48-Hour Video Race

I thought that the video race was a really cool idea. I was a little nervous about it at first because I knew it would be tough to make a film in such a limited time with a mystery prop, but I think that it turned out ok. The 3 children's blocks were quite a surprise. I had no idea what to do with them so I started to try and spell words. The best word I could figure out was FIB. So I thought it could be my title and I would make a simple story about someone telling a lie. Since I knew I would be pressed for time, not only because we had two days but also because of other classes and projects, I didn't want to mess with dialogue. At most I was going to put audio with it, but I had issues with the computer and ran out of time. I used my friend's digital camera and was horrified by the resolution. The footage looked so bad, but oh well. I had to transfer it a few different times so I'm sure that didn't help. My roommate volunteered to be in it, so I was glad to have the help.

It was really cool to see everyone else's projects. I was so afraid that everyone's would be so much better than mine, but I could tell some of them had trouble thinking of ideas. It was really cool to see the different ideas people came up with. I think that was my favorite screening all semester...of course the hot apple cider probably helped that. One of my favorite ideas was the skateboarding one. Another hilarious one was the PB&J and "It's a Boyeeee!" The end of semester gathering was really fun. I was really nervous about showing my film in front of 3 other classes, as well as ours, but everyone was nice and applauded and laughed. So that made me feel better.

It's been an awesome semester and I have really loved this class. It has definitely been one of my favorite college classes that I have taken. I learned a lot and had a ton of fun doing it. I would recommend this class to all filmmakers and all of my friends. It's a great way to get your hands on film without the pressure of messing anything up. It's been a great semester in 6x1! Thanks Andre!

Rhythmic Editing Evaluation

I think that this was one of the toughest assignments to do. I think that mine turned out really well, but it was very tedious editing. I think that if I had planned it our better, then it would have turned out better, but I was ok with it. I didn't think I would like watching the projects in class, but I must be getting used to seeing thoes types of films because I watched all of them without getting a headache. It was really cool to see all of the different ideas that people came up with and how well they worked with the rhythmic editing. After doing the project and seeing how other people's films turned out, I feel a little differently about rhythmic editing. I actually like the effect that it has and I think that it would be cool to use in the future for some kind of action sequence where everything is real intense. Overall, it was a fun experience, just a little tougher than some of the other ones that had been assigned, I think.

Rhythmic Editing

Before Thanksgiving break, Jason and I filmed my idea for the rhythmic editing assignment. This is the first project out of all of the ones assigned that I have not been looking forward to. Mainly this was because when we were introduced to the assignment and watched the samples in class, I had a hard time watching them without getting a headache. It could be because it was like nothing I had ever seen and I just wasn't used to that. I'm not sure, but I was a little bummed I couldn't watch the samples. It was hard for me to come up with an idea. The only thing I could think of was to film Jason cooking something, that way I would have a process and a beginning and ending. So I filmed him cooking chicken and mashed potatoes! The best part was I got a meal at the end! I tried to get different shots and angles, but with some things, I could only get one shot so we couldn't do it over. I think that the footage turned out nicely and I am going to the editing lab after classes on Tuesday to finish editing it. We had filmed Jason's idea earlier before the break. He had a detailed idea of shots that he wanted. His idea was to shoot my morning routine. He also attempted to get different shots and angles. I saw a little bit of what he edited and I thought that it looked really good. I was excited that I could actually watch what I saw without getting a headache. He also chose a song to back it up that I think went really well with it. I'm excited to see what everyone came up with in class on Thursday. I just hope I can watch them without a headache.

Cucalorus!!

Cucalorus was awesome! Although I didn't get to see everything I wanted to see, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the films I was able to see. The first screening I have to talk about it is the UNCW Vision screening. I missed this last year so I was really excited to be a part of it this year. A film I made with a group in my Intro to Documentary class last year was selected and screened in this year's Vision screening so the experience was even more special to me. I was so glad to see Jengo's Playhouse completely packed with people. I came in a few minutes late and ended up having to sit on the floor because there was nowhere else to stand or sit. It was awesome to see that amount of support for the student films. I also enjoyed the student films that were shown this year. Obviously, I have a bias and enjoyed mine, but there were also a few that really stood out to me. Lexi's film about her father's death and the impact it has had on her was amazing to me. It was such a personal piece and I think that it says a lot about her and what film means to her. It seems like it is her outlet, almost like her diary and I think that is really awesome. The film Scarz by Todd and Amir was also really good. I had seen it evolve in Intro to Documentary last year and being able to see it fresh again was cool. I enjoyed it even more. I also really liked the film with the mario, nintendo storyline. I thought that was a very creative idea and whether or not you are a fan of President Bush, you could laugh at it and enjoy the film. One of the feature films that I saw was Hannah Takes the Stairs. The storyline wasn't the most interesting and complex, but I was still interested in the characters and the film. One of the most impressive things about the film was the acting. Over and over I found myself thinking, "wow, these characters seem so natural!" I constantly felt like I was in the scene with them, at work or at home. That was very impressive to me and made the film even better. It was basically a comical story about Hannah who finds herself "chronically dissatisfied" especially with men. It follows her struggle to find happiness. It was very entertaining and although odd at times, I did enjoy it. I absolutely loved Cucalorus last year and this year it seemed even better. I can't wait to see what it's like next year!

Update

I really enjoyed last week's class. The competition to make the longest film roll was really fun. i was skeptical at first and really didn't think it would last as long as it did. After watching the other group get creative and organized with their system of hanging things from the ceiling, I was a little worried about our group making it. However, after looking at the rolls, I am kind of thinking that my group had the longest stretch, but we will see after we measure them in class on Thursday. I also think it's cool that our Teacherman took footage of us working on it, just like he has done with other projects. It's good for the memories. We have finished working on Assignment 3. We have finished all of the editing, and I think that it turned out really well. Because our ambience and dialogue is so dominant and strong, we don't have many sound effects in our rayograms film. But there are a few in there, but they are very suttle. We also slowed down some parts of the footage and I think that it gave the film a very cool effect. I think that it turned out nicely and I am excited to see what the rest of the class thinks. We started working on assignment 4. This one has been a little more difficult to find sounds that we want to go with it. I think that our dialogue is going to be the dominant track, so we are working on getting the timing right with that. We have found some ambience for it, but we are still looking for more sound effects. The tone of this one is going to be more light and funny than the rayograms, so we have a little more sound researching to do. But I am looking forward to hearing suggestions from the class on Thursday.

Rayograms

I think that in Brooks article about the idea of rough theater, it relates to what we are doing in class with our experimental films. Especially with the last project, we will be using cell phone videos or digital camera videos to portay motion picture instead of a regular film camera. This image will not be the greatest quality, but it will allow us to get more creative with our filmmaking. As for this week's class, I am excited to see what everyone's works in progress for the rayograms project looks like. Jason and I have composited a segment of the rayograms footage and we have researched some different sounds. We put in some archive dialogue from what we think is a very old horror film, but I think it goes with the tone of the film. We also added some ambient scary sounds; it's almost got a musical tone with a little choir voice in the background, but it mostly just sounds like ambient scary noise. We are still looking for some added sound effects. We have found a couple that might work ok, but we are still looking. We also have tried to play with the audio levels and get those sounding right, but it still needs a little more work. It has been really fun looking up noises and adding them to the footage. Just like every other project in the class, the creativity is endless and completely open, so I can't wait to see what everyone's prject looks like.

You Only Get One Shot

Even though it was class on Saturday, I enjoyed the one shot shoo that we did. I was a little nervous about it because it's hard to come up with a good, fun story to do in one shot, much less for 60 seconds. We came up with the idea to have Jason be a macho athlete, and have me offscreen throwing balls at him. With each throw, the ball gets bigger and I try and throw it harder. When he thinks he's done, he turns to the camera, showing off his macho muscles, and I hurl a big exercise ball at him and smack him in the face so he falls to the ground. It was a very simple story, but it was hard to time it just right. You couldn't do it too slow or too fast. I thought I had messed up the ending shot because when I threw the ball, it only grazed the top of his head and I really wanted it to smack him in the face. So we were worried that it wouldn't look convincing or funny. However, when we watched our film, it looked much better than we thought and I think that it does look believable. I enjoyed doing the film processing again as well. It was a little weird doing it in the boys bathroom, but probably for the best so we didn't have to worry about light leaks. Our film came out with really crisp composition, which was really cool too. I'm excited to put some sound with it. I am also excited to start putting sound with our other projects like the rayogram project.