One Word Film

    Our first video production assignment of the year was the One Word Film. During this assignment, I  practiced effective use of shots and angles as well as editing techniques. The project had me & my partner develop a 1:00-1:30 minute scene based on the prompt of a single word with the restriction of not allowing dialogue, which meant the story would have to be told purely visually. For this project, we were required to create a 15-shot storyboard, shoot the required footage, and then edit it all together in our editing program of choice.

Brainstorming & Pre-Production

    The word we were given for the film was Cruel. After some discussion, we agreed on a somewhat relatable and shared experience between many students: having your work torn to bits by a teacher after working extremely hard on it. We originally planned on having it center around an essay, but ultimately we agreed that by making it an artwork we would be able to make it undeniable that the work done by the student was good, and the harsh grading could be considered cruel. After bringing this idea to our teacher and getting it approved we started working on a storyboard. 

    We decided to begin the film with a series of close-up and extreme close-up shots to create a sense of anxiety as the student is putting the finishing touches on his artwork. we then thought a tracking shot could follow him close behind as he turned it in, followed by more close-ups to call back to his anxieties & fears from the beginning of the film coming to life.

Mona Lisa Sketch

  Filming   

    

    The next class we got to work shooting the One Word    Film. The art piece shown wasn't actually illustrated for this, but rather printed from a user on social media. On the first day of filming, we were able to finish about the first half of the film, leaving the tracking shot and grading sequence for 5th period the next day. Overall the filming process was a bit rushed since we had to make many adjustments with the camera in between takes, and to prioritize the diversity of the shots, we often had to do many takes before moving on to the next one which caused us to rush a bit on some important shots.

Post-Production/Editing

    In my opinion, the editing was the smoothest part of this project. I had a clear idea of what effect I wanted to achieve when editing the project so it's mainly what guided me through it and made the process feel super seamless to me. The most enjoyable part of the process had to be editing the sound. After searching some royalty-free online music sites I was able to find two perfect tracks to remix and include as part of the film. The first is a classical song set to a funky drum beat and the second of which being a chaotic but rhythmic drum solo from a jazz track. These two came together surprisingly harmoniously and created the exact feel I wanted for my film, and being able to edit to a beat also made the editing process a lot more fun.

Reflection

    I overall enjoyed the final product I ended up with. Something I could do better in future projects is really making sure to stay on track and not spend to much time on a shot that only ends up on screen for less than a second, and rather focus on shots that are more central to the piece as a whole. Doing this will hopefully make the film as a whole look better than it would've if I continued with my habit of spending too long on largely discardable footage.

One Word Film - Cruel