One Word Film Project

 For this project, I had to make a film with a partner. It had to have no audio, show proof of editing, be from 60-90 seconds, and convey the theme of one randomly-selected word, ours being "optimistic". Since we couldn't use sound, everything had to be conveyed through just shots, angles, editing, and other techniques learned so far. Before filming, we had to brainstorm and create a storyboard with at least 15 shots.

My partner and I decided to keep the story simple, yet effective, so we could make sure it would fit into the 60-90 seconds. We came up with a storyboard with 15 slides that showed a girl spreading optimism and joy throughout her classroom. It helped us visualize our project before starting, so we knew what editing techniques we would need, how many people we needed to have in our film, and what equipment we'd need. For the project, we learned how to put the clips in black and white for the whole screen or certain parts of it. We used these techniques to convey the meaning of the film in a subtle but impactful way.

Some things I would've improved in the project are the setting, because we could've been more creative with where the story was taking place, but we would've had to be careful about it looking like a monologue and not a continuous scene, which is one of the reasons we decided to film it in the classroom. I like the way we edited the scenes to make it look like some parts were black and white, and the switch to color. I think it really helped emphasize the theme of optimism by showing joy and dullness in a straightforward way.

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Camera Shots Quiz

For this project, we had to tell a short story in 15 shots using different types of camera angles. My partner and I went with a heist story: two criminals sneak into a museum, one gets caught, and then they both manage to escape in the end.

The fun part was figuring out which shots would add the most drama. The low-angle shots made the characters look powerful, while the high-angle ones flipped that and made them look small and vulnerable. I really liked the extreme close-up with the dutch angle because it really added tension to the scene.

If I could redo it, I’d probably work more on the establishing shot and the last shot. Showing more of the museum up front would’ve made the setting clearer, and not ending so abruptly would've given more emphasis to the escape part of the scene without leaving viewers with such a quick ending.

Overall, I liked how the shots gave personality to objects that don’t normally have any. It ended up feeling like a complete short story and gave the viewers the ability to see past the objects and into the meaning of the story, which is exactly what we were aiming for.

Project