Week 15

As our final approaches tomorrow I am excited to see the rest of the work that we were not able to see on Wednesday. I have enjoyed this semester and getting to learn from other production groups and help them with their films. I am interested to see how each and every one of the films from the class turns out because we have all invested in each other’s work. I think it was an experience being in a class where documentary, experimental, and animation films were being made. I have never worked on an experimental or animation film so it was eye opening to see the process that goes into making this type of film. Overall it has been an extremely cool 495 class and I hope everyone’s film goes on to be wildly successful.

Week 14

We have finally reached the end of the semester and I can’t believe how quickly it has come. This entire semester has flown by. I feel like all four years of being a film student have led up to 495 and just like that I am about to be done. This week the final version of our film is due, or at least as close to final as we can get by this time. I am still baffled by how many interviews we did for this documentary and how well we did at getting an ample amount of b-roll. This has definitely been one of the most time consuming and difficult productions I have done in film studies thus far but ultimately worth it. I think our group did a good job in our roles and I am interested to see how everything comes together in the end for the final cut. I think even after the final cut there will still be a lot of work to be done with this particular documentary but I do believe it is an interesting topic and something ultimately worth exploring further.

Week 13

This past weekend I was unable to attend Visions 6 Film Festival and Conference because the company I will be working for after graduation flew me up for the weekend. I am very sad that I got to miss Visions because I was a part of it last year. For my writing about Visions I will instead talk about how everything I learned in that year has helped me in this class with our documentary and in possibly submitting to festivals. This week Anthony, Taylor and I went back to Kure Beach to get additional b-roll footage of Cathy and Steve. This seems to be the last of the b-roll footage we needed and it means we can move on to creating a final edited version of our documentary. We also presented our marketing and distribution plan today and I think it went really well. Our group seems to have a comprehensive idea of the type of festivals we want to submit to and where in the country we would be willing to go.

Week 12

As the semester is nearing a close I think our group is growing tired and it is definitely getting harder to get us all together as a whole. We have our marketing and distribution plan due next week so we got together this week to divide up the responsibilities for that and make sure we get everything we need and have it ready by next week. Anthony, Taylor and I are going to Carolina Bay to get footage from a painting and wine night. Hopefully that will be lively and we can get some good b-roll there. We are moving so fast through the semester that the final cut is due very soon! I haven’t been around to help as much with editing because I am really not a great editor and it is very hard to edit with more than one person. I trust Taylor to know her vision best and that the film will come out great if she sticks to that.

Week 11

This past weekend my Aunt Kathy was finally feeling up to being interviewed. The whole crew drove up to Wallce, NC to interview my aunt at her place of residence in River Landing. The whole community is set within two gold courses and is very beautiful. We were able to interview my aunt and then get lots of b-roll around her home. After that we took out her golf cart and drove all around the neighborhood and took footage all throughout the place. It was nice to get to show the group my aunt’s community and get some lovely b-roll along the way. Our rough cut it coming up and there is lots of footage to work with so I think we are more than prepared to show what we have to the class and get their feedback. After this rough cut is due all we really have to keep collecting is b-roll and more b-roll. You really never can have enough!