1st Semester Entertainment Final

The first semester of my senior year has been very productive and educational for me. I've worked on three major videos: a commercial, music video, and short film. Each project helped me improve my entertainment skills in various ways. Whilst making them, I exercised technical skills, communication, leadership, collaboration and project management. Below is some information on the projects I've worked on and what I've learned from my experiences.

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Floss Commercial

The first project I worked on was a commercial advertising floss. The concept was a that a couple was out on a romantic date, but when the guy leans in to kiss the girl, she is disgusted by the food stuck in his teeth, and pulls out some dental floss for him to use. It was meant to be aesthetically pleasing and comedic. The video took around a week to make. There weren't many challenges, and the entire process went pretty smoothly. The filming process took one day, and I began editing when they brought the footage in. I focused on editing to the beat of the music, and tried to maintain a good rhythm and energy throughout the video so as to avoid any awkwardness (except where it was intentional). When we turned in the video, we received a majority of positive feedback, mostly regarding the cinematography. I was overall very happy with our final product. 

K. Music Video

The next project I worked on was a music video. Our original concept was for the video to be about a breakup. A man is sitting in his car, reflecting on the memories of his relationship through old home videos. The video took around a week or so to make, and there were a few challenges along the way. The guy we wanted to be in the video couldn't show up, so we had to revise our entire concept on the same day of shooting. Filming was overall successful, and I think I succeeded in getting some nice looking shots. I worked on the cinematography of the video. I did so to get out of my comfort zone of just editing all the time. I enjoyed filming for the most part. We got all of our shots done in one night, so it wasn't very time consuming. We filmed around the Kansas City area and found some pretty cool locations. I learned a lot about filming, since I was pretty new to it. Looking back, I could have improved the focus of many of the shots, however. That was one of our main criticisms, along with a slow or "boring" pace to the video. Most good critiques came from the editing, which I agree with. I am overall satisfied with the result of the video, though it could be improved. 

Connect Short Film

The most recent video I did was a short film called "Connect." The original concept was Courtney Honor's. In her script, two guys who enjoy gaming team up and eventually realize that they have a lot in common. Towards the end of the first act, they figure out that they're brothers. The boys agree to meet up in person, but when they do it's really awkward because they don't have great social skills. Then they figure out that they can ease the awkwardness by pretending they're just playing video games. It took a few days to film and one long night to edit. Looking back, I would try to take a shift off work or something so I would have had more than just one night to edit. If I had had more time, I would have added in some adobe after effects or fixed the audio (the audio was criticized a bit when people viewed the video, but it was really more of a flaw on my end). I got to expand my editing skills on this video, and enjoyed adding in some split screens and other effects. Looking back, I am pretty satisfied with my editing and enjoy the video in general. 

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When I have a project to be working on that has a deadline coming up, I will spend the majority of my time in class working on it. I tend to be kind of a perfectionist when it comes to editing and it takes me a long time so I always make sure to have as much time as possible to work. When I'm not working on projects, I spend my time researching films that I enjoy and looking at analysis videos. My favorite movie analysis channels are Lessons From the Screenplay and Ryan Hollinger. I also research various editing styles to get inspiration. Right now, I'm really inspired by the Edgar Wright style of editing, especially in his films Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Outside of school, I spend a lot of time trying to expand my creativity when it comes to editing by making personal "collage" style videos set to songs. It's fun and challenging to attempt telling a story with various seemingly unrelated or random clips. 

I think one of my biggest strengths in entertainment is the passion I have for storytelling and being creative, along with a tendency to be kind of a perfectionist with my work. I try to put out my very best when doing a project, and strive to always make high-quality videos. I have many things that could be worked on, however. I want to improve my filming skills and get more comfortable with writing scripts. I'll have interesting ideas in my mind, but when I try to translate them into a screenplay I tend to fail pretty hard. Character building and telling stories is something I'm passionate about, but I don't put my ideas out as much as I probably should because I tend to doubt their quality. This is something I've improved over the years and hope to continue working on. Overall, I'm confident in my technical skills, collaboration, and project management, but want to work on my communication and leadership. 

Drew Conners had a very interesting presentation that I enjoyed a lot. Like I've said, I enjoy character building and was happy to see another former e-Comm student who was also interested in what makes a good character. Some of what he said helped me evaluate the more technical side of character building, or the "formula" of making an effective character. Brandon Priest also gave an interesting presentation. I was impressed by Social Apex and the success that a group of young people had managed to achieve in the business world. What he said applied greatly to my future plans as someone interested in technology and entertainment. 

My upcoming role for our feature film, The Ebony Codex, is that of an editor. I am looking forward to executing my role with all the knowledge I've acquired over my four years here in e-Comm, and hope to make my editing in this feature film leagues better than what I did last year.

This semester has been great for me so far. I've made quality videos, expanded my knowledge as a student, and gotten to work with creative, talented and invested people. I can't think of anything I would change about it. I aim to make even more quality work as the new year comes and hope to make The Ebony Codex my best project yet.