals edit films both in class and out of class. Outside of class, I also put these skills I learned to the test and tried different editing techniques as well as filming techniques in every film I made this year. I would like to believe all of the time I put into practicing paid off, and I drastically improved my filmmaking skill this year.
In our featured film Cursed, I was able to edit a few of the scenes. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to show off the editing skills I had practiced on the big screen. I worked on editing the film a lot both in and out of class. And while I was super busy, I was able to make time for the featured film and help to create our incredible movie.
Summary
While COVID made this year more difficult than any other year in the past, I still had a blast in entertainment video. As previously stated, I believe my skills were greatly improved and allowed me to succeed in films such as my music video. I wish I could produce one more short film of my creation, as I was never able to direct a script I had written. I believe my scripts were decent enough to make a good film, and definitely be fun to make. This year was a changing point in my film career as I realize just how much I can really do when I put my mind to it. Pretty much everything went wrong for me this year. From COVID to not placing in the top 5 in e-magine, I was having a rough time and these setbacks caused me to enjoy my own videos less and less. I wasn't sure I was fit to be a filmmaker and nearly decided to quit and likely would have had it not been for the encouraging words from my teacher, Mrs. Smith, and peers in entertainment video. Their kind words kept me going and I'm glad I could finish my last year of high school with great people like them.
I'm quite happy with the film reel I produced. The film reel successfully showed my skills as a director and editor. I have directed and edited many videos and included most of my favorite clips from many of the films. I've tried many roles in the past, but I've enjoyed directing and editing more than any other role. I made sure to include some of the better scene's I spent a long time editing, as well as the scenes I had a vision for while directing. The director scenes were included because I was able to make my vision come to life. I am quite proud of many of the shots in my reel, and that's the main reason I included them.
What I'd Change and Keep
If I were to change some of the film reel, I would really love to have some more shots to include at the end. A few of the shots I included in the second half of the reel were filler, as I didn't know what else to include. I tried to not edit any of the original clips, but there were a few I wish I had edited, due to odd lighting or random features that shouldn't be there. I was quite happy with the first part of the film reel: from the start of the reel to the end of the robber chase scene. I would keep the first half mostly the same, and change some of the second half one I had more clips. I was pretty happy with how some of the shots paired with the music, so I would like to continue to have the videos match the song.
Final Thoughts
I believe this was my best film reel so far. I'm excited to make my final film reel later this year and I hope I'll have even more amazing clips to include. While I did like this reel, I still believe I can improve quite a lot, both on the reel and as a film maker in general.
We made a commercial for he board game Monopoly. Our original idea was to create situations you might find yourself in while playing the game in real life; however, that plan didn't work out so we ended up creating a new script. In our new idea, we would just record a relatable family game of Monopoly where everyone gets upset with each other. We started our commercial project by brainstorming products and possible ideas to go with them. Once we came up with Monopoly we spent a while scripting and deciding how the scenes should play out. We also scouted locations to film; though we never ended up using any of them in our final product. I was the director of our commercial, as well as an actor.
Production
Being the first film we recorded while social distancing, I quickly realized how difficult it can be to cast actors as well as find places to film. This is the reason we had to change our commercial idea in the first place. I now have experience with casting during these times, which should make directing any future projects much easier. I made sure to communicate all changes with my teammates, though many of them didn't respond, which made it much more difficult to make plans to film.
Final Product
Overall, I'm quite happy with our final product based on our any problems and time restraints. If I were to change anything on the final product I would probably edit it to be a 30 second commercial instead of 60 seconds. I feel like some of the shots are too long or drawn out and many could be easily shortened. Many of the cuts could be executed more smoothly as well. I would like to keep most of the lighting the same. This is the first piece I've worked on where I really tried to balance the light, and I think it turned out really well. I believe I can incorporate everything I learned about lighting, cinematography, and most importantly, trying to not do an idea that's too over the top in my next project. The most important thing I realized rom this project was that many of my ideas for a video are too difficult to execute. SO in the future I believe I can stray away from difficult ideas and do easier to film shorts.
In my film reel, I experimented with some editing tricks, such as at the beginning when I had the show of the character eating a Snickers split into 4 shots of the character and his younger self eating Snickers. I tried to make some shots with worse lighting look better as well. I did this to try and show my "skill" in editing; though it was a simple trick. I tried to use the shots I thought used the best examples of lighting and cinematography. I also used clips that went well with the song and kept with the mood of the song. If I were to do remake my film reel again, I would like to make some transitions more seamless and make the shots fit together better. I thought the shots fit quite well with the music. I would like to add more good looking shots with better lighting and cinematography, so hopefully in the future, as my skills improve, I can get the shots I need.
All Star starts out with a group of people auditioning for a superhero team. Steve Harwell steps in and throws out a man dressed as Elvis auditioning, and is accepted into the group. Harwell first walks down a sidewalk where a child is holding him an L. Afterwards, Harwell runs into a burning house to save a dog while the rest of the band plays outside. He gives the dog back to two ladies and then gives them a ride in his motorcycle around town. The rest of the band is attacked in their limousine and Harwell pulls up with his bike and saves them, leaving the ladies behind. Harwell is then seen walking up to an overturned buss with someone trapped underneath. He lifts the bus up with cheerleaders cheering him on in the background. The person under the bus turns out to be miss all star. The video ends with the band playing in a garage.
Thoughts
All Star uses great examples of cinematography to tell a story; an example being the opening shot of Harwell walking down the sidewalk. I would like to draw inspiration from the way they matched up what was happening the video with the beat of the song, and use it in my own upcoming music video. I enjoy the song and like the way they made the music video, and I hope I can successfully make a music video comparable to this one.
Our short film was called REDACTED, a story of two friends who discover a mysterious child. After we had the script, we storyboarded, and scouted for locations. I edited most of the film and worked on the lighting. I learned a lot about lighting and camera angles as well. I with someone much better at cinematography than I was, and he really showed me different ways to capture a subject. In the editing process, I messed with the lighting effects a lot, and learned how to make shots look better in post.
Experience
If I were to do this project again, I would like to dedicate more time to the film. Due to actors canceling we weren't able to record for very long. I would also like to brighten some of the shots. I would keep the story the same and keep a few of our shots, because I thought many of them looked pretty good.
Final Thoughts
I'm quite happy with our final product, though I wish we could have had more time to do more of our script. The project was quite stressful, but I'm glad we were able to produce a decent final product. Maybe in the future we will be able to finish the film and create a great final product.
This semester, our video class worked on 3 big video projects. We started with a camera assignment, where we made whatever we wanted; after that, we made commercials for a product; and we finished by making a short film.
Camera Assignment 1 (PSA)
The first assignment we worked on was meant to test our skills with video. My group did a PSA on profanity, a comedic piece where we advised against the use of swear words. The project took us about a week to record and edit. We had trouble getting all the actors together to record, as everyone had crazy schedules. Along the way I learned a lot about teamwork, and how sometimes you need to get actors who can focus and work well together and allow you to effectively get stuff done without being too distracted. We didn't do very well on our project, and thus received quite negative feedback, such as the jokes being stale or cringey and the message not being super clear, as well as pointing out the bad lighting in some scenes. Afterwards, we fixed lighting as well as we could, and tried to make the sequence of events more effective, and story less cringey. I myself am not proud of our work, and I believe we could have made something much better. I am disappointed we couldn't successfully execute some of our ideas, which ended up ruining the film more.
Commercial
Next up we were asked to make a commercial for a product of our choice. My group decided to make a commercial for Snickers bars, taking inspiration from the movie Ratatouille. This project also took a week of filming and editing, though we managed to get all of the recording done in a single day. We didn't face many challenges during this project besides two of our group members being unavailable to record, it went quite smoothly. This project was where I decided I needed to up my game, as the failure of my previous video, the PSA, really bothered me, so I tried really hard to use effective lighting techniques and a variety of camera shots. While it still wasn't the greatest, as it was my first time directing, I learned a lot along the way about these areas. The commercial received pretty positive feedback and seemed to be liked by the rest of my peers, though they mentioned the music and some effects could have been better. We went back and tried changing the effects and music, but I don't believe we fixed the problem entirely. Overall I am much more proud of this project and believe we did a decent job capturing what I envisioned the commercial to look like.
Short Film
Finally, we got into groups and made a short film. Our short film was called REDACTED, a story of two friends who discover a mysterious child. This project also took a week to complete, though we probably should have taken more time to expand upon our idea. While preparing for this video, we contacted multiple people we thought would make good actors for the film. Many of these actors, however, were unable to record or dropped out last minute. I was also quite busy during this time and wasn't able to keep up with everything going on, which made scheduling a nightmare. This shooting session taught me a lot about lighting and camera angles as well. I with someone much better at cinematography than I was, and he really showed me different ways to capture a subject. In the editing process, I messed with the lighting effects a lot, and learned how to make shots look better in post. While we haven't yet received feedback for the film, I'm quite happy with it, though I wish we had more time to make it longer and add more to the story, instead of making it cut out dramatically like we had to end up doing.
Class Time
In class, I would often work on editing a video if we had one; however, usually I would take the project home and edit it there. Friends and I would also watch movies sometimes in order to get an idea of what a scene could look like. I always used class time to work on a project if I had something to do for it, but would admittedly get distracted when I had nothing to do. Outside of class is where I do a lot of my editing work. I edit most of my videos at home if I'm unable to finish at school. I often spend hours at home working on editing a project to the best of my ability. I'll also watch videos on how to do something in post production if i'm unsure how to do something.
Strengths
I believe I am at last a decently strong editor, which goes well with motivation to edit a good looking video. When I sit down and start editing, I can edit for hours before taking a break. I find editing fun and like to see what I can make of a video in Premier Pro, even if I'm not the greatest editor out there.
Areas of Imprvement
I believe I could definitely get better at cinematography. I feel like I have trouble capturing what I want to see in a scene and making exactly what I envision. I really hope that one day I can improve and become a good cinematographer, and successfully make ideas into actual good looking films.
Guest Speakers
The guest speakers, especially Morgan Cooper, taught me how even though I'm just a high school student, I can make good looking films. Leah Wellman especially helped, as she taught us about the camera, which I've always had trouble with. Learning to use a camera from someone much more experienced helped me gain experience and get a better handle on what I was doing. Morgan Cooper's films inspired me to make something good that could catch the attention of someone famous, like Will Smith. They also show how you don't have to come from somewhere like Hollywood to make great films.
All American High School Film Festival
The All American High School Film Festival brought me a lot of inspiration, and showed me the quality of film I should be making. Having tons of amazing examples of what a film should look like, especially one made by another student, gives me videos I can compare my own to and gives me something I can try and compete for. Seeing all of the other motivated students makes me want to work harder and produce an amazing film one day.
Featured Film
For our upcoming featured film, I'm an Editor, the Sound Designer, and a Foley Artist. With my past editing experience, I believe I can help make the film look and sound amazing. I plan to work hard both at school and at home when needed to get everything I need to do done.
Summary
My favorite part of this semester was getting to learn about the skills of the other students in my class, as well as making films with them. Putting all our skills together allows us to make a wide variety of videos and video types. I always love seeing the work of other people, and often wish I could make something as good as they can. If I could change one thing, I would like to redo Camera Assignment 1, as to this day I'm unhappy with what we produced. Overall, and most importantly, this semester and all of the events it brought taught me the importance of time management and cinematography. I really want to improve my cinematography skills as I still believe they are mediocre, especially compared to some of my other classmates. my goal for Semester 2 is to eventually produce an amazing, complete-looking film that someone wouldn't be able to tell was made by a high school student. I'm excited to see what the future of this class will bring!
This first project was our short story project. My group and I planned out our short story for about 2 or 3 weeks before we spent a week recording the shots. We faced challenges when it came to casting and weather. We didn't have great ideas about who to cast, and when we did find people to cast, they weren't the best actors. The weather also treated us badly as it rained a lot the week we used to record. Along the way I learned the importance of planning. Throughout the year I've been improving and learning about this, and I feel this time we did fairly well. However, we still didn't plan for the unexpected weather and actor schedules. I was told the film was till pretty funny, which I thought was good, but others did share m concerns about the acting in the film. We changed a few of the scenes from the original script due to actors being too tall or not being able to perform the action. Overall, I think we made a decent video. It may not be the best but it definitely isn't the worst thing i've made.
This second project was our recreation of Bastille's Pompeii. This project took about 4 weeks in planning and recording. Again, we faced challenges with weather. This time it was snowing many of the weeks we tried recording. Here, I learned about checking the weather and planning in advance for lots of snow to ruin your project. Many people told me the video was good and that I did a good job editing the eyes to be dark the first time, the second not so much. I did change the mask on the second one a few times to try and make it look good, though I wasn't very successful. I thought we made a pretty good video again.
Class Time
I used my time in class fairly well when I had something to do. However, if I had nothing to do I would sometimes waste some time and do something not very productive. When I could, I would edit or catch up on our groups plans to record. I would spend a lot of time perfecting a project if it was complete.
Strengths / Improvements
I believe I was able to maximize my strengths be editing videos at home, which gave me more time and I was able to make it as good as possible. I was able to edit many videos which is something I feel I'm good at and enjoy doing.
I could have improved when it comes to using my free time more efficiently. I often wasted time in class when I probably could have found something to do if i really tried.
Short Film
I edited our short film. We made a comedy piece written by another student in our class. I learned how to work with struggling actors while recording this film, due to our actors being less than perfect. I also learned how to write treatments, loglines, and scripts through this project, which I feel will be important in the future.
Summary
I loved making entertaining videos this semester. I didn't enjoy the news stories as much in semester 1, so entertainment was a step up for me. I also enjoyed editing videos. Editing is something I like to do and often do in my free time. If I were to do anything differently, I would have liked to get all of the clips I needed for a few projects, instead of cutting them out. This semester mainly taught me how important time management is. I often ran in to issues because our time was not managed well. Next year, I would like to make even better videos than this year.
This first project was a vector portrait. I chose to use a picture of myself. The project took me about 2 weeks to complete. I found it challenging to get the shading right in many places. This however taught me how to shade graphics. Throughout the entire process, I would ask peers and my teacher about what needed to be fixed. They would tell me what looked weird and it helped me make the portrait look much better than what it would have looked like if I didn't receive constructive criticism. I originally planned on the final product looking much worse than it actually did. Overall, I think I did a pretty good job on this project. Some parts may not be as clean as they should be, but other then that I'm proud of my work. Another project I worked on was my special event advertising poster. I liked my poster the most out of everything I did for the project. It took me a week to make the poster. It was quite challenging to find a good font and font color for the poster, but what I ultimately decided on using looks amazing to me. While working on my poster, I learned how to make new bush styles, which was not only useful in the poster, but in other projects as well. I also asked my peers about what they would suggest I fix to make the project look good. I was again given a lot of useful information, which helped me perfect the project. My original plan was to have a picture of billy Joel during a concert with a bunch of musical graphics, but one thing led to another and I ended up with a piano on a stage. I believe I did well on the project. The last project I worked on was my personal logo project. The project took a week to design in illustrator and sketch ideas. it was quite difficult for me to sketch out a good design, but I eventually drew out some pretty good ones. I learned about experimenting with different colors to see what allowed the logo to stick out. My peers did give me ideas of what I should do for my logo, a few ideas which I did do. My ideas kept changing for the project and I never really had an original idea. The colors on my favorite logo did change quite a bit though. I like my logo, though I feel it could have been a bit better.
Class Time
I was able to stay productive in class when I was finished with a project by improving the project or getting a head start on the next one. I would sometimes look up tutorials on how to do cool things such as create a new path design, which I used many times in my special event advertising projects. At home, I have access to Adobe products, and would commonly work with Adobe Illustrator at home for personal projects or things for other school activities. I would also use these to finish schools projects that I wasn't able to finish in class.
Strengths / Improvements
I believe I am able to work hard on projects and successfully complete the goal I was going for with the project. I can use the applications required of us and learn new ones quite easily. I think if I put my mind to something I can always come out with a great product.
I could probably improve when it comes to self confidence. I never truly feel a project is completed, or when I tell myself it is, I think it isn't good. I could also improve on finding solutions to my problems by myself, instead of asking someone else for help. I tend to do this quickly.
Conclusion
Throughout the year, my favorite part of Graphic Design was the calm working environment and fun projects we got to work on. If I could change something from the experience, I would just add more large projects for us to work on. Otherwise there isn't anything I didn't enjoy. Next year I would like to put even more effort into my projects and make them the best they can possibly be. I want to come out of Junior year with things to be proud of. I enjoyed e-comm this year and I'm excited to do it again Junior year.
We were asked to recreate a trailer for a high school movie. We originally went through movie ideas and then assigned groups depending on the movies we were interested on recreating. My group and I were assigned to recreate high school musical. We started out by taking screen shots of every transition in the trailer so we would know what to record. After that we went out and started location scouting as well as casting people to act for the trailer. After gathering shots throughout a few weeks I edited them all together, where we then realized how many shots we were missing, though we didn't have time to get them.
Experience
Along the way we learned a lot about lip syncing because I personally had never tried it before and neither had most of my group members. We also learned about what can go wrong in a schedule.
Next time I would like to get all of the clips we need to successfully recreate the entire trailer. I would also like to be more prepared when it comes to casting, because we had a few of our actors drop out last minute, especially Gabriella who we lost 2 different actors for. I do like a lot of our shots and thought they turned out pretty well. The video as a whole is much better than expected.
Conclusion
Next time I will definitely know how to manage my time and plan actors. Even though we were given a lot of problems, I rather enjoyed this project. I believe the hardships and difficult schedules allowed me to learn how to deal with the stress of having a project do quickly, which will help me with my future projects where I have even less time.
For our music video, we chose the song Pompeii by Bastille. We started off the process by making a story board and beat sheet. We then started location scouting, trying to find locations that would provide a similar environment as the video. We planned to record for a few hours once or twice every weekend, however we ended up losing a lot of time due to snow. We eventually got all of the shots we needed and I got to work editing the video. I was the main editor of the group, and spent a lot of time working on the project.
Learning Experience
Throughout the editing process, I learned about a lot of the effects you can us eon a video. The biggest thing I learned about is how to use masks in Premier Pro, which I used for the eyes. I also learned a lot about communicating with your team, and how it feels when you ask for something and no one responds. I also learned how to manage a project and schedule filming dates.
Changes
If I were to make any changes, I would like to spend more time editing the second dark eye scene, as well as have more time getting shots. A few of our shots were rushed or we were unable to get, which especially bothered me while editing the piece. I would definitely keep the first dark eyes the same, because I felt proud of that work and thought it turned out pretty well. Next time I would definitely like to spend more time on some shots as well as plan out actors and locations a bit more.
Final Thoughts
Overall I enjoyed this project. It allowed me to meet new people, go to new places, and learn new things. The project as a whole was stressful, but I am glad that it's now over.
