Experimental Media Final
Synopsis:
This film has the combination of past and present. It begins with the union of two people, when someone enters any new relationship and in this case a huge life commitment they don't know what they have to look forward to but they just have hope that it will turn out okay. The film is about keeping that hope and moving forward with your lives and after all the difficulties and hardships if you want to be happy no one can take that away from you.
Story:
The story of my film starts with two characters which are introduced as Mom and Dad, this shows that this movies is going to be about family. It starts with the celebration and that celebration continues through out the movie. In between shots are shown of their children from the eldest to the youngest. It shows how there lives revolve around their children and how they captured the special moments of their childhood. You will still see the young couple when they were getting married in between shots to show the hope they have in their eyes that life is going to be okay and there life does pan out to be just how they pictured it because they never let go of that hope they had the day they got married.
Film Treatment
Visuals:
As my whole film is based on archival footage therefore i only had the option of playing with what I had, but i have utilized the zoom and then switching to the other shots to make the viewer relate to both the clips. I have picked out the archival footage very carefully. I had a lot to choose from but i only chose the videos that showed change so the passing of time in one layer could be shown properly. In the main video layer I used was of the wedding celebration and the secondary layer showed the time passing as the film progressed.
Sounds:
This part was actually a bit difficult as I was having trouble merging the audio of the two layers and I couldn't decide what to use. For the Wedding part I used the same audio that it came with and I Lowered the Audio Gain when I attached the other clips. For some clips I Incorporated the Audio that It came with but with some as it had distorted audio therefore I used the same wedding audio. As I created the starting of the film first therefore to Introduce the Characters of my film I used a soft music that showed a tough of excitement or it also induced a theme of hope and happiness.
Animation:
There isn't much animation in my film but at the beginning sequence I have used Photoshop to create the start by adding and removing pictures and then added the animation of Mom and Dad to set the basic theme.
Editing:
As my film had most of the archival footage therefore the software that I used to make my entire film was Adobe Premier Pro.
I had to do a lot of editing as the footage I had was a lot but I tried to take it one day at a time and finally at the end I was able to get the footage I was looking for to use in my film. As all the videos had different formats I had to change the screen adjustable for all of them but it wasn't hard. I had thought of putting an adjustment layer at the end of the video to give the same color theme to all of the video but then as I was showing the passing of time I thought that was not necessary.
Preparing the Film:
It might seem easy that as I was not shooting my video all I had to do was editing but it was far from that. I had a lot of material no doubt but at times that made me scratch my brains out. At the start of this project I knew what i was looking for and that was merging the past and the future but when I started brainstorming my idea there were so many vast story lines that i could show. Multiple times I wanted to just leave this idea behind and I wanted to start from scratch but then again neither did I have the luxury of shooting or the time for it at the end either it was this or nothing at all.
Whenever I start any project I do it wholeheartedly with hard work so even if at the end of the day I don't have the outcome I expected I can at least say that I gave it my all. With this project my patience was tested a lot as I could not figure it out but I didn't give up and at the end the idea that finally came to me was good and I loved it which is what I always want at the end of any assignment or project.
Inspiration and Research:
Inspiration:
When it comes to the inspiration of my film that i would have to say that the inspiration was my father's collection. I have not seen such an immense collection of anyone else's family. I have seen some photos and videos but not no one had the kind of footage my father did. I didn't want that footage to be just stored in an old cupboard collecting dust I wanted to make a film out of it and I think I did merge those videos quite well in the film at the end.
Research:
When it comes to the research I did my research in two parts. One was before I had a concrete idea and I watched a couple of experimental films that led me to my final idea. The other part was when I had my idea and footage and was having trouble executing my idea.
The first part of my research consisted of three films:
1)Song Of Cuba:
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| https://www.nfb.ca/film/song_for_cuba/ |
This experimental film is about two people holding on to their different heritage while being together. Both of these people loved where they came from and they don't ever want to let that go but as time passes and as they live in a completely different world holding on to that heritage becomes harder and harder. They start having conflicts within their relationship but they don't let that destroy their relationship because they love one another just as they love their heritage and they always find a way to resolve a conflict because when there is will there is always a way. This film made me see the conflicts in any relationship and the hope that is there in the beginning and holding on to it becomes harder and harder but if you are willing to fight through the hardships there is nothing that can come between their happiness.
2) Let the Daylight into the Swamp:
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| https://www.nfb.ca/film/let_the_daylight_into_the_swamp/ |
3) Glimpses:
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| https://www.nfb.ca/film/glimpses_impressions/ |
I chose this movie as part of my research because I was truly mesmerized my how this movie was executed and how it was edited. At the beginning of my project I wanted to make a film that has the same execution and editing style as this film but when I started the process and came down to the execution I fell short to do so. Therefore I had to research again on what should I do when it comes to executing my film.
Second part of research:
4)Anthem:
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| https://www.nfb.ca/film/anthem_trailer/ |
As I mentioned earlier my research consisted of two parts and this was the second part when I had the footage and idea ready but I couldn't find the way of executing it. I watched this film and it gave me a whole new direction as it is the mix of the past, present and future of the people of Canada. Due to this film I was able to see how I will edit my film more clearly and this film helped me make the output of my film the way it is.
Storyboard:
Difficulties:
- It took me 3 days to properly upload all the footage onto my laptop and then when I sat down to edit it Premier had some error with some videos so I had to first Convert the whole Hour footage to mp4 before I could take out 1 min of footage from it. As the videos were quite old the format was not mp4 and it took a while to convert all of them.
- My laptop wasn't in its best shape and I didn't really think It would actually hold up till the end of the project but it did.
- Due to quarantine I had been confined in my house as everyone else and executing the idea in itself was the most difficult task.
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| My Laptop's Screen after every 15-20 mins. |
Covid 19:
When this course started and i took its first lecture I was so excited to work out of my comfort zone and make something completely out of the box. I tried that with the Avant Garde Assignment and it was really fun but I wanted to make as my final project as well. Due to Covid 19 I couldn't do that and I was a little disappointed and somewhere at the beginning of Covid-19 I completely gave up. But then we started working on the research of our project and I became so busy with executing a film that I was happy with that the whole giving up part disappeared because even at the end I wanted to produce something I was happy with and I'm happy with what I made in this short period of time.
Personal Evaluation
Strength:
As i have used Adobe Premier Pro and PhotoShop a lot for my assignments therefore I knew that I could make something good by editing it the way I wanted, I used PhotoShop to make the animation at the beginning of my Film to give the introduction of the main characters and to show the basic theme of my film. One of the strength that I held on to while making this film was not giving up even when I couldn't see anything clearly. I kept at it and finally along the line while doing more research I came up with how can I execute the film.
Weakness:
It has happened to me more than once before while making any assignment and that is lack of patience. I get stuck at some point and then I start overthinking about it making my self anxious over the project. When I couldn't find the right way of executing the film It got be very frustrated and because of that I lost a lot time.
What can i do better:
This field is all about creativity and i need to be more patience and not panic as much because the process takes time and I need to acknowledge that. The way to improve that is my researching as that was the only way I found a way to execute my final outcome.
Final Film:
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