End of Year Reflection

Independent Film Research:

What do you feel are your strengths in approaching the research required in the class?

I think that in terms of research that I am not very strong but am able to conjure a lot of resources, work depending. For example, I can go on EBSGO Host  and find tons of articles and scholarly writing but it never has good implementation, my analysis resulting from it is lacking.

What areas do you feel you need more support or training with?

In terms of film research and analysis I need more support with the analysis aspect of research. I can find the sources, but its hard for me to find the proper elements in my writing that connect to the topic. I tend to also feel writing from opinion of a film, as it is art, and art is definitive of usually having a “how do YOU see it” subjective meaning. In writing my opinion, I feel like sometimes it turns more into a critical review then a critical analysis, and it affects my writing.

What suggestions, support or additional training could you use from me to help you accomplish this?

I would say make sure that they know that they not making a review, but an analysis. They should try and focus your analysis to certain aspects of the filmmaking process; and focus on understanding them deeply so they know what you’re talking about. I also dislike how blog posts are so close together in such sequence. I wish that the blogs were more spread out and I think requiring students to turn them in the day they are due will greatly increase their will to do them. I would probably make it so that after you watch a film each semester that the blog posts were more structured (not internally but externally) so that their submission and release would create an easier CREATE TURN IN mechanical proccess.

Oral Presentation Experience:

What do you feel are your strengths in approaching the oral presentation in the class?

I think my ability to talk more from myself rather than talking from a script is a vital ability in presenting your material. If you know what you’re talking about, you can think of things on the spot that would have never occurred to you before, but that requires more work beforehand because to successfully pull this off you need to know a lot more about your material.  

What areas do you feel you need to work on in your preparation for this assessment?

Ironically, I think that I need to work on more planning of outline that I was going to follow: structure. The structure is what was lacking mostly in my oral, and I felt that creating a deeper outline of what I were going to do and transitions between my topics would have created a more cohesive and easier to classify presentation/podcast thing. In hindsight I also could have created a stronger

What suggestions, support or additional training could you use from me to help you?

I wish that the recording process was more streamlined and not as fragmented, just so that students would be forced to record on a certain day making them feel more need to prepare and turn it in.

Production Experience:

What roles did you feel you accomplished well this semester?

I think I was a good director and a good cinematographer.

What areas do you feel you need to work on in your productions?

I think I need to work on directing, editing and structuralization. I think that my directing could be more structuralized, that is more fitting to a planned routine and also more planned out. This brings me to the idea of forcing students to create a shooting script and a new style 2 column. As a director, I think I made huge steps for film when I created a full script for White Thunder, but I applaud Mr Max Mak for taking a giant leap for filmkind by creating a rigid shooting schedule and sticking to it.

I also liked that the films were due before finals.

What suggestions, support or additional training could you use from me to help you accomplish this?

Give those ones that really care about Film ample time to create their script. In fact, I think you should force people to create rough scripts and just suggest storyboards a little stronger. I think that that would require a major change to the idea of the 2 COLUMN SCRIPT. Let me explain. In my experience, making a 2 column script has been an awful experience. People mainly BS the audio part. I think that it should be revised (or rephrased really) to have the treatment on one side a dialogue script on the other, not including sound effects as it does now. Thats what we did on WHITE THUNDER and I really enjoyed it. Its more important to tell the student that its a Script ON a Treatment to get them more enticed and less beleaguered by the idea of writing a Script.  I think EL CAMINO would have been amazing if we hadn't written the majority of the script on the spot. I think you should also FORCE IB FILM STUDENTS to create a shooting script to complement their (new) 2 column. In an extreme extent, I think you should try to weed out people in the beginning with blog posts and then find those that are interesting in film.

I liked and wish I could elaborate on this Wiki article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_script