If this project was the New York Marathon, this is the point where you see that 24 mile marker and quietly say to yourself, "You are almost there," over the cheering of the crowds from the sidelines. You want to give up, but it would be only in vain at this point. You just have to keep going to see that finish line, and then when it's all over, that's when you can finally crash.
Okay, but in all seriousness, today we are going to talk about the third question for the CCR. Ah, yes, what fun. So, what we must take is how my production skills have developed throughout this project. Should be cake.
For this question, I know exactly what I need to talk about. First, I'm just going to yap for a hot minute and then I'll add the final draft.
Development was a key part of this project. At the start, I really had no idea of how as I was going to do this project. It felt extremely overwhelming, even though class throughout the year has been preparing me for this very moment. Even though I was not starting at the baseline, there was this thick, tall wall standing in front of me preventing me from greatness.
That is when it starts to click.
When I first began to feel confident was when we wrote the script. The script allowed me to see the shots, hear the sounds and feel how it was all coming together. Before the script, it was just a jumbling of ideas that were not cohesive in any way, shape, or form. Boom! The script. Now, this is just the beginning of my growth with this project, as now I realized how one could visualize the elements of production with just a great idea.
The next step in my production development was throughout the actual filming. Not to sound pompous or anything, but as the director of the film, I feel like I really developed my director's eye. The shots would just come to me, expanding from thin air. Yes, I would follow the storyboard and some of the shot we planned, but as we kept on filming, I would have epiphanies.
Some of my favorite shots came to me in the moment, and that was after seeing how the character develops through the opening scene. Just look at this shot and tell me if you would believe this is improvised.
I know I've yapped about this shot for way too many blog posts, but I couldn't care less. Every time I show this clip, a butterfly gets its wings.
The only way that this shot even came to fruition was because we had shot so much that day that I was able to be so confident in my blocking skills. You could probably even tell if you go through all the footage that throughout the day I became more and more confident in my skills. The first shots of the day barely had any movement and were lowkey stagnant, but then when we were filming the outside scenes at the end of the day, I started getting more creative and giving myself more freedom with the shots.
Another thing that I can see some development with is my overall editing skill, and you can definitely see this in the difference between the first edit versus the fourth edit. Yes, fourth edit. When I tell you that the first edit was the most stagnant video that I have ever made in my life, not kidding.
But, by my fourth time going through the edit, I finally made something that I was proud of that had dimension and was engaging to watch. And yes I had previous experience editing, but never something of this scale and of this length. But, after hours and hours (and hours) I finally got it. Got how to make an engaging product.
Actually, I lied at the beginning. I am not going to show the script (right now), but basically what I wrote the script above, but trust I will include it the next post, as I almost have my idea solidified. But, you will just have ti wait (teehee).
And now for the movie quote of the day...