As I sit here thinking about how I should even begin to write about my group’s experience with the multimedia blog, thousands of things come to my mind. However, I do not wish to bore you with complaints, fascinations, and things that I loved about this project. This has been my first group project in college where I really had to step back and let someone else lead the group. All my life I have been the leader of the group, or at least tried to be, and this one instance where I had to follow, was extremely difficult for me.
When choosing a role that I wanted to do, I decided I would want to be production designer, and since Rebecca wasn’t really great with editing, I would help her out with the editing. After reviewing the script and seeing what we had to work with, I was surprised to find that it was actually hard to keep a script, but still add your own point of view.
We tried to create a storyboard that was different than your typical storyboard, but due to a lack of “point of view” (something that I was very worried about, and I had brought up during our group meetings) it wasn’t the best. After our storyboards were due, we were stuck in a state of confusion. We wanted very much to stick to the script, but still make it our own and that was the hardest part of it all. Luckily, with some advice and guidance from Professor Healey, we were able to come up with a theme that we could incorporate into our film to bring it away from the original script, but not so far away that we forget the story of the script.
After creating our story and script (Marinna and Peter), it was time to start filming. We decided to keep all of the original costumes, although I would have much rather have used costumes that were more modern Greek, the other members of my group decided that we would just leave it as is. I feel as though the costumes could have been better, but with the time schedule we were working on, especially since we started filming much later than we had hoped, we had to make do with what we had.
We trekked to Baldwin Park all the way out in Long Island one day to look at the scenery and decide if we wanted to film part of our multimedia project there. It was beyond far away, but the beautiful scenery caught our eyes and we knew it was the place. (We felt it!) A few weeks after, my group members went out to Baldwin Park to film the beach scenes, which I couldn’t attend because of church services. Unfortunately, after this one time that I was unable to attend a group meeting, it seemed like the end of the world.
The next filming day occurred in King Hall where we had the privilege of using the stage as well as awesome lighting. The sound wasn’t the best, but we made do with what we had. I actually really liked being in the film, and I wish I were allowed to be more of a part in it as an actress. Maybe next time, if I ever am assigned another project such as this one, I will definitely change my role.
I am not extremely excited about this multimedia project. I think I’m more of a boring character, where I feel like if I’m not really in the movie, and I’m just on the outside looking in, I lose interest in it. Working with whatever footage Rebecca and I had, we made do with it and tried to put together an awesome movie.
Before this project, I thought I was actually good at editing, but soon I realized that I might not be as good as I thought. On a Saturday, Rebecca and I dedicated twelve hours to editing. With twenty bucks worth of Chinese food takeout, dumplings, fried rice, chicken, broccoli, egg rolls, and the works. We were dedicated and wanted to completely finish the film. However, that was easier said than done. We spent the entire day working on the film, editing it, and still, we realized that we weren’t finished.
After extra hours of editing at Rebecca’s dorm, we finally got help that we needed, made the movie with everything we wanted to be in it (minus a few scenes and shooting issues), but overall, we were happy with our final product. In my opinion, I really like the beginning, the ending, and the scenes that were shot on the beach, however the rest of it, I feel like we could have done it somewhere else with different scenery.
Now that I have successfully made a movie with my group, I know that I never want to make a movie like this ever again, and if I am, I would much rather not have to stick to a script or listen to someone else’s directions the entire time. Overall, I am happier that I had the ability to do something fun to end my first semester of college. After all of the drama, disagreements, filming in the cold, editing frustrations, I will never forget this experience.
