Day 3: OWF Project

 Hi friends!!! It's been a little while, but let me tell you what I've been up to! Recently in media studies, we did our first video project! It was called the "One Word Film" project, or OWF. So we started out in groups of 2, and each group went to our teacher's desk to pick a word from a cup. Based on that word, we had to make a 60-90 second short film about the word, and the whole story has to be able to take place in a 60-90 second time frame. We also could not have any sound in our project, so this made it a bit harder to tell the story. Even though the instructions are pretty simple, it really was a difficult task. 

So, here was our process.

        1. Pick a word. My partner and I picked the word "remorse". 

        2. Create a story about remorse. Our story was about a girl who showed up to her test, and realized she forgot a calculator. Panicking, she sees a calculator on her friend's desk and takes it. Her friend realizes that her calculator went missing and goes to look for it. While the friend is looking for the calculator, the main character feels remorseful and puts the calculator back. She then shows her friend where the            calculator was "hiding", and then proceeds to take the test without the calculator.

        3. We then created a shot list and a storyboard. A storyboard really helps visualize what you are going to shoot, so that you can be most efficient when filming. Our storyboard did not match up exactly to our shots because the classroom we imagined was not the one we ended up shooting in, so we had to make adjustments.

        4. Then it was time to film! It took us around 1 hour to film the whole project because we were getting used to using a tripod and figuring out all the correct angles and such.

        5. Finally, it was editing time! With both my partner and I editing, it took us around an hour and a half to finish. We experimented with our editing app, Adobe Express, and it took a little bit to get used to it. After we were happy with our project, we submitted!

Overall, I'm happy with our first attempt at filming and editing, but I think there are some things we could improve on. I'll start with the things I think we did well. I really liked the way that we showed the friend looking for the calculator as the main character was contemplating putting it back. We edited it in the style of an action match, so that the audience could tell that 2 things were happening at the same time. On the flip side, I feel like some of our shots in the beginning were like blunt cuts; you could clearly see when the shot goes to the next, and I think it makes the project look really cheap. But I honestly don't think we did too bad for our first shot at this!! I'm super excited to see how I will progress with learning more techniques and getting better at it.

Below is our project so you can see the full thing in action. Feel free to leave a comment about what you liked or didn't like, so I'm able to hear from different perspectives!! 

See you next time! Much love!!! 🫰🫰