Question #3

Research 

After another day in class I learned that in prior years the format of answering the questions used to be different. With this being said I viewed an example from prior years and saw that this person answered all his questions in one simple blog post. I am not using this blog post for any tips but more of a learning experience on what I might not want to do. It’s interesting how the course has changed so much. Also learning from my teacher the presentation could use some slight modifications. These are all skills that I have learned over the spans of this course.

Powerpoint question: How did your production skills develop throughout this project? 

Me: Honestly, a lot. This was the first time I really had to think about how to show a story instead of just telling it. I’ve always watched movies and appreciated how they were made, but actually creating one made me realize how much goes into it. 

I had to focus on small details, like how lighting changes the mood of a scene. If a shot is too bright or too dark, it can give the wrong feeling, so I had to experiment a lot. Same thing with sound. I learned that background noise and music can make a scene feel more real or even more emotional. I also paid attention to camera movement like, when should the shot feel steady and controlled, and when should it feel shaky or uncertain? These little things ended up making a huge difference. 

One of the biggest things I worked on was using props in a way that actually meant something. The journal, for example, isn’t just there to look cool it’s basically Ryan’s thoughts on paper. So every time I showed it, I had to think about what the audience should understand just by looking at it. Planning those shots ahead of time helped me realize how important visual storytelling is. 

Overall, this project pushed me to be more creative and really think like a filmmaker. Instead of just pointing a camera and filming, I had to ask myself how do I make people feel something? That’s something I never really thought about before, but now it’s one of the most important things I’ve learned. 

References

AICE media studies critical reflection questions Chance Sturrup. - ppt download. SlidePlayer. (n.d.). https://slideplayer.com/slide/8790409/