Week 24

 As we start editing our final project, my partner and I are becoming more and more eager to play around with new tools and techniques. By this point in the class, I'm getting pretty comfortable with Adobe Premiere Pro, and it's been great to be able to experiment with some new tricks. Our footage looks pretty solid on its own—we really put a lot of work into the cinematography—but we’ve been playing around with a few creative editing elements to take it to the next level. We've tried color grading to enhance the mood and tone, added graphics for a touch of visual flair, experimented with text masking to get cool text animations, used transitions to make our cuts smoother, and spent time on music and sound mixing to have the audio perfect and create the right atmosphere. We've been rushing around putting it all together, and watching the footage in retrospect, it's amazing what we've done. Both of us attempted to leave everything we had on this project, and I think that comes through in the work that we've accomplished so far. All the work that we've put into it has literally been paying dividends, and one can see it in the overall quality of the film on so many different fronts. This has been an enormous learning curve for the two of us, not only technically but also in learning how to make a story work within a film.

Week 23 (Editing)

 We've done great with the project so far! We've got all the outdoor scenes and a couple of the school shots done, so we're about halfway through. As the deadline is approaching, we figured it was time to start editing. To our surprise, we had no issues bringing our footage into Premiere Pro, which was a relief in itself. We're both totally psyched about the editing process, and we've decided to go the whole way with it. We've been experimenting with all sorts of color grades and effects in an attempt to get the footage as similar as possible to how we had envisioned it originally when we first started brainstorming the project. We're going out of our way to experiment and get the clips as lively as they can be. Of course, we've also had a little bit of a challenge. The biggest issue is that the graphics and text we've added are slowing down the computers. It hasn't been an easy thing to get everything so efficient, particularly when we are making some quick edits that don't have to be a problem. Aside from that, the computers seem to be degrading some of our photos. To work around this, we’ve been using color grading and other editing tricks to try and enhance the footage, but it’s definitely been a bit of a struggle to get everything looking just right. Even with these hurdles, we’re staying optimistic and pushing forward, knowing that the final product will be worth the effort!

Week 22 (Filming)

 We've finally started shooting for our last project! With our script, storyboard, and a lot of planning, we were able to acquire some good video. We shot at home, the park near our area, and at school on the second day. The storyboard really worked out for us when it was time to make things happen—it gave us a clear direction and kept us organized. We were very innovative with the photos we took, both in and out of school. Although we've managed to get quite a lot of film completed, there are still loads of shots remaining to be shot. We didn't have enough time to cover part of the outdoor shots, so we'll need to schedule another day to do them. Aside from that, though, the footage we have is great, and I think we can manage to cut it. I'm really excited to see the project coming along, and it's great to be accomplishing things!

Week 21 (Blog)

 Since the year was coming to a close really quickly, our instructor told us to make sure that we updated our blogs. I had quite a bit to get caught up on, including changing the look of my blog to make it more professional. She also told us to review some of the past weeks and edit and add to our earlier blogs. I also devoted some time in personalizing my theme to make my blog appear fresh. As I reread my posts, I can look back at all the things I have learned and done this year. It has been lovely to collaborate with my friends, work together as a team, and come up with work that we can all be really proud of. It has also been great to look at the other students in my class producing fantastic work. Overall, it's been fun, and I am glad I've finished the year on a high!