Professional Project Review

Director: Ryan Coogler 

    My knowledge of different directors of big time movies is rather slim (more like nonexistent if I'm being honest), so I decided that I should start to look up who directs certain movies that I have seen and loved or seen trailers for and in return wanted to see the movie. Recently I saw the trailer for the movie Creed. What first caught my eye about this movie was I recognized the main actor, Michael B. Jordan, from a TV show that I loved. Creed seems to be an action packed, empowering, and motivating film and more often than not I find movies like that to be extremely intriguing. Creed hits theaters in a few days so I decided to check out who the director is since I've been feeling like I need to gain more knowledge of those who play such a big part in constructing a movie.

    After checking IMDb I found out that the director of Creed is Ryan Coogler, and since Creed has yet to hit theatres I looked at what other movies Coogler has directed to see if I had happened to have watched any of them. I had not seen or heard of any of his movies, because there was only a few short films and one fairly new movie titled Fruitvale Station that he had directed. I decided to watch Fruitvale Station and to my surprise Michael  B. Jordan is the main actor in that movie as well as Creed. Fruitvale Station is inspired by a crime that occurred on New Years several years ago involving a 22 year-old black man,  his friends, family, and ultimately his enemies. The film is right up my alley, because there is action that leaves you feeling empowered and motivated to take a stand and to overcome what ever it is that you are battling. 

    I have a feeling Ryan Coogler is going to be a director whose films I thoroughly enjoy. Rotten Tomatoes rated Creed very well and I have read a lot of comments from critics comparing it to Rocky. I look forward to seeing how this movie compares to Coogler's work with Fruitvale Station, especially since Michael B. Jordan is the main actor in both of his recent works.

Professional Article Review

The article Understanding Focal Length can be found here if you are wanting to learn what focal length is or just have a better understanding of it like I did. The article also discusses a bit about prime and zoom lenses.

What I learned: I learned that the focal length tells us the angle view or how much of the scene will be captured. The article has multiple examples of pictures using different focal lengths to show you how drastically different a shot can look based upon the focal length of a camera. Focal length is usually shown in millimeters (mm) and is actually not the measurement of the actual lens, but is a calculation of the distance from where light rays form a sharp image of an object. If you have a longer focal length you will have a more narrow angle of view. If your focal length is shorter your angle of view will be shorter and the magnification will be lower.

Here you can see an example of what different focal lengths might look like using the same subject. 

Student Tutorial: Telephoto Lens

• What is a telephoto lens?

-A telephoto lens is a lens with a longer focal length than standard, giving a narrow field of view and a magnified image. A narrow angle of field will create an image that makes near and far objects seem to be the same size. 

• Why are they useful?

-These lenses are good for giving a flattering perspective, isolating the subject from the background, and bringing distant objects closer.  If you are trying to create a shot that emphasizes the number of people or objects in the shot then a telephoto lens would be the one to use, because it will make the distance between objects seem compressed enhancing the appearance of congestion. 

-The most common use for a telephoto lens is to bring small and or distant objects closer allowing you to see more detail. 

Quarter One Reflection

Description: At the start of the quarter I took a trip to Hays, Kansas with some fellow classmates in order to film the first football game. Although, the ride down and back from Hays was long the football game itself was an exciting win, and I felt like we got some solid shots. If we had taken another lens to the game we could have gotten some closer shots which I think could have benefited us. Later in the quarter, I got involved in the Behind the Scenes: Soccer video which I'm really enjoying so far. I have filmed a few soccer games, and I also edited roughly half of the soccer promo video with some of the other people on the soccer video team. I'm excited to see what the video turns into, and what our story ends up becoming.

Feelings: During the time I spent filming the football game in Hays I was trying my best to stay positive, because I was sick and exhausted, but the trip ended up being memorable and we got the shots that were needed. I've enjoyed working on the soccer project, because I really enjoy soccer games and I also know quite a few people that play soccer. I think I will like second quarter a bit more than first if we start doing a bit less client work and more other projects in small groups like we did last year.

Evaluation: As I said earlier, I think we could have benefited from taking the telephoto lens to the football game in Hays in order to get some more interesting shots. Personally, I think that I have a lot to learn about how to use the telephoto lens in order to get the best product.The soccer video has really improved  my communication skills, and I also think it's pushing my leadership skills towards improvement. I wouldn't say I lack leadership skills, but I am more shy so I think this first quarter has put me a bit more outside my comfort zone. Additionally, I think we could definitely use the telephoto lens for soccer which makes me realize even more how beneficial learning how to work with that lens could be.

Analysis: With first quarter in mind I now think that I have the ability to improve my communication and leadership skills. Again, I think I should learn more about the telephoto lens because I don't have much experience with it as of now. I learned that I would like to do more small group projects in class like we did last year.

Learning: This quarter I have learned that there's a lot more different components that go into story than I ever realized. I also learned that my communication skills are really improving throughout this school year. This school year in general is really pushing me to create good habits and become a more independent and responsible student.

Action Plan: As for future quarters I plan to learn more about the camera itself, so that I can have more visually pleasing shots. I hope to go film outside of class on projects such as montages like we did last year. I also am planning on to find more of a direction for my portfolio, because right now I have no idea what direction I want to go with it. 

Student Tutorial

Light Writing

Most of us have probably seen light writing before, but if you haven't you should definitely check it out! I recently noticed that lighting is becoming one of my interests, although I don't know much about it there's something about a shot with a gorgeous lens flare or crisp light that grabs my attention. I came across a proposal video that used light writing, and I decided that I wanted to know just how light writing works. 

Here are the steps I found in order to successfully create light writing: 

1. You need to be in a dark room or atmosphere. 

2. If your camera is a DSLR, set it on manual mode and make your shutter speed 30 seconds. A longer shutter speed means more time that light is allowed in through the lens.

3. Depending on how bright the room you are in is, set your ISO to 100 or 200. 

4. Next you are going to change your aperture (or f/stop) to 5.6, because the higher the aperture the more light is let in.

5.Set your camera on a timer so you have time to get in front of the lens.

6. Face a flashlight, glow stick, or something similar facing the camera and begin to doodle. BAM. You just wrote with light! 

Student Project Review

             As Though Lost Review

Working on the set of As Though Lost was one of my favorite experiences throughout my eCommunication career. I worked as the location manager, and honestly when I was assigned that position I wasn't sure if it was right for me. As time went on I found that it was actually really fun getting to decide where certain scenes would be filmed at. Being the location manager I felt extremely involved in the production of the film, because I was helping decide what the tone of the film would be. I personally believe that the locations chosen to film at greatly impact how the audience feels about what they are watching. Additionally, I believe that lighting goes hand in hand with tone as well. 

As Though Lost was the first big short film that I have ever done, and I definitely learned a lot. When it comes to being location manager you have to get permission to film at all locations, you need to know where you can and cannot park, you also need to know how to get to those locations, and you need to know where the nearest stores are in case someone on the crew needs something. I think that I did a good job choosing locations, but if I'm being honest most of the getting permission and knowing how to get there was done by Mrs. Morris, so I owe a lot to her for helping me with my job. If I were to have this job again I think that I could definitely improve by doing more research on each location I would like to film at. There were a couple instances with As Though Lost where I had the wrong address or where I needed to have verified that we could for sure film at a particular location. In the future if I am ever hired for this job again I hope to not run into those issues again, and to do a bit more research on each location in order to ensure that the tone of the short film is presented well through each and every location. 

You can watch as though lost here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C8nCEIiazpA 

Professional Article Review

Can You Tell You Tell The Difference Between Film & Digital?

No Film School 

I've actually never analyzed the difference between film strips and an SD card, but after reading this article and watching the video attached with it (see the article here) I prefer the look of film over digital. Film offers a much warmer look while digital seems to look more cool. Although, in some instances you can hardly distinguish the difference between the two mediums. In the video that is linked with the article on this topic the last shot looks so similar that it took me quite awhile to figure out which shot I believe to be done with film and which was done with an SD card. After re-watching previous shots and comparing them I realized that film allows you to see much more detail than digital does. You can see the differences here: