Wow, I can’t believe it’s actually been an entire semester. It feels like it’s been forever with this class, but in a good way! Anyways…

The process of making this film was entirely different than what everyone else had to deal with. I mean come on, we worked with eggs. Oh, and limes. When Eric first mentioned this, I was totally on board…then it hit me. We have to take a lotttt of pictures and we have to make the timing work and we have to be very careful with the set and we have to use our voices perfectly because our faces aren’t making the actions. It was nerve wracking and I was almost against it. Then I realize how awesome it would be to work with eggs while everyone else used people, I mean come on A+ in originality!

I’d have to say my least favorite part of this process hard boiling the eggs. Every time we needed to try to work with the set and test something out, we’d have to wait a good 20 minutes for them to be ready, talk about dramatic! One thing I did learn about hardboiled eggs is that they are not impossible to break, in fact, when you break them it’s gross. Very Very gross.

The hardest part of this was the voice overs. Eric, Ashley, and I literally could not stop laughing at certain points. Let’s just say that Eric’s strong point is NOT voice overs. The timing needed to be perfect for all the interruptions and animation. A week before it was due though, we changed our minds and decided to use our mouths as animation rather than cartoons. Rerecording here we come! This time it didn’t take nearly as long, but it still wasn’t Eric’s forte. He does make a pretty school spider though, I’ll give him props.

My job in this production was production designer. This was literally ridiculously fun. I built the doors out of popsicle sticks, and the window too. I also painted the entire set (an egg carton) entirely black for dramatic effect. The idea of the egg carton being the set was perfect because the eggs obviously fit in perfectly. The limes did too therefore there was nothing else that would work better. The colors I chose were all really bold to get the point of the scariness and the seriousness of the entire play.

All in all, I absolutely loved working on this play. Especially with my group! It was a lot of fun to put it together and I actually enjoyed working with the eggs. The idea was not nearly as difficult I thought and if I could I’d do it again. Thanks for a great year, ITS BEEN REAL.

I would like to start off my last blog by saying how grateful I am that we get to make our own movie for our final, instead of writing papers or taking a silly multiple choice test. It’s so much more fun! I really learned a lot about film making from this project. I now realize that I’ve been taking movies for granted. So much effort and thought was put into this project, from the angles to the contrast of colors, to the costumes. I learned that it’s little aspects like these that allow us to get our perfect shot. Let’s just say, I have new respect for filmmakers now.

There were a lot of great moments with this project, and a lot of stressful moments. My favorite part was that I got to spend a lot of time with my group mates, Reinard, Tyler and Kathleen outside of school. They all have such vibrant personalities, and each day working with them was a blast. From spending so much time with them, I learned that they were all also very talented. Tyler has exceptional directing skills. He had many great ideas on how we were going to film the movie, focusing on details such as exactly where the character would stand and how the lines should be spoken. Reinard and Kathleen surprised me with their impeccable acting. There were many scenes where they were in awkward or silly situations, but they barely messed up or laughed. Talk about self control! Meanwhile, on the other side of the camera, I had to bite my lip endless times to keep from bursting out laughing.

What I didn’t like about the project was that it was so time consuming. I knew from the beginning that this was going to require a lot of work, but I really didn’t expect it to take so long. I had estimated about two or three group meetings to film, but we ended up meeting more than five times, many  hours in each meeting. I had to set aside a lot of time, and cancel on a few plans, but I still think it was all worth it. We worked really hard for this project, and I think it will really show on Monday!

The most difficult task in this project was to find time when we were all available and my apartment was empty. Sometimes, my brother would come home while we were filming, and we would have to stop and wait until it was quiet again. There were also many other distracting noises, such as non stop beeping fire trucks, hissing radiators and my family clanging dishes in the kitchen. It was also hard to stay focused. I mean, with so much food, music and…Dance Central, it’s hard to keep from breaking into spontaneous dance sessions. (I would show the video footage, but I don’t think Reinard would be too happy about that.) But good thing we have a hard working director who tried to keep us focused throughout!

The multimedia project really was the perfect way to end this seminar. Instead of a regular final, we were able to create our own piece of art, which was a lot more effective. Like I said in my previous blog, this seminar really opened my eyes to many things I wouldn’t normally have experienced. I feel much more well rounded. I can finally check “make a movie” off my mental list of “Things I’ve Never Done Before”! It was really really REALLY a great pleasure to spend a whole semester with my fellow classmates and Professor Healey. Have a wonderful break! Happy Holidays!!

So this is it, the very very last and final end game finishing blog that I will ever do in my life for this class. This film project has most definitely been a roller coaster ride. We had our good moments, as well as our bad moments. We laughed, and we cried(well not really). In the beginning, I don’t really think this project was going to be hard but I had misgauged the magnitude of this project. I underestimated the hours and hours needed to actually think about what to wear, where everybody’s positions will be, and where the camera should be shot from. After doing this project, I undoubtedly have a newfound appreciation for the art of moviemaking and I laud all those who do engage in moviemaking for it is not an easy task to accomplish, especially if you have a very serious and creepy movie.

I don’t think there were really any easy parts in doing this movie but I would say that the most difficult part of the movie would be the actual filming of the movie. Sometimes it would take us an hour just for a scene that was only like one minute long. It’s hard because you literally have to think about every single thing in the shot before you do it. You have to worry about the setting, if your facial expressions match, if the background is how you want it to be, and if the camera angle is from the position you want it. Although I wasn’t a part of it, I can tell that the editing process must have taken a lot of time and I give props to Rui Yan for that. As one might see from the movie tomorrow, I have never ever acted in my life before and have never been a part of a movie. It was hard for me because it seemed like I could tell other people what to do and where to stand as well as how your facial expressions should be since I was the director, but I couldn’t do them myself, especially since I was playing galvez who is supposed to be a girl character and those lines where galvez goes “Oh my” and “O, O, O” were just killer. Even though I did not like remembering all the lines that I had, I don’t think remembering the lines was all that hard. The hard part was trying to remember the lines, while acting at the same time.

My favorite moment of making this film would be, all the time offstage where we were just goofing around in between scenes and just taking a break. It really did ease a lot of the pressure off us and we did get a lot of laughs out. There were some scenes that took a lot of time to film just because we couldn’t stop laughing. I had no idea what we were laughing at but all I know is that we couldn’t stop… especially those times when we were filming and Vishal would just pop out of nowhere and just make us laugh.

All in all, I would say that this a positive experience (of course I say that now that we are done). I did learn a lot about the art of film-making and did get to spend time with my classmates. I actually wouldn’t mind making another film, as long as it was less serious than the one we just did. I would like to end by saying Hello, Goodbye, and Thank You!