Entertainment Video Final 2019

Projects

During the first semester of entertainment video, I've created three videos, not including my film reel. My first video project was called Simply Complex. I was an actor, art director, and I helped with the writing process. I learned how easy it can be to make continuity errors, as we did make a few. For example, a water bottle appears on the table three minutes into the video. My second video project is one that I feel is better than Simply Complex. It's a Nintendo Switch advertisement that was entirely filmed by me, except for the one shot I'm in. Also, it was filmed all in one day. This was my first time using the Canon 80D for more than 5 minutes, so I was very new to using it. I learned how to operate the DSLR, and also that I really enjoy using them. Filming the Switch advertisement was one of the most fun filming sessions that I've done in e-comm. My latest video project was a comedic short film called Franklin's Cake. This is my favorite video I've worked on this semester. For this project, I was the director and screenwriter. I've never been good at taking a leadership role, so being a director was intimidating. I didn't like being in charge because people always turned to me during the making of the video. The responsibilities of being a director take some fun out of making the video, so I don't plan on directing often. As for being the screenwriter, it was a more fun role. For this project, I got creative during the writing process. I'm usually not much of a writer, but writing comedy is very enjoyable. I learned that while writing, it's not uncommon to go back to the script and make changes frequently. Revising scripts creates an overall better film. Most feedback I've received on my films is related to camera-work, so that's what I'll try to improve in future films.

Class Time

In class, I usually use the time I've got to work on videos or other assignments we're doing. I usually don't have extra time when working on a video because if I do have extra time, I use it to revise and improve upon the video. Outside of class, I occasionally film and edit videos for fun, but I have been doing it less frequently because I'm often already making a video in class.

Strengths

My 2 biggest strengths on the 5 guarantees of e-comm are technical skills and project management. I always make sure that a project will be finished, and on time. I'm decent at planning out how long something will take to finish and when to film and edit. So far, I've only had one instance of not turning in a video project, but it was during sophomore year. As a junior, there's been close calls, but still no unfinished or late videos. My other strength is technical skills. I'm good at it because it's my favorite of the 5 guarantees of e-comm. The best part of e-comm is operating equipment and software without a doubt. Although I haven't had too much time with a camera, I feel I'm good with one. Editing is also something I'm good at.

Areas of Improvement

Just like the previous years in e-comm, my biggest area of improvement is still leadership. Commanding a group of people what to do is very difficult for me. Sometimes it's hard to convey my ideas and sometimes it's hard to make decisions as a director. I've definitely at least worked on this area of improvement when working on Franklin's Cake because I was the director for it. I got a little better at scheduling, instructing, and decision making, but it's still something I need to improve.

Guest Speakers

We've had many guest speakers during this semester of e-comm. Unfortunately, I missed some of them, but the speakers that I did get to listen to had very valuable knowledge. Leah Wellman was the first guest speaker. She taught us some basic but important things about how to operate the DSLR cameras. I was still very unfamiliar at the time, so I'm glad she taught us the basics of the Canon 80D.   Another guest speaker was Morgan Cooper. It was really cool to see him come to the classroom to talk to us about filmmaking. He told us about how the Kansas City area is actually a good place for filmmakers. He also told us about huge mistakes to avoid at all costs, like when he lost all the footage for a wedding video. We were told the right way to handle a situation like that as well. 

All American High School Film Festival

Attending the All American High School Film Festival was a big highlight of the semester. I viewed many films from high schoolers around the country. Many of the films were very well made. For me, the most memorable videos were ones with the most clever writing. It really shows how important good writing is. You can't have a good film without a good story. It is important, however, how you tell the story through filming and editing. I saw this in many videos, like The World Within Vincent. It was already a great story, but the way it was filmed and edited just made it really stick out.

Feature Film Role

In the feature film, I'm going to be an editor. I've never worked on a feature film, but I'm sure I have the ability to tell the story of Sub Rosa through me and the other editor's editing. I have lots of previous editing experience, so I know I can do it.

Exploring Video Final 2019

Projects

Movie Trailer

One of my projects this semester was to recreate a movie trailer. We were given a month to do so. A challenge we faced for the first week or so was finding actors that were available. We needed a couple more actors that weren't apart of our group but every person we asked declined. Eventually, we finally got enough actors for the video. While filming, we learned how much effort can be put into a single shot. The only issues with the video is one shot that doesn't look fully focused and there was one part where I was saying a line, but we later realized I was too quiet so we had to use the audio from the original trailer. During editing, we changed the aspect ratio to look like the original trailer. Overall, the quality is very good, and it's a very obvious remake of the Breakfast Club trailer.

Short Film

My latest project was to create an original short film. This was one of the few projects where we were planning and creating something entirely original. We had a little under 2 months to create the video. We also had to start by writing a logline, synopsis, script, and film treatment. After everyone did this, we chose the best videos to create and we got into groups. We had to schedule, storyboard, and other pre-production steps. The filming only took one day. My editing took four days. The short film is a comedy about a man that gets robbed whilst gaming.

Time Management

Whenever I have something to work on in class, I will do it. If I have nothing to work on, I'll do work from other classes. There have been many class periods where I had nothing to do, but when there is, I am usually productive. For example, after we filmed "The Robbery," I edited every class period consistently and I even came in for Raven 50 one day.

Strengths

In video production, I think I'm not bad at editing and operating the camera. The only way to maximize these strengths is to practice. The more I use a camera, the better I'll understand it and utilize it. The more I edit, the more I'll understand the software and editing techniques.

Areas of Improvement

I need to improve as a leader. I have only directed one video this year and I'm not very good at it. I have never liked being the leader in charge, but this of course can change.

Short Film

In the short film, I operated the camera for about half of the clips. I was also responsible for editing the video. The genre of our short film, as mentioned earlier, was a comedy. The story is not meant to be taken seriously. Something I learned was how to color correct. While editing, I noticed that some scenes looked a bit too yellow so I had to fix that. Before we were in groups, I had to write my own story. I learned to look for plot holes in my writing. My writing skills slightly improved.

Summary

My favorite part about second semester video production was the short film. I didn't enjoy the writing part, but everything that followed was genuinely fun. Especially, the filming process. I liked setting up the camera and shooting the video. Something I wish I did differently this semester was to finish my music video project. That project was a disaster for my group. My major take-away is that I would like to continue video production as a junior. My goal is to improve my editing/filming to look more professional and polished.

Graphic Design Final 2019

Projects

My favorite graphic design project from 2nd semester was the logos project. The task was to sketch 30 original logos in our sketchbook and make 5 of them in Adobe Illustrator. We were given about 3 weeks to do so. My only struggle in this project was trying to come up with logo ideas during the sketching process. Many of my logos were inspired by something else. A lot of them were inspired by yin and yang. One of them was inspired by the superman logo. I asked for a few people's opinions on which of my logos were the best then I recreated them in Illustrator with the pen tool and shape tool. The last step was to do different color schemes with each logo to see which colors work best with the logos. Overall, the process was very relaxed and nothing felt super tedious. My logos turned out pretty good and I'd say I improved my knowledge of logo design. There are 2 logos that received the most praise so I'll put them both below.

My second favorite project my vector portrait project. We were given a month to take a picture of ourselves and vectorize it in Adobe Illustrator. I chose to do a low poly vector portrait. This was challenging because I had no clue how to do this when I first started. I learned how to use the grid in Illustrator to create a series of triangles that resemble my head. I colored them with the eyedropper tool. It was a very slow and somewhat tedious process but it wasn't too difficult once I got the hang of it. The final vector portrait resembles me quite well and I'm proud of how it turned out.

Another project I enjoyed from second semester was my special event advertising project. I had the choice of making a hypothetical advertisements for either the Sprint Center or The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. I chose the second option. The main artist being promoted was Andy Warhol. I had to make a poster, postcards, and ticket design promoting the event. My designs were inspired by pop art because Andy Warhol made pop art. I improved my skills in Photoshop and Illustrator. I remember being suggested that I don't change the color of Andy Warhol in the middle of the poster, although I was going to. I was also given the suggestion of adding shapes. The final poster turned out fine, but it isn't my best work.

Time Management

This semester, I usually had just the right amount of time to do each project. There were very few times where I had to come in during Raven 50 to work on a project. Usually, I was productive during class but there have been a few times where I worked on homework from other classes. While making a project, I try to do the best I can. Whenever I need to improve something but don't know how, I ask for others' suggestions. 

Strengths

In e-communications, I have been both a strong graphic designer and film maker. In graphic design, my strength has always been in Photoshop. I'm best with Photoshop whenever we do projects, although I have improved quite a bit in Illustrator as well. As an e-comm student in general, I'm best with technical skills.

Areas of Improvement

My biggest area of improvement is leadership. I've never been a very good leader, which is why I am never director in my video class. Luckily, graphic design is often very independent and there isn't a need for a leader.

Conclusion

Graphic design was a fun class. I loved the feeling of creating original art. It felt very rewarding to finish a project after weeks. My only complaint of the class is the required blog posts for every project. I'd rather be working on the next project, but it's really not a big deal. It was a hard decision whether I wanted to continue graphic design or video production as a junior but I decided on video production. My goal for e-comm next year is to create work that I'm proud of, and to have fun while doing so. Thank you Mrs. Beaudoin for teaching this great class, it was fun!

Music Video

Flossing Music Video

Song Choice

For the music video project, my group chose the song, Flossin, by Russel Horning. Commonly known as backpack kid. The song was produced by DJ Suede and was released in November 2017. The song is based around Backpack Kid's famous dance, called the Floss. It has a lighthearted and energetic theme.

Process

During pre-production, we had to do the project sheet, lyric sheet, and storyboard. I did the storyboard while others did the project sheet and lyric sheet. When creating the storyboard, I had to sketch each shot and describe the shot type. The struggling began after pre-production. Our film schedule constantly fluctuated and someone always canceled last minute. Filming was very poorly planned. We were never able to finish filming sadly. While filming, I was an actor. I also helped Andrew plan the shot. As for post-production, most of the editing was done by Andrew.

My Role

For the most part, I was an actor for the video. I also helped here and there with other things like pre-production and filming.

What I Would Do Same/Differently

I wish my group had chosen a music video that centralized around one person so it wouldn't matter if someone couldn't make it to film.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it's very important to make sure you have an open schedule before agreeing to be an actor/actress in videos. If people keep canceling filming, it will affect everyone in the team.

Vector Portrait

Pre-Production

When deciding on the photo of myself to use, I didn't have many to choose from. I ended up reusing the same photo I took for the pop art project. I airdropped it to my computer, put it in photoshop, cropped it to 8 inches by 10 inches, exported it, then put it in adobe illustrator. I had two artboards in illustrator, one for the original image, and one for the vector portrait.

Production

This project taught me how to customize my grid so I could create poly vector portraits. What I did was create a bunch of random triangles, and I tried to put bigger triangles in less detailed areas and more smaller triangles in detailed areas, such as ears, eyes, mouth, etc. Then I colored it in using the eye dropper tool, so the colors would be very close to the original image.

Post-Production

I am pleased with the final poly vector portrait. The portrait resembles me quite well. Without looking at the original image, I'm sure most people that know me could guess that it's me. Also, the colors look nice together. The only thing I wish looked better are the eyes. It's very hard making good eyes out of triangles.

Typography Project

Pre-Production

The pre-production process consisted of nothing more than searching google for quotes. To find quotes, I just googled quotes from certain historical figures and presidents. Some examples of people would be Leonardo da Vinci, Gandhi, George Washington, etc. When I was choosing quotes, I made sure it was a quote that I related to or agreed with.

Production

When I was creating the typographies in Illustrator, I learned that it's good to use two or three fonts. It's also good to put emphasis on the more important words by increasing the font size, making it bold, or using a font that stands out. I prefer making colored typographies because it's a lot less boring to look at. Colors can also be used to put emphasis on words. In one of my typographies, it says "...bad one." Since I wanted to give these words a negative connotation, I colored them red, because the color red is often associated with bad.

Final Production

I really like how my typographies turned out. I think the fonts, font sizes, positioning, and colors all work very well with each other. The only thing I don't like is the lack of graphics/borders. I added a simple border on my first typography and I put in a few simple graphics in another one but I feel like I should've used more.