Final Weekly Reflection

This week was a hectic one. Linds and I not only had to finish the film but we were also in Production week of Cabaret.  Lindsay and I were not able to work on our film during study hall anymore, therefore, most of our time during the day was spent in the lab.  Production week involves the entire cast being in the theater from five to almost eleven every night. I was exhausted. 

This week we learned more about iMovie. We mastered audio and learned how to perfectly cut a song so it matches the film clip. We learned how to make sound die out, get louder, and fade. We learned everything this week on our own by basically fooling around with the program. By learning on our own, it took longer for us to get things done. A problem that arose this week was putting a beginning to our film. We had no clue how to do it. By the end of the week, we had the rest of the film finished and all we needed was an ending. Finally, we decided what we wanted but did not know how to do it. We needed to put a title in the start of our film, however, we did not know how to do it. Finally, after a day of trying to figure it out, Nick Clemens showed us how. After that we spent the rest of our time fixing little cues and doing final details.

I think we were not asked to do a lot for Terry or Joan this week because we already had so much on our plate. We had already finished our hours and we had to juggle finishing the movie and production week.  Everything went as planned this week, the show came together and our film was finished. 

I benefitted a lot from this week. The show went amazingly and our film was finished. I am happy with the final product and I think it will convey what we wanted it to. Though some pieces we had wanted at first in the film were left out, I think it was for the better. The film flows well, is informative, and fun. 

last blog!

Today was the last chorus class so it was really sad. After Linds and I headed over to Brenda's and worked there for about three hours! We finished all the narration and are so close till then end. We added more film, and made our last to do list. Tomorrow we are planning on finishing the movie and making our presentation poster so we have all Sunday for our final paper. Tonight was opening night so it was really nerve racking. It went really well and the show came together. It was a lot better than last night and I didn't miss any cues! yay! 

week three day 4

Today we had a sleep in. Thank god. But of course I had to come in early to write the previous blog. I then went to B block to rehearse with  Kris Johnson, I also watched Jaguar prepare for his competition in New York this weekend. After I went around school and hung up flyers for Cabaret. I met Lindsay and we worked on the movie. It is really coming along. One problem we have run into is that when we add a song all the song orders get messed up so we have to replace every song. We added the start of the movie today and did some cutting of scenes to make the movie shorter and flow better. We then had team dinner and went to the theater to get ready for the dress rehearsal. I saw Joan before the run and we talked briefly about the movie progress. 

Last night i was really tired after a run through and got home to find my internet did not work so i could not right my blog. I went to campus this morning to write this blog and I am no freaking out because I hope this will not prevent me from passing senior project. Yesterday was extremely long. I woke up early to send in college forms about classes and dorms. I then met Lindsay on campus to work on our project. I was late so she ended up working for a half hour by herself, but when I got there we added more songs, sped up some parts, and again corrected our to do list. I spent a hour and a half with her in the lab then took the camera and went filming around campus. I filmed random people saying Cabaret, I filmed Nancy's interview, and I filmed techies talking about lights and sound for the show. I then headed back to lab to load my film and cut it into smaller clips. We had a full run of the show last night and chuck was there. I did not get home till 11 so you can imagine my frustration when i found out the internet was out. I went to school early, even though I did not have to be on campus till 3:15, to write this blog so that is upsetting. 

week 3 day 2

Today F was second block so Linds and i headed over to the computer lab after. We mad a lot of progress on audio and add a lot of different songs. We searched our iTunes and found the best songs. We thought we were clever by putting techno music with the techie part of our film. We updated the to do list, it consists of interviewing Eliot about lights, getting a microphone and adding audio, filming people preparing for the show, and filming the teachers we sent questions out to.  The teachers all responded and we decided three answers we really likes. Our three are Bill, Anne, and Nancy. Tonight I emailing them back asking what times would be good for them for us to come film. 

 

The play is really starting to heat up. We are doing full runs of the play every night, and running scenes in the afternoon. So the play in general is taking a lot out of me. Today we took it kinda easy and Linds worked on finishing the poster and creating a program. Meanwhile, I looked through our notes we took when previewing the film, and made correction. We ran into a problem with audio because we forgot how to display it. This is an easy fix because we will simply ask Jim tomorrow to instruct us again. We also sent out emails to several faculty members with two questions concerning their ideas of the importance of theater at Proctor and as a whole. We have already received many responses and now just have to read threw and pick the ones we would like to video tape and use in our movie. We also went to chorus today. Tomorrow we have an early start because chorus is second block, and we plan on focusing on audio for our movie. 

WEEKLY REFLECTION

This week we focused on editing and learned a lot about the editing process of movie making. Jim Cox nicely taught us the basics of iMovie and how to work it. We got really good at cutting and basic editing of film. We also learned on our own other editing techniques like how to fast forward film or duplicate it. I did not expecially like what we did this week. We spent hours in the lab just editing, but i did enjoy seeing the kids again. They were excited to see us and it was fun to see their forth grade play. Though editing was long and tedious it was extrmemly productive because our film is basically done and we just need to fix audio.

I think we were asked to follow up with the kids this week to help them with acting skills and to help warm them up for their big performance. I think by playing acting games with them before they went on helped to take away the nerves and let the relax and have fun. Everything happened as expected. We finished our film and are completely on schedule. We had a showing of our film and got very good feed back which was a pleasant surprise.  

We benefitted a lot from this week. Not only do we have the films order finalized, but it is mostly complete. We made a small list of what else needs to be done, this will allow us to be more efficient in the following week. I think we set our selves up to be able to finish our project without a last minute crunch.