Progress Report #5/CAP Hollywood Review

 

This is my CAP Hollywood movie.  It's called The Ticket.

As of Wednesday, the 29th, CAP Hollywood is officially over - and the best part is that we successfully completed our film!

It was actually exported last Friday, so we didn't work on it at all this week.  Wednesday night everyone in CAP, and most of our parents, arrived at school dressed up.  The kids all walked the red carpet and students who did CAP Hollywood last year acted as paparazzi and took our pictures.  We then all went into the auditorium where we watched all the films.  Then the nominations for the different awards were read (the awards were the typical Oscar ones - best actor/actress, best director, best editor...) and the awards were given out.  Our film didn't win anything, but we were nominated for best actor.

I think that this was a really fun and clever project.  I liked how we incorporated what we did in English to what we do in Media.  Also, I think that the time frame the we were given to do this project was perfect.  Were it any longer, no one would have felt pressure to try to get it done and so on the last day everyone would realize time is up and the videos wouldn't be good.  Were it any shorter, no one would have had time to produce a quality video.  It was very helpful that we could stay after school any day to edit, we could come in on the weekends, and we could come in before school.

My group's video, The Ticket, is at the top of this post.  It is about a boy who finds a lottery ticket and then has to decide what he should do with it.

Enjoy!

Progress Report #4

We finished our film!  We came in early, stayed late, and came in at lunch.  We had some crises along the way:  Clips getting overlapped,  music not rendering, random black frames, realizing we didn't get every shot we needed so trying to work around that....  We did, however, fix all of those problems to make what I think is a really great short film.  It is definitely not the best one out of all of my peers' but I think we did really well considering the prior editing and film experience the members of my group had (none before this year).

This week I came into school early to edit all the days our editing sweet was available.  I also came in at lunch a few days during the week to edit.

CAP Hollywood is Wednesday night and I'm really excited to watch the other groups' films.  I should have our up on my blog next week.

Progress Report #3

Our film is still progressing at a steady pace; however if we want to have a quality film by THIS FRIDAY (which came a whole lot faster than I thought it would) we really have to buckle down and work.  We have a solid rough cut but we need to add more cutaways and shots that clarify what is going on.  Also, we need to do a voice over of lottery numbers being read and we need to pan the audio.

This week I was responsible for making a group's movie poster which I think turned out pretty good.  I also did some editing.

This week we need to finish our film!  Each person in our group is choosing a day or two to come in and do some extra editing.  I am planning on adding and perfecting the extra cutaways.  I am also planning on making the transitions smooth.

I should have our final film up on my blog at the end of this week or the week afterwords.

 This is a picture of some members of my group and I filming our video.

Progress Report #2

On Monday of last week we finished watching all our clips (which there are a lot of but we forgot to get some shots...oops) and we sorted them into folders to make it easier on ourselves when we are editing.  We also got a rough cut of the first half of the film.  Currently, we have some random piece of music in our film that we are probably going to switch out... who knows though.

A challenge that we faced this week is that some shots we just didn't get, but its easy to work around those so that's okay.  The real challenge that we've faced during editing is making sure there is continuity.  Some of the shots we have our actor facing one way and then all of the sudden he is facing the other, or his hand is in one spot and then we switch to a close-up and it is in another.  These shots are hard to work around.  We are cutting as close as possible to make it look like everything is continuous but sometimes I feel like it is kind of obvious that their is not great continuity.

Again, like last week, we didn't each have a specific job.  We switch around and take turns doing the editing and such.  I sorted our clips into different folders and did some of the editing.  I also chose and imported the music, but, like I said before, we are probably going to end up switching songs because ours doesn't fit as well as I originally thought it would.

At the end of this week, my goal for our group is to have a rough cut of the entire film.  I think that we can definitely get that done.  We only have one day of class this week because of AP tests but we will now be able to start staying after school to work on the film.

CAP Hollywood Progress Report #1

So turns out our first progress report was supposed to be done this weekend, not last weekend, so I turned last week's post into a pre-progress report and this week's post into the first real progress report.

This week we got all our filming done.  I was a it concerned about how the filming would go, but it went great!  Tuesday, the first day we filmed, was a dreary day so not too many people were at the gelato place where we filmed, which made filming a whole lot easier.  Also, the guy working there was super nice and really into our film.  Wednesday was a really nice day, but luckily we were pretty much filming outside the gelato store so it didn't matter that it was crowded.

On Thursday we started watching all of our footage and there is so much.  Its kind of overwhelming.  We've been deleting the ones that obviously won't work as we go through but there is still a lot.  Hopefully what we end up with in the end is good.

This week I went to the gelato place to make sure that they were okay with us filming there.  I also filmed with my group on Tuesday and Wednesday (my technical role is director but I did some of the filming as well and other people in my group did some of the directing).  Additionally, I helped my group go through our footage.  There wasn't really any individuals doing one task, so far all the work has been pretty evenly split.

By the end of our next class (Monday) I hope that our group will have finished watching all the of the footage.  By the end of the week I am hoping that we will have each of the clips in a very basic line-up so we can see the order of them and establish what we have.

CAP Hollywood Pre-Progress Report

Our latest CAP project is titled CAP Hollywood.  In English we wrote short stories, then we got into groups and are turning those short stories into short films.

The story my group is doing is the classic "Someone finds a lottery ticket, what do they do with it?" story.

So far my group (Katherine, Jacob, and Ross) has done a lot of pre-production planning.  We have a script, actors, costumes, props and so on.  Yesterday, I went to a gelato store near our school to ask if we could film there in this up coming week.  The lady I talked to said yes, so that is really good news.

We are going to try to get all of our filming done on Tuesday and Wednesday so we can maximize our editing time.  The films are being shown May 29.

I'll post another progress report next week!

 

Image Source: Lottery Tickets

My Feelings About the Spring School Season

Sometimes school sucks.  Not always though.  I like seeing my friends and being around people and even learning on a daily basis.  This post will talk about some negative and positive feelings I have about school.

1.)  Negative - This is probably the only time of year I would write a statement like this and that is because right now the stress level related to school is really high.  Teachers keep piling assignments on us.  In one class I have three long-term assignments and in another I have four.  APs are coming up and exams are starting to creep into the forefront of my mind. 

2.) Positive - Like I said earlier, all my friends are at school.  There are some people that you see in an out-of-school context but there are others whom you only really see at school.  Its nice to just hang-out with your friends and have social interactions.

3.) Negative - I ask a lot of questions and I'll admit sometimes they may not be the best questions.  But sometimes I think they are pretty good questions.  Frequently I'll ask a question during class to help clarify.  I rarely ever get an answer.  Instead I get a dirty look from the teacher because either they don't know the answer or they don't understand my question or the teacher gets angry and repeats what they just said - not answering the question.  (This happens when I ask both good and bad questions).

4.) Positive - Learning can be fun.  School gives me something to do with my time and it teaches me things.  School is a privilege and an opportunity, so why not take advantage of it?

Now you have read some of my thoughts on school.  Maybe you agree or maybe you don't... I have included a picture of a school to compliment my post. 

 

 Image Source: School House