One Word Film

 One Word Film

This project titled "One Word Film" was an assignment that put our skills of what we had learned in the class to use. The rules stated that we had to pick a partner to accomplish a project that consisted of no audio or dialogue but just straight shots portraying a word that was assigned to a group that would consist of no longer than 90 seconds. We had to make a brainstorming/storyboard sheet that would help us shoot our shots efficiently and with proper meaning. When submitting the assignment the teacher asked us to submit it in any of the 3 ways: Google Drive, OneDrive, or YouTube in a Google Docs shared with the entire class. There were specific instructions, if not followed would result in a zero for the assignment. 

    Approach

Once groups were decided and directions were read. My partner Sergio and I got together to start our brainstorming/ storyboard part of the project. We were assigned the word "threatening" which was a word that sounded easy to record but found out very quickly that it was far from easy. after some brainstorming on my notes app on my computer seen below, we came up with the idea of a bully. As a group, we thought that incorporating a bully towards a student who is scared of him can portray the definition. It was pretty straightforward and was approved by our teacher, now what was left to do was put it into action. My partner Sergio assisted with drawing the storyboard, and without the storyboard, I believe we would have been all over the place. The Storyboard kept on reminding us of what kind of shot we were going for in the scene that we were filming and actually kept us on track. With this being said we needed the additional day of filming that was provided to film the correct shots and used an interesting technique in our editing, which was done in Adobe Premier. I had experimented with editing prior but I had not messed with the program enough to aim for the goal of defining each shot and its purpose. This assignment was a great way to reinforce my editing skills and with the help of Sergio, I believe we put together a film that was worthy of portraying our assigned word.

Analysis

For the breakdown of this assignment. There was a lot of potential that could have been added to our project. By no means is our film Oscar-worthy, quite the contrary there are many video shooting techniques and editing techniques that were missed. I believe my style of editing did help portray the word threatening but I also realized once I saw the final project I realized towards the end it did not emphasize the word as much as I would have liked, which makes me question if the viewer could guess the word that our group was tasked with. Now with a deeper knowledge of editing, I believe that me and Sergio Could have portrayed the word better but overall it was a good learning experience and now have a basic foundation of camera shots and editing.

Camera Shots Activity

Shots and Angles 

At the start of the class, our teacher demonstrated camera shot angles and compositions. I never really knew the name of any camera angle or what it could mean for a story. We were later shown a sample, and when I first viewed it, I didn't really see much. Later, after a quick analysis, we replayed the excerpt again, and I was able to catch many more shots and angles the producers used to make this excerpt. Later on, we were asked to gather in teams of two and start on our camera shots activity. This activity consisted of us taking 15 photos demonstrating the different shots and camera angles we learned in class to demonstrate our understanding and have practice. I had the pleasure of working with Sergio Hernandez.

Activity

The activity started off rough. Having yet to learn what our story would be or how we would capture it with the shots and angles we were asked to take. We later decided on a love story between a pair of glasses and its case. Though no human objects were allowed in this activity, I believe we proposed a good idea. My teammate Sergio and I asked our teacher if our list of pictures was all right. When we got the stamp of approval we only had about 10-15 minutes left of class to take these photos. Thankfully half of our shots were in class and the others were meant to be taken out of class. We as a group moved swiftly and took care of the final shots although we were laughing when we saw the final product. It was something new that I had never done in my 3 years of being in high school so we both had a lot of fun learning camera shots and angles through a different way.

Reflection

After the completion of this activity, I could say one plus me and Sergio had. Our story was something simple but really smart. I believe the decision of the glasses and the case was a nice match for what we had planned, although it did take us some time to come up with the final shot list. There are some areas I believe I can improve and that is how we took the shots. Lighting and other aspects play a role when taking a shot but that was something I didn't consider. Me and Sergio just looked at completing the task and that is something I believe we achieved, correctly 100% maybe not but there is always room for improvement.

Photos of Activity