My Final Journal Entry - A Reflection of the Semester

Keith,

Now that the semester is over, and we have seen the production come full circle, from inception to screening, I've learned a lot. After we were set in our production company of 10 enthusiastic story tellers I didn't know how well it was going to work out. I have always been used to working in smaller groups, this was the first time I've working on a class production with more than four people. I knew I was going to work well with James, Alec, and Nick because I have worked with them in the past. I was excited to get to know all the new faces and grow as a team. As we continued working my confidence in us greatly grew and after the first few weeks together, I could tell we were going to end up as a close group.

When we were pitching ideas around, I was pretty set on convincing the class to like my baseball story. I knew creating a drama would be a lot easier to pull off; I was hesitant about comedy. Our pre-production phase lasted quite long, and we ran into a bunch of bumps, as some of us butted heads with the script. I think it's safe to say we were getting a bit frustrated, but in the end everything worked out. No feelings were hurt as we moved on and planned for production.

During our casting session we ended up getting very lucky, everyone who auditioned was extremely talented. Although we did not have a lot of people come to audition, the people who did fit the parts perfectly. I was impressed with their acting abilities and was happy that they wanted to be apart of our production.

Overall, production went smoothly, and I feel that everyone in our class got a chance to do what they wanted. I definitely had a fun time directing, I felt that I directed the interview scenes well and I got the actors to really get into the scenes. It is tough for actors to sit in front of a green screen and talk into the camera while reciting a monologue, however I felt that they did great. Unfortunately I was not able to make it to the shoots over easter break because I was at home with my family celebrating the holiday. I appreciate how the class was able to get together and get things done over that weekend with limited crew; everything they shot looked great and production was finally wrapped!

Post production time! Most of my time spent for this project was in post production. Editing with James was very stressful and time consuming, especially with all our finals going on. We ran into a lot of problems while editing which made it even more tricky to complete. I took on the writers room scene, and the ending scene. Both of which were very long, there was a lot of footage. The hardest part was piecing together the audio and video together. During the writers room scene the slate was usually only halfway in frame, or was completely blurry, and there was little or no camera audio. When there was camera audio, the slate was not read aloud: it was only clapped. I could not tell which shot went to which audio file. This was especially difficult because the scenes did not go in order. I spent a lot of time going through every file, listening and using trial and error to label and sync the footage. I eventually was able to get through the writers room scene, and I was happy with my results. I liked the way it turned out.

When I started editing the ending scene, I ran into the same problem: this time there was no camera audio at all, and no slate. There was a hand-clap in place of a slate. This, again, made it tedious to sync the audio with the video. It was frustrating, but I did not let it get to me. I knew the deadline, and I knew I had to get through it. Our class was counting on us. I buckled down, drank some coffee, and after a few hours the scene was coming together nicely. Once I finished the scene I was again very happy with the result, and thought the scene worked perfectly.

There was one thing left to do, which was to add in the greenscreened interview clips. Charlie did a fantastic job with the chromakeying and it looked amazing! Unfortunately, the audio track from the background footage was added with the dialog of the interviews. It was decided that we would put the clips in anyway, and replace them later with the fixed versions. This was just an unfortunate circumstance, and there was nothing we could do about it, so there was no use in worrying about it; it will be fixed and be perfect soon! We were able to put everything together in the master timeline, and screen it during our time tonight. I think that is what I love most about editing; getting through all the challenges and feeling proud about the end product when you have worked so hard on it.

Overall I am proud of what we accomplished and I felt that we all learned a great deal. I believe that I was an important asset to our team, I was always willing to help with whatever we needed. I was at every casting session, I was able to share tips about production from when I produced Life and Death, I was able to share information about the Sony FS-100 from my previous experiences, I directed several scenes, I helped cast Michael for Leslie, and I was able to edit with James and make this production come to life. I felt that everyone in our class brought a lot of skills to the table, and did what they needed to do. I believe that our chemistry as a group really benefited our production as a whole.

I feel that I deserve an A- as a grade in this class because of everything that I contributed to our production, I was engaged in everything that we were doing as a class, and I kept a positive attitude throughout our ups and our downs.

Overall, I think this class was a great experience. Lastly, I want to thank you Keith for providing us with direction, support, knowledge, and insight into the real world whether it was about being a parent, interning in LA, or tips on how to use social media to our advantage. I think I can speak for our entire class when I say that we greatly value and appreciate your passion for media and story telling. I believe you have inspired us all, and taught us all how important it is to learn how to work in a group effectively. I hope to keep in touch with you as I venture forward and continue to grow. We will play that round of golf sometime.

Sincerely,
Chris

Monday May 5th

Filled out teacher evaluations

Watched films we made from Monday

Keith gave us a killer speech to inspire us to follow our dreams