My Semester in Entertainment

Projects

     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.

Films

Semester 2 of Graphic Design

Low-poly Portrait

     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.

Movie Trailer

Pre-Production

To start our project which was a movie trailer we needed to find a video to replicate. We found a movie called "The Breakfast Club" but a bunch of people in our class were doing it so we decided not to. We found another movie called "Stand and Deliver" which we decided to work with. I started with story boarding while my teammates found actors and such. After storyboarding was done we had to figure out who was available at what times and which scenes that we were going to do at school.

Production

During production my group was pretty busy so we didn't have many days after school we could film, eventually we found some days and got the basic shots done. The main issue wasn't finding main actors but finding background actors. We eventually got everything done with minor issues except that some scenes were impossible to replicate with our surroundings. I improvised in editing with certain scenes. The video turned out pretty well with no complications with editing.

Conclusion

While working on the video the only complication I had was finding background actors. Other than that I learned how to use a dolly for shots and practiced with premiere. But overall I did enjoy the project and the journey to complete it.

Finished Video:

Vector Portrait

Pre-Production

     I forgot to get a picture for a vector portrait project in graphic design and so I looked through my phone to see if there was any selfies I had taken, there was only one. This majestic piece of work was gonna be my low-poly vector portrait for graphic design. I got prepped by using a filter in photoshop to bring out more of the color in the picture and to simplify the piece and use less colors to make low poly work better.

Production

    For production I started by making a grid to snap my curser to so that making triangles would be easier to create. I started with making triangles for the headset then going down to the face and then glasses and finally the hoodie, all of these pieces were all on separated layers. I used different stroke colors to tell the different layers apart. After all the triangles were finished I started working on coloring them in. It was simple at first, select the triangle and use the eyedropper tool to get the color in the center of the triangle, but I wanted to have the triangles next to each other to have separate colors so you could see all the triangles in their glory, it was difficult but it worked out in the end but the shapes really made it pop out.

Final Product

     I am happy with the final product but if I were to change one thing it would to have more triangles so that the end product would be more detailed and look better in the end.

                                                                        BEFORE

AFTER

Music Video

Assignment

For my Video Production class an assignment was assigned to make a music video. You had to recreate the scenes and overall look of the original. So finding a song that was school appropriate and a song you enjoyed so when editing it, it wasn't utter pain, was a good idea.

Production

My group consisting of Me, Alexis, and Andrew went to search for a funny video to film so we wouldn't be bored working on it and had some motivation for a very entertaining piece. We went through a couple of songs but the song EVERYONE agreed with was Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up. It seemed pretty fun at first and it looked achievable. I had to draw out every camera angle and scene change, it wasn't fun but it got done. When the actors, Alexis, and Andrew went out to record (over a two day period) I couldn't go due to my work making me come in. Once they finished filming I had to edit the video with a bunch of random clips that didn't even have the right voice lines or rhythm to the original. So basically I was looking blindly through a bunch of videos with no good result just to attempt with some clip that looked alright. I manage to finish the video and the VERY end of the video shows how I feel about it.

Post Production

One the video finished uploading was okay. It was well received by my friends and everyone usually enjoyed the video. Most of them said it was okay and the clips don't really line up well with the voices. So if I had to change something it would probably be putting the video in the BACKGROUND while the person SINGS the SONG. Like am I weird for thinking that its stupid that they didn't put the song in the background while they sung the song so they matched it extremely well? Anyways, it went alright I guess, I posted it on my Youtube so I earn that Youtube $$$.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKR2Kvyvl7nfRbBPoYLRcvA?

Typography

Pre-production

     For a project in graphic design we needed to create graphics using quotes and using our newly learned typography skills to pick out fonts for those quotes. I wanted to have my own quotes so I spent a couple of days coming up with 10 quotes that I liked. I picked out 4 quotes to use for black and white, they were pretty simple and graphics could be simple as well. I used a common cursive font for all of them, then had a simple font that went with a word in the quote.

Production

    I got a bit better and faster at using illustrator after this project will work well in the future. I wanted the graphic to go with the quote or go with the word that pops out the most. Graphics were simples and not complicated so people can understand and recognize them immediately. Color looked better than black in white for 3 of the 4 I created. The 4th one really relied on the 2 colors for a cool contrast look, but overall I preferred colored.

Final Product

     I think the quotes turned out pretty good and as of now there isn't anything I want to change about them. They look great and get the point across. I also prefer the colored ones except for the broken glass one, it looks better in b/w.

---B/W---

---Colored---

Preformace Review

Project Review

      The Project was to create an infographic about any topic. It took about 3 to 4 weeks to complete the entire project. Challenges were the main central object in the middle of the infographic because I lost some info for the infographic so I had to improvise. I learned how to create objects and how to organize them. Some feedback I was given was to make bites out of the text boxes on the infographic and I thought it looked nice. I made a bunch of changes, ranging from the central object, the fact i'm using 3 side facts rather than 4, and even the graphics design themselves. I think it turned out very well in the end and i'm happy with the result.

      The project was to follow this guide on how to make shapes in adobe illustrator. It look 3 to 4 days to complete. Challenges were figuring out controls and strategies on how to create objects in illustrator. I learned how to create simple objects in illustrator and it really helped me out with my infographic project. Feedback I was given was to use different colors for some of the graphics and I think it turned out very well. I didn't make any major changes to my original plan so I think it went well. I think the final project went well.

     The project was to take a photo of someone in class and make it look like pop art. The project took about 3 to 4 days to complete. Challenges were the coloring and the cropping of some of the stuff within the pop art and making it look good. I learned how to crop and use filters to my advantage when making an illustrator project. Some feedback I got was to use line around the main objects of the project and to make it pop out more. Some changes I made was to have some of the background of the real photo in the background in the shapes of the pop art, which in my opinion looks pretty good. I think this project was a success but it isn't my best.

My Behance:

https://www.behance.net/thevortexb0e1c

Time Efficiency 

      I stayed productive in class after finishing a project by drawing my own style of characters in illustrator and practicing my own graphic abilities on the computer. I spent some time out of class using my own adobe illustrator software to practice and learn some tools in illustrator. 

My Strengths & Weaknesses

      Strengths I have in graphic design is computer experience and Adobe experience. Ive been on a computer for over half my life so i've learned some strategies. I also have an Adobe account with Adobe premiere, photoshop, and illustrator, so I can practice using those programs outside of class. Weaknesses I have are not staying on task, sometimes I can get distracted and talk to some of my friends and will not want to do the current project.

Final Words

      I loved the final infographic project at the end of the semester and the freedom we had with it. I wouldn't do much differently I think everything went pretty well in the end. Illustrator is a great tool you can use in many departments and jobs in the future. One goal I have is to continuously improve on my illustrator skills over the time I experience it. I had a great time this semester and will probably have a better time next semester.