Me-Vid Evaluation

We was given a task to make a 2 minute video summing up our life so far-so who ever watches it hopefully knows a lot about me-. In the video, I used pictures to summarize up my life and a short video of me talking about the most interesting thing about me. We had to include key points about us like what our hobbies and interest include subjects that we felt were relevant to add to our life story. We made a shooting script before putting together our Me-Vid so we knew exactly what we was adding in and what dialogue we would use if we were recording for a voice over in some shots.

The shooting script took around 3 lessons for me to complete and then I had to make some changes to it, like what music I would use and how long each picture would be shown for. Because it was a 120 second long video. I wanted every picture to be running for the same amount of time which was 2 seconds each. We had to have 50 shots and make sure they wasn't under and over 2 minutes long, so I had to make to make sure I spoke for the exact length of time and made a recording for every point I was going to include.

I think sticking to my shooting script was difficult because I was going to use family pictures from home and ones saved on my home laptop. I was difficult to find the exact photographs that I wanted to use because some was stored away and some were missing so I had to alter some shots and change them to what photographs i'd actually had found and was going to use. It was quite time consuming and difficult deciding what exact photographs to choose from because there was so many and wanted to add ones that were funny and also relevant. I've improved my pre-production skills by planning more detailed and thinking more outside the box but I still need to think about the possible complications of my plan and how they can affect my next projects.

During production, I collected all my images and forgot to bring in my USB cable to transfer them directly so instead I had to email them from my phone to my other email address and then save to to the computers desktop individually. I also used one lesson recording all the dialogue that I was going to use. There wasn't really any problems recording apart from some background noise and bells ringing in the background. I was going to record but as I already said, there was too many complications and I didn't think I needed a tripod when I really did because the camera kept slanting to one side. In the future, I need to make sure I remember things because they can affect my work by wasting quite some time.

After filming it was time we used iMovie on the iMacs to edit and finalize it all together. We had one week to finish it and I personally think I wasn't going to but I did.. on the day. I didn't exactly follow my shooting script because I said I was going to film myself introducing the audience to my Me-Vid and thanking them for watching but I didn't because I had some problems filming with people in the way and there being to much noise at my house so I decided to record my voice for an introduction and use it at the beginning with a black screen and at the end I used a background theme and had the words "thank you for watching" on it. There were some difficulties during production. One was that the music wouldn't fade in and out when it was supposed to so I had to put slides in which showed what was going to be shown and so there was enough time for the music to be cut out.

Another problem was that iMovie crashed multiple times so it wasted time and become frustrating. The main problem was the song and my voice recording were clashing together. I had a background song and needed it to fade out so that you could hear it slightly and so you my voice recording was louder allowing the audience to hear my voice properly and understand what I was saying then when the recording stopped, the music would come back. Unfortunately, it didn't do that. Instead, they both played at the same time and wouldn't make a difference when we altered the controls so it was very frustrating and time was running out. I tried to resolve this problem by using one of my free periods to see if I could fix it..I couldn't but I managed to get more work done. Fortunately on the last day, my class member was able to fix it because she too had the same problem.

When I had finished my Me-Vid, I uploaded it on my blog and also put it on YouTube. I think I have improved my editing skills by using iMovie for different things give me a better understanding on what to do and now I can get straight down too it because in each task I learn a lot.

For the production of the music video, I think my knowledge of iMovie and skills learnt from putting my Me-Vid together will be very useful during editing and putting together scenes like how I put the voice recordings and music in the same combination.

I think it'll be quite interesting to make a documentary about my passion for my favourite TV show which is called Pretty Little Liars. I would talk about how interesting it is, what it's about and how it's very mysterious and that anything.

My Me-Vid

Me Vid Shooting Script

The Encounter: Continuity Editing Exercise

Edit Workshop Evaluation

In this exercise, I had to use the 180 degree rule, rule of thirds and match on action.

I used the 180 degree rule during the conversation that the two students were having at the beginning of the exercise and were the students were talking towards the end of the film, them two conversations are mainly when the 180 degree rule was used. I used it so the audience could identify and orientate where the students were without the whole of the shot being visible without getting confused.

I had to use the rule of thirds during the entire film production. I used the rule of thirds to make sure that the actors eye line on the same level as each other and so the body is lined up on the vertical line. This rule is used to either add tension, excitement or any other type of energy throughout the film .

We had a lot of problems during filming. We would come in to film wearing different clothes or forget items needed for shooting. We broke a few rules like the 180 degree rule which had to be re-shot and in some shots, e.g. where I get taken away by the hooded person, we couldn't keep a straight face. That scene had to be filmed around 10 times before we properly done it. If we was to re-film anything again, I would like to re-shot the scene where I got taken because it wasn't believable and also the scene where Josh and Jada are having a conversation at the beginning because it looked to staged and not like they was having a proper talk like they did in the other scenes.

When editing, we had to cut out a lot of smiles and long pauses, it wasn't really a challenge but took a lot of time. I'd say a main problem was when Josh asks me questions about a text message. In the shots where he asks "Did you get another text?" and "Umm, I don't know.." we had to flip the image the other way round so we didn't break any rules or to confuse the audience. If we was to re-edit, I would of edited out the pauses after when i'm asking Josh about "another" text and the pause at the beginning of his reply..Also to add to that, I personally would like to add in 2 more scenes that we originally forgot to include because it seems confusing at the beginning where there's 2 shots of Jada.

I'd say the strengths of this editing exercise were editing all together. I found it very easy on how to crop bits out and make a scene longer and etc. Also the planning on what to add to the film, we had ideas flowing through our mind so we were never hesitant on where to shoot. I think our main strength overall, were the use of the camera. It was a small device that was easy to set up on the tripod and simple to adjust for shots and we never had problems recording and pausing.

I would say we had 2 overall weaknesses. One was doing the storyboards, we took around 4 lessons trying to decide what we would shoot first and how we would do it, so the storyboards how to be drawn very precisely and perfectly because I was the the drawer and I being a perfectionist had to make it perfect. Jada and Josh had no trouble writing the shot but there were more delays with how long we would shoot a scene for but we eventually got there in the end. The other was time. Because we had a lot of outfit changes, we had to re shot absolutely everything in 1 hour on the last day. We personally didn't think we was going to do it but we did.

Overall, I would like to improve the dialogue we had. It was good enough but seemed to staged and we wanted to make it seem realistic but lacked time to decide what really to say so i personally think we could of improved on choosing dialogue and tone.