For the weekly summary this week I would say it was successful. I had a lot of setbacks with some of the tools again, but I think I made it through ok, kinda.

For the assignments is decided to do the three videos instead of the one with Dr. Oblivion. I had already done that assignment the previous week, but I didn’t want to go back and do it again but to turn it into a video. I also chose the three because I wanted to try and test my skills with 3 different types of video assignments. Yeah, it was probably more work, but I feel that is the point of a course like this, to try and experiment and get your reps in with the tools. So, the 3 assignments I decided to do were intro video, top 10 list, and something scary. For the intro video I decided to make it like my character was introducing himself for his new blog. Here is the post. For the top ten list, I had my character give a top 10 ways AI is already helping us and that if you do not see why this is important, you are an idiot etc. Here is the post. And then for something scary I decided to record myself playing Alien Isolation. But after recording for 2 plus hours I realized I didn’t have my microphone on high enough so you couldn’t even her me talk over the gameplay. So, I decided to re-try with another game, The Forrest. Here is the result of that.

For my daily creates I decided to do the ones that had old timey pictures and one added a caption, and for the other I uploaded a video of a song that might be playing for it. It was fun, especially the one with the song. Here is my post about it.

Then finally I wrote my post on how my character would interact and think about the company Aggressive technologies. Long story short, he is supportive, but worried that may not allow AI to have freedom because they want to control it for profit. Here is my post about it.

So overall, it was a lot of work for me this week. Again, I really am lacking in video editing skills, at least in terms of speed. I think I know what to do and what to click to make things happen, but I just do not have the muscle memory yet. So yeah, fun, tough week, but I can’t wait to see what we do next. I honestly hope its more video so I can work on the skills a bit more.

So, this week I learned a lot about cinematography and how to evoke certain reactions and emotions from the viewers with simple adjustments to music, movement, as well as lighting and the characters in a scene.

First, I’ll talk about my daily creates. I did 2 this week. The first one was to do a pun picture and the second one was to talk about my favorite poetry. Here is my post about it.

In the video about ensemble staging, I learned how setting the scene with multiple characters whether in the foreground or background and how they are facing really changes the dynamic of the scene. The narrator’s favorite scene of the discussed movie showed that there were 3 simultaneous stories, and we didn’t know the real one until the scene revealed the third story. This ensemble cast setting was phenomenal and added so much to the scene that could not have been with just 2 people talking. I was also really impressed with the video about movement and how much more interesting specific movement made scenes. I also liked how they compared all of these videos to Marvel films and how lazy their laziness with all of these elements. The music, the camera movement, the scene setting, it is just so commercialized and bland. I also really enjoyed the videos of Hitchcock explaining his process. Just how simple facial expressions, when adding a target can change the whole perception of the scene. really interesting thoughts when making films.

This week I had a lot of trouble with the video essay. I feel that my skills with video editing tools were challenged, and I did a terrible video essay. Alot of what I wanted to do was thwarted by technology or my ineptness with said technology. Here is my post about it. I am pretty embarrassed with how bad it is. I will try to boost my skills for the assignments next week.

So yeah overall, I really liked learning about the video techniques and watching the other cinematographers explain their process. I did not have as much fun with the essay, even though I loved analyzing the scene, it took away from my enjoyment because of how bad I failed. Anyway, I hope to do better next week.