Semester Reflection

These last couple months have been very productive. I have created my most favorite video projects I've ever made. I was editor for each one, so my skills in that regard have increased significantly. The projects in question were a Commercial for Reese's Puffs, Music Video for Seventeen by Peach Pit, and an original short film named Roughhouse Rock. I have grown a lot as an editor.

Reese's Puffs Civil War Commercial

This was my first project of the year, and definitely my favorite. My team of five was assigned to make a commercial either 30 or 60 seconds long. Deciding on Reese's Puffs as the product, and the American Civil War as the setting, I was already very excited about the project. 

Filming went very smoothly, taking only 2 hours to get everything we needed. Our actors worked with us very well, with our own Courtney playing the wife as well as directing.

In editing, I learned how to color correct with Courtney's help. It was also my first time in editing music to fit what we filmed. I remembered a certain part from a favorite classical piece of mine and dropped it in. It fit pretty well, but not perfectly, so I made many splits and crossfades to have It match as well as it does now.

Everything about this project was nearly perfect, and it turned out excellent. That's why it's my favorite.

Music Video

Our second assignment of the year was to create an original music video for a song of our group's choosing. My group of four had some trouble picking a song, though. It took us 3 days to finally decide on Seventeen by Peach Pit.

We had our first shoot day on a Sunday night, and it did not go too hot. We filmed the intro scene too late in the evening, so we had to scrap that. We got some workable shots that night, but we were kind of down. Wednesday afternoon was our second shoot day, and we got the bulk of the video filmed that day, burning through the park scenes, intro, and closing shots. Our last shoot day was Friday. we shot the colorful band scenes that night in front of my projector and were finally finished with production.

In post, I went OFF. I had about three days to edit everything, and edit I did. I submerged myself in the effects tab of Premiere Pro, finding cool effects and figuring out how to make them look good. After a total of 14 hours spent in front of the Mac computer I took home, I was finished with editing.

I learned many new effects and techniques in Premiere with this project. It's the one that taught me the most.

Roughhouse Rock

My last project of the semester was to create a short film. My group was three strong and we were itching to make something we were proud of. Individually, each of us had written a short story script for a previous assignment, and we decided to pick from there. My script was just plain bad. It was about a plane crash and there was sand everywhere in it. It didn't make sense and it was not feasible.

We chose Jack's script. His was about a band manager who is in charge of an awful group and finally snaps. It was the most realistically possible film of ours. I took the script and re-wrote it into something fit for the screen and drew up some story boards. There was a problem, though. We could only film on one day. We couldn't mess around.

It was Saturday and time to film. Things got off to a rocky start, but we got on track eventually. Filming at three different locations over the course of 8 hours, we managed to get done. 

Editing at home in my bedroom was a new experience for me, as well as a stressful one. I got through it ok though, even with the multiple instances where Adobe crashed, erasing half an hour's worth of work each time.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out, but if I was able to I'd fix the music in the transition from the bedroom to the parking lot.

Guest Speakers

Social Media Apex came in to speak to us one day. Their whole presentation was a sell for us to come and intern for them, and I was interested at first. But after seeing what they were offering for us to edit, I became uninterested. I hated doing unimaginative commercials.

I was not present when Gordon Lamb came in.

Drew Connors, a recent graduate from my Northwest came in as well and talked to us about the importance of character arcs and development. 

Reflection

I am now embroiled in our class's feature film as an audio engineer, editor and script writer. I can't wait to get started and exercise everything I've learned.