Erin's Blog

1. What did you do for the feature film?
 a. What was the production role? 
 I was the supervising editor for the film. I was in charge of editing, delegating work to other editors, and making sure the entire movie was edited well without any mistakes. b. What were some challenges you faced? 
 It was my first time working with such a large project, and I had some issues with organization and knowing how to properly delegate to the other editors. c. What did you learn along the way? 
 I learned a lot. My technical skills, along with leadership and teamwork skills, have grown tremendously. I became much more adept in Adobe Premiere and started learning how to work in after effects. I also learned how to edit large scenes, instead of just short films or PSAs. d. What was some feedback you were given? 
 I was given a lot of positive feedback, although I was also told that I needed to get better at spreading out work so that it wasn't all on me to get things done. e. What d...

What was the scope of the project, what was the assignment? The project was my classes' feature film, the Kansas City Savior. I was assigned to be the supervising editor of the movie. I was in charge of delegating work to other editors,  editing myself, and working with sound and the directors to get the right look. What was your process (speak to Pre-Production...idea, concepting, storyboards, etc.; Production...the actual creation; Post-Production...editing). The crew would come back from filming and give me an SD card containing all of their sound and audio. I would take them, organize what was needed, and then either give the footage to another editor to work on or start editing the scene myself. Once the basic sequence was together, I would start putting in the audio, color correcting, and adding music/sound effects. What did you learn along the way? I learned a lot. I learned how to work with boom audio, how to color correct more efficiently, how to work wit...

           The first project I did this semester was a PSA. My group decided to make our PSA over depression and the importance of showing your true emotions, because many people going through depression don't convey it. In the video, we asked kids around school to laugh without smiling. The project took a couple days to film and probably about a week to edit. Some challenges I faced during it was actually going up to random kids and asking to film them. As you can imagine, it was usually pretty awkward. Some other challenges came from the editing process. I had some difficulty finding a fitting tone and pacing to the video. But, besides that, it was a relatively easy video to make. Along the way, I learned how to make a typing effect and how to add black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. Compared to older videos I've made, I think this one actually looks kind of professional. I was given positive feedback for the majority, though I didn't actu...

MX4D is marketed as being a step up from 3D. It attempts to provide a true immersive experience by making your seat move with the film's movements, emitting smells that correspond with what's on screen, and other cool effects like strobe lighting, snow, and fog. I was really excited when I went to see Justice League with my classmates for an e-Comm field trip (despite not knowing much about the DC universe, admittedly). I really enjoyed certain aspects of the 4D, like the seat moving during the fight scenes. However, I felt like some of the other effects were just distractions from the movie and seemed kind of  unnecessary, like the water spraying in our faces (it was loud and kind of jarring), and the smells which honestly just seemed "off."  My favorite part of the whole field-trip actually wasn't the 4D at all, but getting to tour the theatre and see all of the cool technology B&B had renovated. ...

For this menu item, I watched a variety of short horror films. I did so in order to get inspiration for my own short horror movie that's currently in the making, Black-Eyed Children. I enjoyed watching the shorts and was impressed by the professional look of them. Two of the shorts were by CryptTV, The Birch and Itsy Bitsy Spiders. The third,  The Moonlight Man, was by Danny Donahue.  Of the three I watched, my favorite would have to be Itsy Bitsy Spiders . It wasn't the scariest film I've ever seen, but I enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed the story and concept. It was about a little boy with a strange obsession of drawing spiders. In the end, you learn the reason behind why he developed his weird obsession.  After watching the short horror films, it helped me make changes to the script I'm currently working on with my friend for our own short movie. I want to make sure our movie has a good mix of character development and story as well as scares, as some of...

Wes Anderson is one of my all-time favorite directors. I enjoy his unique visual style, stories, and the way he writes dialogue. My favorite movies of his are The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Royal Tenenbaums. Most of his movies are immediately recognizable as being by him, because of his very distinct style.  One of the most noticeable aspects of Anderson's directing is that the shots in his films are usually perfectly symmetrical, with beautiful unique color palettes. His films center around unique and realistic characters, most of which have a memorable costume design that distinguishes them and emphasizes their personality. For Margot from the Royal Tenenbaums, this would be her big fur coat or the cigarettes she is often seen with. For Zero from the Grand Budapest Hotel, it would be his bell boy uniform. Another recurring trait in Anderson's movies that I especially enjoy is the often deadpan way his characters address and speak t...

In this tutorial by DSLRGuide, I learned how to properly color grade a film without defaulting to the common orange and teal color scheme most 'blockbusters' use. Color grading is a very important part of the editing process and can give a plain looking clip a visually appealing cinematic appearance that is fun to look at. He emphasized the importance of matching skin tones so they do not appear too red or cool looking. He showed how you can take two visually similar shots and give them completely different tones or emotions just by altering the colors of the clip. He also specified that 'there are no rules in filmmaking.' A film's colors do not  necessarily have to be realistic. For example, the Matrix used unrealistic green tints in scenes depicting simulations, and other movies use unrealistic blue tints to signify sad parts in films.