Final Reflection

I Guess This is Goodbye... For Now

  Man… Eight weeks! That is how long my group has been working on this project. I have to admit, certain moments throughout the creation of this film opening made me doubt whether or not my group and I would make it through, but I am very glad that we toughed it out and came out together in one piece.

Personally, I think the beginning of the project was the most difficult. I joined a group with three other people from my TV production class, meaning we all knew what we were doing and wanted to make sure we made something that was good quality. Because we wanted the end result to meet our high expectations, we struggled to come to a decision in terms of what genre we wanted to do, who our main character should be, and more. Not only was it difficult to decide, but all of us happen to be very opinionated and stubborn, causing the planning process much longer than it needed to be. What can I say? We are passionate about what we do!

Fortunately, we were able to agree on a topic and begin to create character profiles, shot lists, storyboards, and more. However, another large problem arose - we were unable to meet regularly due to our conflicting schedules. This meant that whenever we met up to plan, the calls would last for hours, since we did not want to risk not being able to meet another day. Despite these scheduling conflicts, we were able to finish planning and move into the production stage.

We met up one Saturday to drive to our selected location and start filming. Overall, the adjustment from storyboard to the actual location was not terrible, but there were many shots we had to rethink due to technical problems like exposure and composition. Because of this, we captured lots of extra footage to make sure we had plenty to work with, and ended up filming the entire project in a span of just a couple hours. We sacrificed breaks to get the entirety of the filming done, which was definitely time-efficient but extremely exhausting for all of us. Additionally, because we were tight on time, some of the solutions we had come up with for the technical problems I had mentioned earlier were not necessarily the best, simply just the easiest and quickest solutions possible. Looking back, I definitely wish we had somehow gotten more time to film the opening, since it felt very rushed and we even had to cut out a section due to technical errors.

Next came the editing. Because of our already conflicting schedules, finding a day to meet and edit all together was close to impossible. Consequently, we did most of the editing remotely, splitting up the work so that we were all involved in each step of the process. I ended up doing sound design and attempting to apply a volumetric light effect to the beginning of the opening. Unfortunately, there were some complications  that prevented After Effects from being able to track the footage, ultimately making it impossible for me to apply the effect. Regardless, I enjoyed playing with the settings and getting more familiar with the program. The rest of my group handled line editing, color grading, and the other tasks needed to complete the project. Even though I am glad we spit up the work, I really wish I could have mixed the sound since the final mix sounded a little imbalanced to me. I guess I am just being nit-picky, but that is another aspect of this project that I have been reflecting on recently!

Anyway, it has been a great (and very stressful) eight weeks, but I am really satisfied that this project has finally come to an end. I am very grateful for my group despite the complications we faced, and I am surprised at how we went from being completely undecided about the topic to creating a complete, professional-looking film opening. Thank you to everyone that has been keeping up with my blog, it has been a privilege to write to you guys! I hope you enjoy the film opening. As always, thanks for reading!