Being a complete novice to every aspect of filmmaking I felt daunted by this project from the outset but determined to try and have some fun with it. I was successful maybe 40% of the time.
Coming up with a concept that would be easy enough to complete was more difficult that I initially thought, but we eventually settled on a simple computer date gone awry, told in a straightforward narrative style. Inna and I met at a coffee shop one Saturday afternoon to determine how best to turn our idea into a short video. First we proceeded to sketch out a short storyboard. While it certainly won’t win any artistic awards, it was a valuable tool in helping to visualize what we wanted. However, I also went through the shooting process in my head later and decided to write out a shot list, specific to each location; something to use during the actual shooting process in the hopes it would keep us from missing or forgetting anything necessary since we wouldn’t have the opportunity for any reshoots. It was helpful but it didn’t alleviate that problem entirely as we would later learn.
As it turned out Inna had a much steadier hand on the camera than me. If I had to do this again it would be beneficial to have a tripod. Lighting also falls into the category of wants/needs but was impossible considering the constraints of this project. We deliberately decided against any dialogue, using a music track instead. This also worked in our favor as no real script had to be written.
The hell for me began in the editing process. As it turned out there wasn’t enough space for our .mov files. I feel this was a foreseeable problem that should have been addressed in the syllabus. As I couldn’t afford a new external drive I ultimately prevailed in borrowing one from a friend, but we lost precious editing time to this oversight. I kept hearing the word ‘intuitive’ bandied about concerning Final Cut Express. For me it was anything but. Watching editing examples in the lecture a couple of times and reading was not nearly enough for me to comprehend the intricacies of this program. I spent hours editing and screwing things up and having no idea how or why something happened and had to rebuild my section from scratch at least 15 times and while the project is now completed I still don’t feel conversant in the program. The audio was made somewhat easier because it has some things in common with Garageband which I’ve used in the past.
Even with our preproduction efforts we found shots that didn’t work well because of bad angles or lighting, continuity problems, shaky camera work or simply things we didn’t see while shooting. We ultimately had to make lemonade from lemons. I now understand the value of thinking through, as much as possible, every eventuality and having enough material to fill in those “gaps” we encountered. While I can’t say I’m particularly pleased with the video I think we did the best that we could under the circumstances.
Apex of Adulthood
9 years ago