SBHS 2011-2012

:( GOOD BYE.

Reflecting on my blog.

Early in the year, i learned the importance of camera angels. You can see that in my first film, i didnt do this, especially in the scene in the scene when we are interviewing people for our cyberbully video. I did not do a very good job paying attention to how well the camera angels were. On my second project, i learned how to do titles. The titles were fairly easy and make a big difference in videos if they are used correctly. They can either help a lot or make it worse depending on where you put them and what you use them for. A scence that shows this well is in the film called "Holiday Greetings" when we add in the titles for our names at the beginning of the film when it is introducing who we are and where we were at. It gave the viewers a more realistic view of where we were and who we were exactly. Later in the year, I showed that I really had learned that concept well, since I showed this in other projects. One good example is from "You Forgot Your Money" in the scence when we had our names pop up to say who we are and who the actors were. It's a silly part but it works perfectly with the comedy we were trying to suggest. I've learned a lot of things in this class and it has taught me a lot more than I was expecting to learn in the first place. I learned that camera angles can change a whole mood on a film for example if you are trying to show someone that is sad or "small", then you have to have a high camera angel looking down on them to belittle them in a way. It makes a huge difference if you do opposites in a movie. Also, music can change a story from one to another. It can give more dramatic effect if you are trying to make your film dramatic. I also learned that cuts and transitions can change a film from being good or bad! If you have bad cuts it can ruin your whole film because it won't seem as good and there won't be very much attention directed towards the video because will get distracted with how bad it is. Another thing I learned was to observe videos and find what is good about a video and how to properly examine it. I ow know what a good tansition is and if they moved the story along as fast as they should have. It has given me a whole different perspective on watching videos. From my experience in this class I can honestly say I have built some knowledge directed towards making videos, watching videos, and being in a video. It had taught me to become more observant when watching videos because I know what they did to prove certain things and things like that. Overall, this class helped me and in the end wasn't so bad to know more about how videos are made and in the future I can use this ability to possibly help out someone that is trying to make a video or needs any help. Thank you Dr. A!

Orchestra

In our story we were trying to show how fantasy is enspired by nature. They go togther because of all the beauty and interesting things that come about from it. Like all of the colors and the forest inspire a huge fantasy such as bambi. It is transformed from simple to etraordinary because of how people picture nature. With the music, the story starts off with the colors changing and transforming an ordinary world into a fantasy. I'm most proud of the whole beginning which is the first 20 seconds or so. We put a lot of time into these pictures. It was trying to suggest that there is a fantasy land that is being transformed from all the colors in the world. We shoce to use very colorful images that would show that there is a lot of color and not a simple land. We used images that were unordinary and not representative. They helped by moving the story forward instead of keeping it all one simple color. it expressed a very bright feeling and for the most part a happy one as well. I would say that about 85% of our film is abstract images. We had a consistent idea to keep using colors to suggest what the mood was. We added bright colors to show how beautiful fantasy becomes by all of the wonders that happen when fantasy is shown on a screen. I realized that it is hard to make a story from abstract images and needs a lot of time to be planned and thought about thouroughly. I discovered that with dediction and imagination it isn't too hard to build a story from images. Music and images can make something beautiful together if they are used properly together. My partner put a lot of time into editing the images and adding affects and did a great job at doing it! I contributed by finding pictures and coming up with a story line behind what we were doing.

Final Draft: You Forgot Your Money

Jabberwocky, Stanza 4!

Reflection for "Jabberwocky": -Which special effect did you use best? The special effect we used best was solarize. -Describe what effect you used and why you think this worked. It worked because it made the "wood" look more threatening and unordinary. -What mood were you trying to communicate? We tried to make the mood very suspicious and frightening. We wanted it to seem like something that creeps you out. -What idea were you trying to show by using this image and effect? We were trying to show the idea that this is make-believe and really strange!

Twirl Effect

In order to get the twirl effect you look under the distort folder in video effects and choose twirl. You change the settings under video effects where you can adjust the angle, twirl radius, and twirl center. You might use this effect in a space scene.

Threshold Effect

TO GET THE THRESHOLD EFFECT YOU CHOOSE "THRESHOLD" IN THE "STYLIZE" FOLDER. IN ORDER TO CHANGE THE SETTINGS, GO TO EFFECTS PANEL AND CHANGE THE LEVEL UNDER THE THRESHOLD ARROW. YOU MIGHT USE THIS EFFECT IN A NIGHTMARE SCENE.

Star Promo!

Thinking About Our Final Values Video

POSITIVE COMMENTS:
The positive comments that were meaningful to us were from Luis and Lizzy and Elisa and Damon. They told us that our video was almost perfect and they like how it all worked together, that was helpful because it made us feel proud of what we've accomplished. Inaddition they told us how they liked the message and that helped us see that we did a good job presenting the conflict and resolution.

Luis and Lizzy:
On a scale of 1-10, we rate the editing a 9. We think that if you have cleaner cuts your video will be more perfect than it already is

Zach and Sam:
We especially liked the close up shot of Julissa’s eyes because it helped emphasize the idea that Julissa was deciding weither or not to take the money.

Elissa and Damon:
We really liked the message and how everything worked together.

Maria and Demi:
We really like the shot of julissa's eyes whitch created an intense emotion.


SUGGESTIONS:
The two best suggestions we got were from Hayley and Kayla.
They suggested that use a fade between the shots of Ryan and Julissa bumping into eachother and then the medium shot of Ryan. We agree with this sugfestion and our plan is to look at it and maybe put a fade if it works.
Alicia and Jorge suggested that we put liz in the background to show that Julissa didn't know she was there from the begining. We agree with this suggestion and our plan could be to refilm a couple shots and then insert them.
Alicia and Jorge:
To add to your rising action, you could show a shot of Liz sort of in the background, emphasizing that Julissa did not see her watching the whole thing.

Alexis:
One part I would kinda fix would be the part where she looks around all crazy was bit outt set point.

Luis and Lizzy:
You could add to the resolution by showing how Ryan reacts when he gets his money back and what happens after that.

Hayley and Kayla:
We noticed that between the guy bumping into the girl and the guy talking, you used a straight cut when he steps back. We would have used a special effect transition instead, because it's really awkward that he hits her and then we're just right in his face a step back.

"You Forgot Your Money" Rough Draft

1) We're trying to represent the value of honesty.
2) I think our group has done a good job working together using communication
3) From this point, we need to clean up some cuts and add our bloopers
4) We need feedback on anything possible to make our video better.
5) Our most difficult challenge was making our video run smoothly. We put some fade-in and fade-outs to make it more natural and less awkward.

Over The Shoulder Exercise

We planned to make it look like we are looking at them from our perspectives. We realized after that we should plan exactly how it should be and shoot more than once for the same line to have a variety of shots that we can choose from.Yes, I think we followed the rule of thirds because we used half of the screen for over the shoulder and the other half for the person to be put off to the side. I think it creates a sense of direct communication. The person facing the camera is directly talking to the person right across from them.We could have done a better job with our expressions but it came out not so bad! We had challenges trying to cut the clips to put them together because we were not always looking at the person across from them and at times we said our lines too close to the other ones.The mood is serious, yet, mysterious. We were not very clear on what was going on with our emotions! We noticed that it should be more diagonal to show the full on effect and get the persons whole face. The idea of expressions and emotions are absolutely important when trying to express a certain mood or tone.