Before starting the reel I had to think about how I wanted to show myself. I knew I wanted to display myself as an editor, as I have always excelled and enjoyed editing. I had already created a professional email called 'Ryan Moore Films' and decided to brand myself that way. Most of my works from Junior year had a lot of good shots so I decided to only include films that were from Junior year and beyond. Before editing the clips together I needed music that would tie everything together, after some browsing I found something that I enjoyed and slowly put the reel together, piece by piece. It ending up representing myself well. I remember after finishing it, I watched the film and it made me smile and was enjoyable to watch.
Pros & Cons
I really think the 'music sync' was well done and is what I aimed for because those small beats really can make someone enjoy the film. The shots I used were really well framed and all in focus. The clips fit the music and the variety of films and clips showed my diversity.
On the other hand, I do wish some of the shots had better depth to them, they felt very flat at times. Some other shots were very grainy and the ISO could've been turned down.
Looking Forward
After making this film reel I discovered some of my real strengths in VFX. I hope for the future that my Visual effect skills will improve greatly, while not forgetting my current skills in general editing.
Conclusion
Overall it was a success and I very much enjoyed creating the film reel. The shots were good, the editing was good. I hope to go further with my editing skills and Ryan Moore Films and become more of a successful artist.
The decision was to do the Wii. The Wii console was a staple of many people's younger life so if we could hit a place that made people think back it would be great. We originally had the concept of having the commercial be similar to the 2009 Wii commercials. The overall idea of the commercial was to show to the viewer that the Wii can 'transport' or rather immersed you into the game. I was assigned to do the storyboards and I decided to do them digitally for convenience. Andrew, the director, found one of our actors while I found the second. We originally planned to do a bigger group of friends but ended up sticking with two due to Covid-19. The group found the days that everybody should be available for the whole day, we needed all the time we could get.
Filming went quite smoothly on the first day, all we had to film was the tennis scene. Secondly, we had a plan to go to Andrew's house to film the rest of the film. We believed we gave enough time for everything but eventually had to cut short.
An Editors Role
As an editor I took the SD card and imported it into my computer, I began to organize the clips based on what was usable. Andrew edited the lightsaber scenes and I got the audio. Lining up the audio with the lightsaber hits made the experience engaging and interesting to watch. The group still communicated and we sent updates of our progress so everyone knew what was happening.
Difficulties
The commercial didn't really feel like a commercial, I felt like a showoff of effects. Also as mentioned before we had to rush some scenes which was a bummer. Next time we will try to add more time for us to film.
Our Best
Our lightsaber scene worked out well, the scene in my opinion lasted quite too long but looked great. Our actors had some personal issues and couldn't film on days we already planned on doing but we adapted and fixed it. I learned that my group was great at looking at problems and fixing them on a whim making sure that it's fixed properly and efficiently.
Conclusion
This commercial was a success. I believed that it turned out well and while there were some issues I think we cleared them out quite well. The cinematography was well done, editing was good, art direction worked, even with covid, all around a good experience.
The basic view I wanted people to get from my Film Reel is that I do comical yet interesting films. Most of my films I create are for the laugh, but I enjoy going into depth with some of my work. Most of the films I have created are also very different in story and structure, editing them together made them connect more as films.
As an Editor
The film reel has good transitions and a good pace to it. It constantly keeps you engaged for the entire duration of the film. The clips line up with the music very well and swap over to different clips with ease. In other parts I think the camera is quite good in most shots, same with lighting. Sound was a bit of an issue because we had music in the other videos. This caused the music to play while the actors were talking and made it weird to hear two types of music played at the same time.
Pros and Cons
The reel did what it was intended to. It showed who I was as an editor and shows my work so far with an engaging and comedic tone. When looking back onto the reel though, I did have some issues with my work. The sound in some of the clips I used with dialogue used music which overlapped with the music in the reel. This caused some viewers to disconnect from the reel.
The Future
One thing I would like to do in the future is create more films that can support the feel I am trying to accomplish in this reel. With this I can have a stronger and more engaging reel with more content to make potential clients be interested in my work.
The story seems very weird and seems to have a hidden meaning. But I think the video is trying to look like some sort of fever dream, or that sort of aesthetic. It gives you an uncomfortable visual aspect too. It gives a lot of edited scenes of people missing parts of their body by using a green screen. It also shows repeated scenery and edits. It was overall eye catching and enjoyable.
Knowledge
The video is mostly consisted of high edits using green screens and special effects. I think this good good eye catching deal is what I want to go for in my video, at least as the editor of the team. I do like also the serious feel to it which is what we will be applying to our music video. This can be implemented by using the dark scenes when the party goes wrong.
Quality
The creator of this video did a great job with the video, and it's hard to find flaws with the product. I enjoyed the edits and scenery they presented and the lip sync was pretty good. I think some improvements could be an easier to follow story, if there even was one to begin with. The music video just sort of followed the lyrics in a loose way, it made it a bit hard to understand. But that made it seemed like they were missing or broken which the song is about bad days, so maybe that was a point to it.
Conclusion
The music video is a great product and I think that AJR did a great job creating it. It was a bit hard to follow story but I sort of think that was the point. The actors were mostly broken and looked dismembered which came from good editing. This gave the feel of the people being broken which worked well with them talking about bad days and bad events. The lip sync was good and the look of it was good too, it sort of made me think of a fever dream. So it was a good video, and I think our music video will be good too.
The creation of a short film is indeed a process. It takes a lot of time to get it right. Connor who was the director came up with the idea of the short film. We expanded upon the idea and tried different things in the script but Connor had the final say in the script. We used Celtx to create the script and printed out scripts for our future actors. After that everyone agreed on a certain production role (Editor, Art Director, Director, and DP) I was the editor of the project. We all worked on story boards to get them finished and Connor worked on production schedule and cast list once we got actors. When we got actors and the days to film came up there was not many problems. Some actors had to leave early so we did some time crunches but overall filming was smooth and as we expected. Being an Editor
As an editor I was responsible for editing the film and getting it finished on time. I used Adobe Premiere to edit and a bit of Adobe after effects for some effects. Editing was very straight forward, get the clips, put them together, clean it up, effects. That was the process for the entire film. I did learn how to do some better effects for premiere. Being Professional
The team I worked with did a great job overall. We did a great job getting the camera set up and filming on time. We did talk through a lot of the problems and figure out when and where we were going to film. I stood up when stuff was not getting done to get things into check. I talked with the actors to tell them how to act in a scene. After all we got the project in on time. The Experience
The overall experience was positive. If I were to do something different I would give us more time with filming so the camera setting would be checked more often so the film would look better. Other than that it was great and I would do everything else the same. I think that finding actors before the film would also be great so we don't have unreliable actors when it comes to finding dates. But at the end of the day I think the film turned out great and cant wait to work on another project.
I worked on many projects over the last semester. This includes my films titled: "Simply Complex", "lets switch things up", "Bruh Moment", and recently "Franklin's Cake" (All films at end of blog). Each project had a different time limit, but to sum it up, Simply Complex and lets switch things up both took around 2 weeks to create. Bruh Moment was a part of the 24 hour film fest, so the film was made in less than 24 hours. Franklin's cake was one that took a bit and we had around 3-4 weeks to create the film. Many of the problems we faced while making each film seems to be reoccurring. Problems we had were: camera focus, camera white balance, lack of close ups, and poor acting with actors. Based off these issues, I can focus more on these problems on future projects, and maybe get to learn the camera a bit more. Feedback for my films was also very parallel with the problems, white balance off, poor acting, focus the camera, etc. Later into the year the films writing got a lot better and the overall enjoyability with those films also increased too. But I think that overall the films I helped create were great films that, while may not be perfect, are very enjoyable to watch and share.
Time Management
Time management is a bit "wonky" for an editor. During the films, I help during pre-production but production I don't have much to do. I try to show up to filming to try and help with tips and ideas for the film but after everything is film its a grind. I spend a lot of time out of class editing the film and making it look better. Due to this, I never got finished early because I was always working pretty much until the due date on a film but during production I try to help as much as I can. I also always try to improve my skills outside of class with personal projects on my youtube channel, its overall meant for fun but I think I gain more experience on editing too.
Strengths
My Strengths as a video student I believe are, lack of better terms, strong. I didn't do much client work but I did do personal projects, as previously stated. I feel like I have a great editing talent, that can still improve and become better. But in order to make it become better and the best, I need to work on editing more and learn premiere and all it has to offer.
What to Learn
What to improve about my films. Overall I think all the films I worked on were quite a success. But there will always be something to improve about the films. I think camera work could be enhanced, greatly. What I mean is more of unique camera shots, white balancing the camera, and lighting. But there are other improvements other than the camera. My editing skill could be enhanced. Meaning I could learn how to make better effects and how to be more efficient with my work. But my skills, camera work, writing, and pretty much everything has improved greatly since the beginning of the semester.
Honorable Guests
All of the guest speakers I got to experience in class in this semester I think are great and talented people but 2 were major impactors for me specifically. First was Morgan Cooper, He is a Director for this remake of bel-air but in modern times. I think it was cool to meet an actual famous guy and have him show us that he was just like us, and maybe that the class can be just like him in the future. Another guest speaker was Ryann Burnett, who is keen in post producing and editing. Since I am very interested in post production, I was very interested how a superior worked and operates. Now from these two individual I think that Morgan Cooper gave me the confidence to continue working on my film studies and pursue film. Ryann Burnett showed me how to properly organize and edit efficiently, which can improve working times so I can complete projects faster.
The All American High School Film Festival
The AAHSFF was a great chance to go see NYC and learn about film. We went to a lot of crazy and cool locations around NYC and overall the experience was great! But I think that I can use the college interactions in the future and maybe get accepted into one of the good colleges for film. I think this also improved my work by seeing other peoples work, seeing the winners, and how they made the film.
Future Feature Film
A feature film that is in the works that I am a part of is called "Sub Rosa". Currently my roles for the film is editor, colorist, and script editor. While most of the work will take place after the filming of Sub Rosa, I think I can still can be efficient during pre-production and production. During pre-production I would help work on the script and make sure everything make sense within the script. During production I can show up to film days and maybe give some tips on how to make editing a tad easier on my part. Finally in post production, I would organize and communicate with my fellow editors to try and evenly give out work and get the film finished in the best, most efficient, and most convenient.
24 Hour Film Fest
I had an opportunity to precipitate in a 24 hour film fest. Basically it means we have 24 hours to create a film based off some basic requirements. Overall the film I helped create was really good for 24 hours and I was really proud of it. It helped me on how to work under pressure with the small time frame and how to organize time. I think overall the film fest positively impacted my skill in film.
Overall
I think this semester really improved my skill in film and more specifically, editing. I really did enjoy the trip to NYC due to it being educational but also really fun. I would personally change how we filmed the camera in previous projects so that the shots were focused and white balanced. I think that editing is a thing I want to do in the future and seeing how much I improved, I believe it is a possible future. A goal for next semester is to improve camera work, work efficiency, and editing. I also want to thank Mrs. Smith for being a great teacher, she has helped the class is such a positive way, so thank you.
The project was to create a low-poly version of yourself or pet by using the pen tool in illustrator. The project took a couple of weeks to complete, most of it making the triangles within the subject. One major challenge was being patient with the entire process. I learned how to use the pen tool and how to use a grid to my advantage. A suggestion I got from some friends was that I should make two adjacent shapes, not the same color. Nothing much changed to the project compared to my original idea, it was just the wait of completion. I think it turned out very well in the end.
Special Event Advertisements
The project was to create advertisements for a fake event about a topic researched, for me that topic was pop art. The project took about 2 months to get all advertisements done, and research. Some challenges were just thinking of ideas during the project, because pop art has a particular style to it so it is hard to come up with original ideas. I worked on my Indesign and Illustrator skills while working on the project and the compatibility between the two. I didn't get much feedback for my work because most people thought it was alright and didn't have any other ideas on what to do. My ideas on the postcard changed a lot because I couldn't think of an original idea that stuck. The poster is my favorite but i'm not sure about the other advertisements.
Logo Designing
The project was to sketch out logo ideas and create them in illustrator, then pick out our favorite color design of our best logo and create mockups of the logo. The project took about 3 weeks to sketch and then finish the mockups in the end. Some challenges were thinking of color ideas for the logos and trying to fully create the logo in illustrator. I also got to work on my illustrator skills while working on the logos and using the pen tool to create shapes. I didn't receive much feedback except for when picking the best logo out of my selection and I think it worked out well. My original color ideas completely changed on the some of the logos but in a good way. I think my logos all turned out really good but especially the final logo.
Class Time
After finishing a project I tried to help out my neighbor with his project to help him finish but other than that I also worked on my sketching skills on my own. I have illustrator at home so I usually draw in my free time so I get some experience off of that. I do help my friends out in the class by giving them suggestions to their projects to help them finish. I also work on my own youtube videos outside of class with premiere but that really isn't "graphic design-y".
My Strengths
My strengths in eComm is being an independent hard working when it comes to projects. I also enjoy video editing which might be because of me liking to be independent. I try to help out friends with their own projects by giving them tips or staying after school to help them finish their project.
My Weaknesses
Personally I think I can be very unoriginal with ideas or projects. I can be very shy and not want to talk to people during class or ask for advice which can overall effect my projects outcome. I also don't spend my extra time in class working on things that could make me better.
Conclusion
I really enjoyed the projects and my teacher Mrs. Beaudoin, she was really kind and helpful throughout the year when it came to critiques. There isn't much I would change, I always looked forward to this class throughout the day. I would just like to improve throughout the year next year to become better, there really ain't much to it, just become better overall. I enjoyed this overall and I had fun, I hope eComm next year will be the same.
