Unexpected Killer

Process

During the 4th quarter JJ, Stockton, Kacie, and I worked on a film called unexpected killer. We started out trying to come up with a couple of ideas to film for our story but none of them were working. We tried to come up with something that wasn't so depressing or serious but that is all we could come up with. It was starting to get frustrating that we couldn't come up with any ideas until Brooke suggested that we do a video about a hit and run, so we just went with that idea.

We pretty much skipped the packet that we were supposed to do and went straight to storyboarding. I was in charge of the storyboarding most of the time. Meanwhile working on that, JJ worked on the script writing. Later we came back and met up again and we all had a look at the script. Stockton and I looked at the script and thought that it was terrible but Kacie thought it was okay. Stockton and I wanted to try to take charge of the script writing because we feel as if it had a lot of unnecessary words and scenes in it. We also felt like the script had too many references to the TV show called Dexter. Stockton and I felt as if we needed to completely write a new script but we didn't have time to so we just went with it.

When we started filming, we had little time to film for a 16 page script, so we ended up cutting out a lot of the script. We worked together very well while filming and built ideas off of each others ideas. Our shots that we got were pretty good overall but we probably could have maybe changed our panning shots a bit. Also while filming, I noticed that the actors were not staying in the same position in each shot and I wanted to film those shots again but we were low on time so we had to work with what we had.

Challenges

I am not gonna lie, we had so many challenges while filming this short film. I'm gonna start with the first thing that went wrong, our script. I absolutely hated out script, it's awful and probably one of the worst scripts I have ever read. It had too many references to TV shows and it had a lot of unnecessary sciences and dialogue. Most of the dialogue was something that a person wouldn't say in real life and it made the outcome of the video kind of cheesy.

Another challenge was the actors. We had one good actor and she didn't even talk, and that was Katie who played the dead girl. She was out best actor. All of the actors in our video were pretty bad actors and could not get their lines right. Now of course I know that people are going to screw their lines up and that is no big deal but if you look at all the shots that we had, we had a lot of screw ups with lines. Most of our actors could not act and we probably should have hired other people from outside of class.

The last challenge was the editing of the video. I realized while editing that the story line, our story line got very weak. Our video couldn't hold a good story line because the script wasn't good and the acting was terrible. Instead of trying to make the video more serious the video turned into more of a joke and had awful comedy instead of being serious. I kept editing the video and I absolutely hate it but I guess I have to deal with it. I finished my video and I thought it turned out better than I thought it would but it was still pretty terrible in the end and I am not happy with the outcome.

Things I would change

If I could change things, I would change everything. I would change the script because it was poorly written. I would also change the actors (except for Katie) because their acting was bad and they kept forgetting their lines. The last thing I would change is my video editing, I think it could have been better if the story line had more power and strength instead of having a weak story line.

Experiences

My experiences with my group were pretty fun. I honestly had a lot of fun filming with my group. I honestly had one of the best groups ever but the only thing was that we needed to manage time a bit better but we handled it pretty well, even with the outcome of our video. I enjoyed working with the extra characters such as John (who played the killer) and I also enjoyed working with Zoey even though she wasn't in our group. We all had some struggles in our group because Kacie had swimming and Stockton couldn't start after school at all and John couldn't get out of class. We managed to make it through though and everything turned out better than expected in the end.

Carl

My Soccer Life At Olathe Northwest

Untraditional Christmas: Christmas Traditions For Jews

The main idea of the project was to work with the audio instead of working with a video. The process of this audio was not hard at all, just kind of long.  We did most of the scripting with paper and pencil instead of planning everything on the computers. The only hard thing about this project was writing our own voice overs and our own questions to ask the person being interviewed. I'm not good at writing scripts or writing voice overs and questions to ask so that was the hardest part about it. Other than writing the script or voice overs and questions, it was pretty easy to edit. We also had to add in extra sound effects to the video for natural noise in the background. We had to find at least 5 different sounds of natural noise on ISMFilms.com to show that we found some good natural noise. I honestly do this project again just because it was a really easy but long process of a project. I liked the 6 word memoir project overall!

SeaWorld (Final)

My final project was very stressful because I had to use my time wisely and I couldn't take my time on this project, I had to get it done within an hour and a half. Pretty much this video was to test me how fast I could make a journalism video and how well I could make a video within the given time. I think I did pretty well with this project even though I had missed out on a few things like 2 transitions I was supposed to have. I was given a few clips about SeaWorld, some music, nat noises, some examples and voiceovers that were already made. It was nice that I already had some clips and voiceovers, it saved a lot of time. Along the way I just learned how to work faster with specific clips and voiceovers and I also reviewed my shortcut keys like J, Space Bar and K. I liked the project overall but I thought I could use just 15-20 minutes more to work, other than that I think it should be used for next year's final (For sophomores).

Process of Blood Drive at ONWHS

This project was to tell the story of the blood drive at ONW. I felt better about this project than the first one because I had more of a story to tell and I could ask more of a variety of questions. I also had a partner to come up with some of the questions, so it all wasn't just me by myself. Along the way, I learned how to interview better and get people to answer more specifically. Collaboration wasn't much different because I was pretty much by myself again. Next time, I will try to ask a more variety of questions and I will try to get more varieties of shots too. As for keeping things the same, I will try to keep the volumes of voices the same.

To enhance my project next time I will try to get my interviewers to answer more specifically. My overall thoughts on this are doing pretty good. I actually liked this project better than the lego video. I feel like I did better on this one and I feel more confident about this video.

Lego Day!

So, I'm not too sure if I liked this project for journalism. It was kind of difficult to tell a story off of this specific subject. This was pretty easy to film for the most part because all you had to do was ask some questions and film however you like, I did not like having the camera off the tripod though. I really didn't have to plan anything for this project. No storyboarding, planning ahead or anything. The main idea of the project was to tell a story about a person building legos. The editing of the film was probably the easiest editing I have ever done in a project to be honest, it took only about an hour to put this video together. A little too easy of a project. I think I really could have been better off with a more challenging project. The only thing challenging about this was it was a little hard to get my partner to say what I wanted him to say.

Along the way I learned how to position myself while making a video for journalism. I got my camera to stay pretty still and that's one thing I feel proud about. Next time though, I would change up my script for my voice overs. My voice overs aren't the best in this video. I would keep my variety of shots next time though. Next time, I will use the same type of shots for my next video to make my next one better. Overall, I'm not too sure about this video. I feel like it could have been a bit better but it's pretty good for my first journalism video.