Junior Semester Final

Entertainment Video Semester 1 Junior
 Lucas Wright

Well, semester 1 of entertainment video has come to an end it was a very fun start for what the rest of the school year has planned for me and my fellow classmates. Below are just 3 examples pf projects I have done this semester

Camera Assignment 1:

This was the first project we had to do at the start of the year. We were given group members to come up with anything that could create that being either a commercial, music video, short film, etc. For this project my group and myself created a Nike Commercial as our video. this project took us about 2 weeks because we had to plan, storyboard, cast, film, edit. some of the challenges faced was just availability because I couldn't really help with the filming due to my job. some new things I learned that were very interesting was new ways to edit through such as the stabilizer setting which fixes shots that aren't still. We were given a lot of positive feedback for our project the one thing that could've been improved was some color differences because the lighting in some film locations were darker than others. in my overall opinion about this project it was a good one to start the year off and throughout the rest of the semester and the rest of the yea I look forward to learn new things and work with the people that I trust.

https://youtu.be/ZNZOcM7BSqg

Commercial;

This project is considered one of my favorites that we have made so far. Some people in my group were some of my friends so this was going to be a fun one. We decided to make a snickers commercial for this project. the only real challenge we faced was it did take us a while to decide what the topic of our commercial was going to be about. This project took about 2 weeks for us but it was pretty simple. Some things I learned about was some new functions we got to use with the DSLR camera we were given to film. we got a lot of positive feedback for our video like the last one but the only thing that could've been improved was a clip of the kid falling give it a bit more smooth shot cut than a rough one. Again this is one of my favorites for many reasons and its not just because I enjoy to eat Snickers.

https://youtu.be/tclr-E8dkyI

Short Film: 

This one was by far the hardest project we had to do this semester and it was the last one as well. we had to make a short film and the idea for ours was to make it a comedy. but my goodness we had a lot of issues with our scheduling and film times because some of our locations we had planned couldn't work because they would not respond to some emails, and another issue was some of our actors had to cancel due to them being scheduled for something else so they couldn't make it. we haven't been given our feedback yet as we have to wait to present ours to the rest of the class so only time will tell. Some things I learned along the way is plan ahead and have at least a few backups prepared don't with till the last minute so you have to rush everything. I haven't seen my short film yet so I don't know what to think of it but due to the many problems we faced during production this might be my least favorite project of the year.

https://youtu.be/SkISMWHnxK8

Class Time

We were given a lot of class time to work on these projects whether it be for production, editing, casting, or planing. Most of our class time I didn't really have that much to do because everyone else had roles that could have them be productive during class. Some of the things I helped with was helping create shot lists, help with casting for some videos, but the most productive thing I did in this class was I used almost 2 to 3 days of it to work on my student website. When working on our website we used Wix to create our site. Most of the work had to be done outside of class like looking for locations to film and the filming itself because no film should be in one location the characters should explore. if sometimes we are finished early I would sometimes look at other classwork I have or study for upcoming tests.

Areas of Strength as a Video Production Student

Being a video production student is a very entertaining course to take. You learn new things along the way to make you improve on the next video to present. on of the best things is that if you want to be a filmmaker this is the class to go too. you learn so much, work with fantastic people who always help each other out and work as a team, and everyone has an idea. when someone has an idea most of the time they pith it out and get to create their vision. if you want to make a nike commercial, you can do it, you want to make a short film about kids adventuring, you can do it. With me being a video production student its been one of my favorite things I've done. 

Strengths and Needs of Improvement

Throughout the previous years I have improved on my filming skills but have also needed to continue through areas I need to improve on. Some of my strengths is I've gotten better at editing and have been getting some bigger production roles to help create videos. I've been helping my groups out on possible shot changes for videos, and have been giving out possible ideas. There aren't really that many improvements I need to fix on but one thing I need to work on the hardest is my availability, work schedules me so much that I rarely get to help with the filming part of production which is bad because if I can't help with film I won't be able to help out my group with that part and could possibly lose some of my credit for helping. I have many strengths I have developed this year, but one improvement still needs to be fixed.

Guest Speakers and What I've Learned

Throughout this semester our teacher has been bringing in guest speakers to help us learn more about the film industry. many of them were students but some were actual people who bring really good entertainment to everyone. One of the speakers was Morgan Cooper who makes some of the most entertaining videos ever. When he came to speak to use he told us a bit of the filming career and how it impacted his life, when we asked questions every answer was important because we were learning from a professional who has many years of experience with this. With all these guest speakers, I've learned so much about filming, editing, production, post-production and much more and with all the information they gave us it really helps us improve on our filming skills.

Production Role for Feature Film

And now with semester 1 ending and semester 2 right around the corner we have begun to create our classes feature film of this year. Everyone in our class has a part whether it be directer, casting directer, artistic design, makeup, and all others. The production role I have been assigned for the feature film is the boom operator. This means I am responsible of holding the boom more and getting all audio of dialogue from the actors and trying to block out surround sound. This is a very important task for the film because without dialogue there isn't really much for the characters, this is also a very exciting thing for me because I get to be on set of the film almost every day with all the other production crew and the cast.

Summary;

This semester was a good start for the year and a good way to kick off what is yet to come in 2020. I think the thing I loved most was getting to work with people that I have been doing most of these projects with since freshmen year and continuing to improve on some mistakes I have made in past projects and making them better. One thing I would change differently is schedule myself to be available to help with the filming of the production. One thing I will tae away from this semester is all the skills and lessons learned from our guest speakers because they gave their time to come talk to us about filmmaking, and I don't want to forget the skills they taught us. 2020 is gonna have some major changes for my video production class one goal I have is to keep a positive attitude and help with as much as I can when filming our classes feature film. With 2019 being over, I really look forward to what 2020 has in store for me and my fellow classmates.