One Word Film Project

    For this project, we were assigned with making a story, not a montage, based of a randomized assigned tone word without the usage of dialogue or text. We were paired up with a partner to brainstorm ways to convey the tone to the audience and develop a storyline that illustrates the plot and characters appropriately. This short film would have to occur within 60-90 seconds real time.

    Me and my partner were assigned the tone word appreciative and our goal was to express that tone word to the audience. Therefore, we brainstormed different storylines that portrayed the tone word, none of which stood out to us, until we thought of how being appreciative is a way of paying back kindness. We decided to portray the story of a high school girl sitting alone at lunch being introduced to a extroverted, kind, and "popular" girl who reaches out to be her friend. The way we incorporated being appreciative in the story was how the lonely girl thought of methods to show her appreciation to the popular girl. We concluded that it would end when she thought about the two different methods she can show appreciation. We developed a shot list and brainstormed potential editing techniques in chronological order to effectively plan our storyline.     

    One word film brainstorming (1).docx

    When filming, we had a storyboard that was really useful when figuring out what shots we already had planned. When breaking down the scenes, we decided to film the first half of where the two girls meet on the first day of filming and film the second half indoors when they pass each other in the hallway greeting each other. We thought about how we could incorporate the composition and movement techniques along with the different shots and angles into our project. For example, in the scene where the popular girl goes to the talk to the lonely girl, we used two over the shoulder shots to indicate the two characters having a conversation and establishing the personal relationship they have with each other now.

    After filming our scenes, we proceeded with the editing process by ourselves. We were instructed that each member of the group must edit the footage filmed. I decided to do my editing with Adobe and put my scenes in order so it would be easier for me to visually see what else I have left to edit. Me and my partner made sure we shot every scene at least 3 times to have a variety of different possible outcomes of our final project. Consequently, the editing techniques I utilized were very similar to my partner's but not exactly the same because we had different ideas. For example, I used technique of continuity editing when the popular girl turned her head to look behind her and the scene cut to a point of view shot of her looking at the lonely girl sitting alone. Another technique I resorted to was a graphic match of a zoom in of the lonely girl drawing a smiling face on a thank-you card for the popular girl and cutting to the lonely girl's actual smiling face showing the same composition, creating a symbolic representation of the joy she had making the card to the appreciation she had for the popular girl.

    Something I think was done very well was the editing techniques I incorporated when the lonely girl was imagining ways to appreciate the popular girl. I included a shadow around the borders to indicate we are inside her mind as well zooming into her eyes. I believe me and my partner did a very good job developing the intended message of the tone. However, something I'd like to improve for next time is giving me and my partner more time for us to film. On our last day of shooting near the end of our scenes, the shots were choppy and messy due to us running out of filming time. For future reference, more time for us to film will most likely produce better results when it comes to the editing process.

Final Project: OWF_Romero.mp4

Camera Shots Quiz

    In class, our class was assigned to do a camera shots quiz and we had to work with a partner. Our assignment was to utilize a variety of 15 shots and angles in order to tell a story with our choice of inanimate objects and organization. We were told to make ten shots that were assigned to us and we got to pick the separate five from our lesson.

    When approaching this assignment, we decided to make this assignment convey a very comedic story. We had the idea of getting two toys and making them the main character's of the fight, a panda and a dog that is in the territory of the panda. The 15 shots we used showed the progression of how the fight started, continued, and ended. The panda was the antagonist of this short story while the dog was the victim of abuse. The panda would be very arrogant and confident that he will win the fight; however, the dog is very intimidated but strong and he ends up beating the panda in the fight. We wanted to show the message that causing a fight just because someone else is invading personal space, it shouldn't be the reason to cause violence. The last shot explains that although winning the argument, engaging in violence makes both parties the losers. 

    I think I did good in portraying the characters' emotions, reactions, and movements through facial expressions and body language. A few things I'd improve on our presentation would be how the low angle was made because i felt like it didn't convey how the dog felt in power over the dog. Another thing I would improve is how to do a Point of View shot since the shot would only show the top of the head and not the actual panda's perspective of the dog sleeping.

Link to our PowerPoint!

Camera Shots Quiz .pptx