My Reflection

As Amani and I's time comes to an end, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on all that we have done. In the beginning, we were confused and conflicted about what our plot would consist of. We began jotting down any ideas we had and created a list. After carefully dissecting each idea, we decided to go with a teenage girl battling depression while figuring out the meaning to her life. We had to make sure our idea fit our coming-of-age genre in order to display a well developed scene. Creating the storyboard came next. Amani and I created a seventeen frame storyboard that captured all the shots and angles we wanted to implement into our film opening. After this was completed, we were ready to start filming. That was where we came upon a few issues.

Even though Amani and I had to overcome some production challenges, we were able to learn from these mistakes and create a more concise piece. Fortunately, we began our filming process early so we had time to alter anything we needed to. For example, we completely got rid of the phone scene with Jess's mother. We believed these shots were useless and did not add anything vital to the scene nor our theme. This was our best choice, since we wanted to be direct with our scene. We also modified our voiceover scenes to become longer. While we were filming the voiceovers, we realized that we needed it to be long enough to fit our preferred time slot. After we added the extra sentences, we made perfect timing. We also took two voiceovers out towards the middle of our scene because they were too sporadic, and would not have made any sense. 

The obstacles we faced such as the rain, no memory card, and the sun, were all challenges we conquered by being prepared and working as a team. Being able to work on this scene with Amani opened me up to new ideas I never would have thought of if I were all by myself. I would say that we both benefitted from each other's skills, which led us to develop a great video. We were able to have a better understanding of how to film and edit using the technology given to us, such as the professional camera and Adobe Premiere. Overall, this project taught me how to problem solve quickly, and utilize my creativity to my advantage.