Leah
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
CAP Hollywood
Overall, we just need to fine tune the film and add some voiceovers to it. Some of my group members and I plan on coming in this week before school and after school to finish. I'm hopeful that we will be able to finish our film in time.
Here's the image that will (tentatively) appear title slide for the film.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
CAP Hollywood
In the time spent editing, I was able to type up the credits. The only problem with this was that we didn't know some of the actors names because we picked them up at the park. I guessed the one guy's name, but I knew the general sound of his name. Once I finished the credits, I was able to find the music needed for our film. I knew that we would need a lot of different sounds, so I went on to Soundcloud and found a basketball warm-up mix that had lots of different songs in it. By doing this, I was able to find versatile music quickly.
We still need to put the credits and the music in, but I think it is better to put the music in after all the footage is in place. We'll do that this week though and narrow our rough cut down closer to 4 minutes.
This is the link to our music.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Reflection
This past weekend, my group got all of the footage needed for our CAP Hollywood film. We filmed on Saturday at the basketball court. We were lucky enough to have Connor help us film with a the really nice camera, so now our footage is of a higher quality. There was a slight hiccup in the plan, as many of our actors didn't show up. Fortunately, one guy did show up so we used him as the main character. There were other people playing basketball at the courts who played the other characters in the film. We also lost one of the drug dealers halfway through filming so we had to refilm the parts with a new drug dealer.
Overall, this film has proven a real challenge, what with finding actors and scheduling a time to film. But we were able to get it done which means that we are on to the next step. I think that with some really nice editing, our film will look really good. We got some extra footage for b-roll, just to make it more dynamic, and we have a variety of shots so that it doesn't look like a home video in which we just stuck the camera at one place the whole time.
This week, we hope to get a very rough cut of our film and mainly lay out the footage in sequential order. If needed, we can also play around with filters in final cut to see if any will work with our film, but that is just a possibility. That's it for this week!
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Documentary Project Reflection Essay
My group procrastinated and was unable to execute our plans. We did talk to the Martha’s Table organization, but we should have looked elsewhere. We didn’t work over break, which was what really doomed us to failure. We also needed to start filming earlier, but instead we waited until the last minute, at which point it was too late. In addition we should have made sure that you understood our plan for filming. You were not in school when we tried to get a camera and so we had to email you. We hadn’t really talked before about our plan for filming and we should have made it clear what we were planning to do.
I thought the structure of the assignment was solid and as good as it could be. The process from brainstorming to filming to editing was very put together and represented the actual process that real documentary filmmakers use. You did a great job Mr. Mayo! It was my group’s fault that we were unable to complete our documentary.
If we had a chance to redo this documentary, we would have started much earlier. We would have talked to multiple organizations to ensure that we had some organization to which to talk. The filming process would be started much, much sooner. Overall, we would just be more on top of things, as opposed to waiting until the last minute.
Friday, March 8, 2013
TV Shows
I think it is sad and disappointing that children now bond over what shows they like. We watch them together and talk about them when we're together. There is so much more we could do and/or talk about, yet we choose to talk about crazy ridiculous TV shows.
For the record, they are SOOO addicting. We live vicariously through the dramatic, plot-twist-filled TV shows. Our mediocre, unadventrous lives cannot compare to a exotic island with magical powers (Lost) or people who can paint the future when high off cocaine (Heroes). Well that's at least why I personally watch these crazy shows. I get really into the plots and the characters. I often find myself wishing I was them, even though I know their world is impossible.
Anyways, I know it's not the best way to be spending our time. But watching TV lets us closely analyze the things that make people human. We see weaknesses and strengths that we couldn't see in our everyday lives. Plus it's all so entertaining.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Spending Life with Technology
Sunday, January 27, 2013
"Our Lives in a Car"
Cherie and I decided that our independent film project would focus on the rides we take to get to Blair. Both of us live relatively far from Blair, so we spend a lot of time in the car, hence the title "Our Lives in a Car". My bus ride is almost an hour and I can't drive yet so hanging out with people in Silver Spring is a hassle. Cherie and I hang out a lot and I think we became friends because we live so far from everybody else.
For this project I used the online video editor wevideo. I don't have any video editing software at home, so I use an online one. It's difficult to use because the webpage gets hung up a lot and it took a long time to upload the videos. It also requires me to pay in order to export the video in HD and without the watermark. (I didn't pay so that's why there's the little wevideo mark at the top.) I'd imagine it'd be really good to pay for real video editing software or shell out the 5 bucks for the online editor. But if I'm only going to use these less than 5 times more in my life, I don't think I really need it. (Sorry Mr. Mayo.)
Overall, I'm pretty proud of our project. I know the video quality could have been better and I would have loved to have used the song "I'm Gonna Be" by the Proclaimers. But, I really like the song I found and I think it makes the video better and more upbeat. It reminds me of one of those fun car commercials where they try to convince you that by buying this car you'll have way more fun than in a normal car. Our video is like that so it's basically trying to convince you that if you live far from Blair your life will be 10 times better! (Not actually, I'm just telling myself that.) So, overall, our video really shows what it's like to not live in Silver Spring.
If the video doesn't work within the blog, then here is the link.