BSA 131 (Digital Filmmaking I) Week 14 : Semester Review
This is going to be the final blog for BSA 131, I'm looking back at the entirety of the Semester and evaluating how it went.
The big overarching assessment was of course the music video. The first couple of weeks were spent listening to the songs we were given and generating ideas. I really enjoyed this part of the paper, there was plenty of potential for creativity with the variety of songs we got.
I enjoyed the pitching process and seeing everyone's music video ideas. The most engaging part for me personally was actually generating the idea, I listened to the songs a lot, naturally gravitating to those I liked more. Coming up with ideas is always enjoyable to me and here it was no different. The first couple of weeks were fun, I felt regenerated after the break and the concept of making a music video was fresh and exciting. I look back fondly on this period and wish that I could have maintained the energy I had for this project throughout it's development and production.
Pitching to the class went well, although I wish i could have made a better impression on the artist herself. My idea didn't perfectly align with what she intended for the song to say, I liked it so much though that I didn't even consider changing it. It's only later in the year, when I had gotten more apathetic and objective towards my video that I started to alter it. This is a regret I have, if there's a lesson to be learned here it's that doing things earlier is always better than leaving them for later, this applies to the changes I made to my concept as well as the actual execution of the video.
In my Week 1 blog I mentioned that I thought messing up the pitch by clashing with artist could have a very negative impact on your final product, this is something I saw happen but not in the way I had anticipated. The problem came in when some students were unable to contact their artists, this delayed their entire project. I am happy that Lili showed up on the day and green lit my project so easily.
One thing that I have found during my presentations to the class is that I am much more informal than I would be in front of an actual producer. Originally I expected that the music video pitches would be much more professional, but it ended up being very relaxed. I don't know if this helps me in the real world that much, presenting to people you know is much easier than presenting to a stranger, as someone with stage fright I can only imagine how badly I would screw up if I were to actually do it in a professional setting.
The AV script was the next step, I didn't think too much of it, while enjoyable my video was much more focused on being a music video chiefly and putting narrative on the back burner. It's only from watching more music videos that I have realized how common a drama sequence of some sort, even if there's no dialogue and even if it's only ten seconds long, really is. I still consider my AV script to be interesting, I played with the idea of sound and video and how they are related, my only regret is that I couldn't deliver on it.
Production was where things went wrong. Production is also the stage that took the longest. My video only took six hours to film, give or take, but I was involved with a lot of other students' shoot. There was hardly a week that went by in which we didn't film, only one or two weekends were kept free and these were usually for other assessments.
I really loved being on set though, but I think I experienced a kind of fatigue. I no longer find shooting days particularly interesting or exciting, I was on so many that I started to find them a bit monotonous. Especially towards the end shooting seemed like just something I did and not much of an accomplishment. When we started shooting was the big thing we did that day, it had a sense of progress that I now find lacking. I clearly remember one day where we had a shoot and afterwards it felt like I wasn't even on a set, I went on with my day and tried to get some work done.This was the first time the set was no longer magical, where it was simply an occupation and nothing more. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy being on everyone's projects, I wouldn't have offered if that was the case, but it did lose a certain sense of excitement that was very attractive at the start of the semester. When came time for my shoot I found that I had very little motivation to actually do it. A couple of days before shooting I just wanted it to be over so I could start editing.
After all the shoots that I've been on, I find myself much more comfortable in the different roles. At the start of the year stress was no stranger, now I am more calm on set than I am doing regular work. During the later shoots I would regularly change from one role to another and it felt natural, while it might feel like I have lost my passion for production, I think it's the best experience I have gained from this course.
The timing for the music video and pre-production materials was very weird. We were doing storyboards and animatics long after some of us had shot our videos. This scheduling felt off to me, I was under the impression that this course emulates what the industry is like, but in this particular department I think it failed to do so.
This paper is one that I haven't done very well in, but it's also the one I've given the most time for and probably the one I've learned the most from. The biggest personal takeaway from this paper, and this year as a whole, for me is that I need to value my own work more and reserve time for it. Most of this second semester I spent my time meeting the desires of others, I should have been more assertive in my own work and have given myself the time I needed to finish what I started. At the end of last semester I noted that my time management needed more work, this time around I gave myself enough time for production but not enough for post. The sins we have to deal with are bad and something we spent our entire life trying to fix, but sometimes our good traits, like selflessness and charity, can be just as bad if used over abundantly and in a matter that it ends up hurting our own performance.
The big overarching assessment was of course the music video. The first couple of weeks were spent listening to the songs we were given and generating ideas. I really enjoyed this part of the paper, there was plenty of potential for creativity with the variety of songs we got.
I enjoyed the pitching process and seeing everyone's music video ideas. The most engaging part for me personally was actually generating the idea, I listened to the songs a lot, naturally gravitating to those I liked more. Coming up with ideas is always enjoyable to me and here it was no different. The first couple of weeks were fun, I felt regenerated after the break and the concept of making a music video was fresh and exciting. I look back fondly on this period and wish that I could have maintained the energy I had for this project throughout it's development and production.
Pitching to the class went well, although I wish i could have made a better impression on the artist herself. My idea didn't perfectly align with what she intended for the song to say, I liked it so much though that I didn't even consider changing it. It's only later in the year, when I had gotten more apathetic and objective towards my video that I started to alter it. This is a regret I have, if there's a lesson to be learned here it's that doing things earlier is always better than leaving them for later, this applies to the changes I made to my concept as well as the actual execution of the video.
In my Week 1 blog I mentioned that I thought messing up the pitch by clashing with artist could have a very negative impact on your final product, this is something I saw happen but not in the way I had anticipated. The problem came in when some students were unable to contact their artists, this delayed their entire project. I am happy that Lili showed up on the day and green lit my project so easily.
One thing that I have found during my presentations to the class is that I am much more informal than I would be in front of an actual producer. Originally I expected that the music video pitches would be much more professional, but it ended up being very relaxed. I don't know if this helps me in the real world that much, presenting to people you know is much easier than presenting to a stranger, as someone with stage fright I can only imagine how badly I would screw up if I were to actually do it in a professional setting.
The AV script was the next step, I didn't think too much of it, while enjoyable my video was much more focused on being a music video chiefly and putting narrative on the back burner. It's only from watching more music videos that I have realized how common a drama sequence of some sort, even if there's no dialogue and even if it's only ten seconds long, really is. I still consider my AV script to be interesting, I played with the idea of sound and video and how they are related, my only regret is that I couldn't deliver on it.
Production was where things went wrong. Production is also the stage that took the longest. My video only took six hours to film, give or take, but I was involved with a lot of other students' shoot. There was hardly a week that went by in which we didn't film, only one or two weekends were kept free and these were usually for other assessments.
I really loved being on set though, but I think I experienced a kind of fatigue. I no longer find shooting days particularly interesting or exciting, I was on so many that I started to find them a bit monotonous. Especially towards the end shooting seemed like just something I did and not much of an accomplishment. When we started shooting was the big thing we did that day, it had a sense of progress that I now find lacking. I clearly remember one day where we had a shoot and afterwards it felt like I wasn't even on a set, I went on with my day and tried to get some work done.This was the first time the set was no longer magical, where it was simply an occupation and nothing more. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy being on everyone's projects, I wouldn't have offered if that was the case, but it did lose a certain sense of excitement that was very attractive at the start of the semester. When came time for my shoot I found that I had very little motivation to actually do it. A couple of days before shooting I just wanted it to be over so I could start editing.
After all the shoots that I've been on, I find myself much more comfortable in the different roles. At the start of the year stress was no stranger, now I am more calm on set than I am doing regular work. During the later shoots I would regularly change from one role to another and it felt natural, while it might feel like I have lost my passion for production, I think it's the best experience I have gained from this course.
The timing for the music video and pre-production materials was very weird. We were doing storyboards and animatics long after some of us had shot our videos. This scheduling felt off to me, I was under the impression that this course emulates what the industry is like, but in this particular department I think it failed to do so.
This paper is one that I haven't done very well in, but it's also the one I've given the most time for and probably the one I've learned the most from. The biggest personal takeaway from this paper, and this year as a whole, for me is that I need to value my own work more and reserve time for it. Most of this second semester I spent my time meeting the desires of others, I should have been more assertive in my own work and have given myself the time I needed to finish what I started. At the end of last semester I noted that my time management needed more work, this time around I gave myself enough time for production but not enough for post. The sins we have to deal with are bad and something we spent our entire life trying to fix, but sometimes our good traits, like selflessness and charity, can be just as bad if used over abundantly and in a matter that it ends up hurting our own performance.
Great reflection, Bo. Yes, fatigue/burn-out can be a real problem!
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