Preliminary- Research #44

It is in the process of researching on other projects, and reading various student blogs, that I came to see how much I could be inspired to do about my own work. Not only did some of these blogs open my eyes to some new techniques but they also provided me with new ideas as to how I could go about my future film project. My work is to make a five minutes long film this year as compared to last year where I just had to make a two-minute film. This extra length will certainly demand additional planning, creativity and details so I felt the need to look at how other people in the population handled their projects. A scary project with a blog was one that impressed me. By horror I mean that I was really scared. The mood, the visual and the duration were so successfully adapted that the end production was not just compelling but also outstanding considering its own genre. I will also confess that it gave me chills, and this is because it means it was very effective. The most interesting details to me were on the part of the editing by the student. Scenes were cut, effects were picturesque and transition acted out in a truly elevating way. Simultaneously, I realized that such editing is extremely sensitive, in case done improperly it can disrupt the rhythm or make the film too contrived. This made me realize that the art of editing can boost or cripple a project, depending on how employing this tool is undertaken. This was another blog which inspired me, with a focus on a romance movie. The camera work was what impressed me here and not the editing. Camera angles worked out by the filmmakers with the purpose to develop emotion and attachment between the characters. The heavy application of the over-the-shoulder shots emerged as one of the techniques that were outstanding. Propensity to overuse a particular kind of shot is usually viewed as such a weakness because it may be experienced as a repetition. Nevertheless, here over-the-shoulder framing was applied so effectively that it in fact reinforced the feeling of intimacy in the dialogues to the point that it made them seem natural and real. This gave me an understanding of how a single technique can more or less be used with care to give a scene depth and meaning. Naturally I have surfed through a huge number of blogs. Admittedly, I or so have been through a few, and they were not all very exciting to my taste. Some however, were very special and provided me with new insights. The lesson I had was that, not all projects prove to be inspirational but there will always be something to walk away with, it may be a golden idea, or an ingenious designed technique possibly a heresay of what not to do. Overall, I believe that the exposure to such blogs was useful in relation to my personal future project. To begin, as I prepare my five-minute film our new understanding of how editing, camera work, and shot selection are managed in different genres, is much greater. I have also witnessed myself the strength of effects of these creative decisions on the end product. Going onwards, I will attempt to mix what I have learned by the examples with my own ideas, in order to come up with a film that feels refined, entertaining, and something mine.