In class we were told that we would have to work together in pairs to make a film that conveys a random word that we are given. So in order to begin the project I had to go and find a partner, once that was settled we went to pick out our random word out of a mug. The instructions were pretty simple and straightforward. Our job was to develop a story that could show our word in the span of 60-90 seconds, in the school. Within this main project we had certain steps that needed to be completed in order to produce a better done outcome…like the brainstorming sheet and the storyboard.
The word me and my partner got for the film project was “concerned”. There are many ways and scenarios that could be portrayed with the word concerned. Due to the project being confined to the school setting…our ideas were more limited. So therefore, we decided during our brainstorming process to think about the certain things that could make an individual concerned in school. Like mental health struggles, fitting in, heavy workload, academic pressure, teacher expectations etc. Regardless, we ended up deciding that academic pressure was the route we wanted to take our project in. During the brainstorming we got to develop the most important shots that we wanted in our film. From the beginning, I knew that I wanted a dolly zoom in order to clearly approve the idea that the girl is concerned. The brainstorming part of the project allowed my group to evolve our current ideas, certain techniques to convey a specific tone.
When it comes to the storyboard I decided to take my time with it. Not only do I think a storyboard is incredibly helpful and can be used as a guide for when we are shooting footage time but I genuinely think it is beneficial timewise. With the storyboard, our group was able to save some time because we knew exactly what we wanted to show to our audience. It overall helped us pre-visualize our project and allowed us to coordinate our ideas to create a more organized project. Here below is the storyboard created for our short one word film:
In order to put all of our clips together we used Adobe Express. I have never used this editing platform, I had only used CapCut and iMovie, so I had minimal beginner experience. Regardless, I watched a few tutorials to find specific things that I could work on, in order to improve the final product. I think my biggest challenge was ultimately doing the dolly zoom in editing and keeping everything uniform and continuous. I tried to limit any rough change of shots and based my editing off of movements done by the actor to keep it continuous and smooth. In addition, I did decide to edit in some choppy shots, it was done intentionally to build tension.
I think our group did a pretty good job at keeping the shots organized, we also did an awesome job at creating a story, and the editing was decent. Although probably not noticed by the audience (only by critics), because the film is pretty short there was some things that could be worked on. In order to improve the overall quality of the project, I would have definitely been a little bit more strict on the wardrobe. I wish we could have kept the continuity of the outfits, yes, we kept the sweater the same…but throughout the film, the shorts and shoes changed. I also think that next time we could improve certain shots to establish a concerned tone because, yes, although the actor contributes to the overall emotion of the film, it is our job to support the tone through camera techniques, movements, and editing. I want to make each shot more meaningful.
Link to project:
