Madison Baer

Mrs. Lazarski
Video Production 3
25/1/24

Self Reflection
My initial concept for my “Pitch” and project idea was to convey the struggles of dealing
with stress from school work, or stress and anxiety in general, and trying to get sleep all at once.
When I started planning it out, I did end up changing the idea to someone close to the main
character passing away, causing the character to be unable to sleep and fall behind in school
work and activities. In conclusion, yes, I did deviate from my original idea and changed certain
aspects of the concept.
In the Pre-Production phase, I struggled with coming up with the idea for my film. I didn’t
know what I wanted to do. Then, as I was staying up late, trying to deal with school work, the
idea came to my brain to make it about stress leading to not being able to sleep. Then as I
started writing my script, I started changing things and furthered my idea by changing it to have
the mom of the main character pass away. The script did, however, take me a long time to finish
because I couldn’t come up with how I wanted to end it or some key details in it. Then there was
the deadline, so I started trying to work on it as fast as I could. I also had to start casting my
actors, and that was a bigger obstacle because we had to work with the freshman theater kids
who I didn’t know, and I was also worried they wouldn’t be able to convey what I needed them
to in my film since they just came to the school. However, after talking to some of them and
doing a table read, I did find a good enough cast to be able to convey my film. I did eventually
overcome most of the obstacles in the Pre-production phase.
Activities that should take place during the Production Phase are to plan where and
when I could film with my actors as well as film it. I needed to see their schedules and
availability. I also needed to start getting my materials ready. I needed to get a camera, tripod,
mics, SD cards, batteries, etc. AN obstacle I faced was schedule planning since some of my
actors were either busy or forgot to bring certain things for shots, so we couldn’t do them. I had
to rewrite the beginning of my film due to not being able to work with the schedules of my main
character in time for submission. That was one of my main issues: trying to handle the
schedules of the actors and match them before the due date. A second obstacle was a personal
one where a death in my family made it harder to focus on my assignments and the due dates.
Another obstacle was having to take control over the behavior of the actors since they were
freshmen, and some would not take it seriously. Lastly, one obstacle that I faced while on the
Garret Mountain trip was filming on the bus. I couldn’t set up a tripod since the bus was too
small to fit in and get the shots I needed, so I had to hand-hold the camera. This made some of
those shots shaky, but I couldn’t do much to help it. Those were obstacles during the filming
phase.
Activities that should take place during the Post post-production phase are editing,
effects, making sure all the clips and audio are good, getting release forms for actors, and
putting the idea together. What I struggled with was realizing I was missing a clip and not being
able to refilm it, so I had to try to fix it with a voice-over, but it didn’t sound as natural as I
would’ve liked. My edit also glitched after a while and mixed some of the clips or audio up. That
took up probably two-three days of editing that I could’ve used. I’m also not that skilled when it
comes to effects or just adding certain things to the film on Premiere. I had to get people to
teach me and help me with it. The part of having to switch my whole beginning of the film also
gave me more difficulties. The editing took a long time due to all these difficulties, but I was able
to finish it.
My favorite part of the production process was the Production Phase because to me, it’s
really fun to go out there and film. It was difficult to set up the schedules of filming, but once I
was out there, doing it, it made it more entertaining. I got to make friends with the freshmen and
understand them better. Filming is also more fun because you can see your idea coming to life
with the shots you make. Yes, I did have some difficulties like filming on the bus, having to be a
leader role toward the freshmen, having to redo shots if the audio was bad or accidentally
forgetting to press record, and the freshmen struggling with memorizing lines, but all-in-all in
was a fun experience for me to go out and film.
My strengths are coming up with new ideas on the spot if something went wrong, and
being able to convey my idea as much as I could with what I was given. I would say I am also
fine with the filming of it, as long as I’m able to make my shots good. One weakness that I have
is that I tend to struggle with deadlines. I get distracted easily and also stuck on what to do, or
unmotivated. It gets hard when I start having a lot of things to do, and with the way my brain
works, the more work that I get, the less work that I do. I like to think I can do it later on, but then
when that time comes, I panic and can’t get it all done in time. Another weakness would be
editing. I’m not the best at editing on Premiere. I was always used to editing on my phone, too,
so it was harder to adjust to it. I did try to improve on these weaknesses, but it was hard to do. I
did eventually get my project done, but it did take more time than it should’ve.
I do feel as though I met my program objective. Even though the idea changed and I had
to change some scenes, it still turned out the way I liked and hoped for. I do think it was
effective in its “genre” and “target audience” as it is something that can be relatable to many
people who have either suffered from the loss of a loved one and had to face those emotions, or
even if they just feel those emotions as a whole. I liked how my film came out. There may be
some things I would’ve changed if I had the chance to, but overall, it conveyed my message and
target audience.