MP2 Reflections

I think I was able to learn a lot of different processes for filmmaking from the presentations for this marking period. One of which that I found particularly helpful for my upcoming short is Mark Weller's film A King's Quest. It was particularly helpful because the film I just finished shooting as of today is made with just me. Seeing Mark do his film by himself helped to motivate me to also do the same. Also the way of using your budget limitations for comedic effect is something I might utilize in the future because it seemed to work quite effectively here. Also, having to do all the acting for my film I have a greater respect for his ability to make the scenes feel connected. In his film it really feels like the characters are talking to each other even though he plays all of them.

The next filmmaker's process that influenced me this marking period was Aaron Grinberg. What I learned was the importance of quantity. This past semester Aaron has made three music videos. Watching them you can see how his storytelling advances and his editing work progresses to become more intricate and advanced. If instead he were to focus on quality he may have only made one music video and even though he was focused on quality, it may have not been as refined because he would lack the experience. Creating in general is a struggle for me because I have a great fear of failure. Seeing Aaron's projects inspire me to simply create more often instead of waiting until something is perfect in my mind to act.

The final filmmaker I'm going to discuss is Sean Ross. This one will have more detail because I was actually on set helping Sean film by providing equipment and acting. Seeing Sean's process gave me a few interesting insights. The first came from when we filmed the scene where Tristan Parvin plays the school teacher. What was interesting that we found was the lavalier mic was much more clear than the condenser mic that I have almost always used. The other great perk of the lavalier mic is that you don't need an extra person to hold it, you just clip it on the actor. The need for a person to hold a boom mic has been the major reason I haven't invested in one yet. The second thing I found interesting is Sean would hook up his camera to a TV to use as a display. This was immediately helpful because it's simply a larger screen. So many times I've not noticed things sticking into the edges of the frame because on the camera there is information on the edges which can obscure the frame. This could be exposure information, sound meters, white balance, time stamp, whatever. The problem is when you get into the editing software you than notice a sliver of your light is visible in the upper right hand corner. The final insight I received was adapting to new locations. Shaun mentioned he wanted to film the painting scene in an art studio but we filmed in his basement instead because the studio was shutdown due to Covid. However, it's important to be flexible because I've lost locations even before Covid. Sometimes things come up and you need to think on the fly.