Cumulative Blog Reflection

     The senior capstone project was a mind opening experience. I'm glad that I had to face the hard work and challenges that was involved during this project. I think every high school senior should have to a project like this. At first, like mostly all the seniors, was reluctant to do the capstone project. Now that its done, I'm glad that I accomplished it and most notably learned from it.

     During the capstone project, I had to communicate with many different personalities. There was one personality I thought to be obnoxious but I kept my calm and just listen to his criticism. I had to be mentally focused at the shoots I was involved in. I was on my feet constantly running back and forth and had to be ready at any given second. I had many duties when working on the shoots such as slating, moving equipment, and being assistant director. 

     Knowledge and experience were among the most important aspects of this project I gained. I am ready for any situation that life throws at me. I gained more confidence in speaking with other people who I don't know at all. I am not afraid to start a conversation with random strangers. I learned many things about filmmaking such as lighting, significance of colors, and editing. I also learned that being a independent director comes with a lot of responsibility especially if you don't have a whole team to work with.

     The challenges I faced was writing the five to seven page essay. It was just difficult to me in general. I was busy with sports and school. I learned to just do it and get it done. I complained to myself a lot but I felt great being overwhelmed with the work because without the hard work, I couldn't see myself where I am now. Now I am a gym enthusiast which I never really thought I would be. I train every time I get a chance. I am ready for challenges in my future. I've been challenged and I accomplished them. There is no challenge tough enough to stop me from completing it, whatever it may be. 

  

Last Day With Mentor

May 11, 2013.
     I arrived at my mentors workplace at 9 a.m. I learned that organization is one of the most important things while making a feature film. You can get away with music videos or 30 second clips. If you are not organized from the start, he says its like "shooting yourself in the foot". The feature film he is directing has thousands upon thousands of takes and scenes. I logged in those takes and scenes onto a word excel spreadsheet. I learned to convert raw footage to high resolution and low resolution footage. I was a long process especially for the conversion of raw footage to high resolution footage. I learned the importance of having backup data for the footage. You never know what might happen. A hard drive failure, flooding of the studio, or fire can destroy data. He had four backup hard drives. He keeps one in the bank for safe measure. I learned that a movie such as Iron Man, there would be a team ready to take the footage, convert it and make backup copies. My mentor is an independent director so most of that work would be done by him. I realized that I do not want to become a independent director. I also learn how to edit clips, color correction, add stock animation, and place scenes in sequence. I worked on my online portfolio and finished it. I ended my work at 5 p.m. I logged in 8 hours for the day and a total of 28 hours.