After viewing the blogposts of my fellow classmates and contemplating the various creative elements my peers implemented into their works of art, I decided that I wanted to switch my focus from making films to writing screenplays. I've always enjoyed the creativity that goes into writing my own stories, not to mention that when I still made films writing the script was my favorite part of the process. And though I've made my decision to go a different route than I had before, I've still been able to find inspiration and learn a few things from my classmates' posts.
Noah's speed ramp
Tina's character's hair progress
Person #1: Noah - Text Effects and Relating Back to Real Life
For Noah's film, he wanted to take a creative approach to the title screen, so he looked up tutorials on how to 'mask out' the title of his film along with a few clips from the project playing within the letters. I'd heard about masking from tutorials I took inspiration from, but I never knew what it was used for or how to actually use the tool correctly. And so, I think Noah did a fantastic job with this certain effect and it was very intriguing to look at when I saw it for the first time. Noah also worked with using 'speed ramps' in his film, as the ending montage had a varied amount of slow motion shots leading from one to another. I thought it was thoroughly entertaining to watch the characters in Noah's film run, jump, and bike through slow motion, and it was very cool to learn how he'd done it.
Noah's masking
In Noah's first two sections of his marking period 2 blogpost, he writes about how the initial theme for his film was the 'Representations of Everyday Life'. Noah then goes into explaining the idea behind his film and how he wanted to relate to those who find it difficult to balance both work and life in a healthy way. I found this theme to be very compelling to work with, especially since so many people can relate to trying to find a balance between working and having time to themselves. I wanted to take inspiration from Noah to also be able to relate to my audience and his ideas for proper planning. His idea to write out the essential plot of the story and to imagine everything going on as he wrote it out heavily inspired me to do the same when it comes to my own creative works.
Person #2: Tina - 3D Modeling and Character Design
Obviously, I'm not a 3D modelling student since I know absolutely nothing about modelling characters, using Blender, or 'rigging', and that's one of the reasons I believe I was drawn to Tina's marking period 2 blogpost. Going into the blog quite blindly, I found her work and inspiration to be very interesting and fun. In her planning, Tina writes about how she wanted to create a 'VTuber' for herself through Blender. From her blogpost, I was able to learn what her initial idea for her character was and how she planned on building said character through various tutorials. In Tina's 'Planning' section of her blogpost, she shares the YouTube tutorials she used when beginning the process of character design. I found the videos very informative and intuitive since I had no previous knowledge of any kind of 3D modelling.
One of the videos Tina used in her blogpost
What I also found interesting about Tina's post is how she goes into the blog expressing her love for fairytales and old folk stories, and how she planned on using these certain themes and stories for inspiration in her work. She also writes about the tales she personally grew up with, like the stories of the 'Lunar Zodiacs' and the 'Monkey King', and how she was inspired by her cultural background. I found the beginning of her blog to be very enlightening, and it made me think about how I could incorporate the stories that I heard as a child or anything from my personal cultural background into my own work, similarly to how Tina's character's ensemble is going to take inspiration from folk Chinese clothing. I also found Tina's plan on better managing her time for her project to be relatable because I also want to make sure I'm keeping a thorough schedule for myself and my work.
Person #3: Makayla - Breaking Down the Film Process and Switching Focuses
Makayla starts her presentation by writing about the inspiration she took from various television shows, especially the HBO original Euphoria, and details how she planned on using her theme of 'Looking Inward' to thoroughly expand upon the idea that is the relatability to teens. Going into her planning, Makayla notes the YouTube channel whose videos she used to establish a clear breakdown of using camera work for film. The video in her blogpost displays how using certain camera works and lighting for certain scenes in film and media better advances the story along with the overall creative process. For my personal projects, I believe I could use the same concept Makayla used when imaging how my scripts would look visually speaking and to enhance the look of my storyboards.
The video discussing the importance of
camera work within a film
Similarly to Makayla, I'd decided I wasn't exactly enjoying making films as I had in previous years. It became very tedious to have to write a whole script, make a storyboard, find a location, have people act in my film, and then edit the entire thing together. While putting my first film together, these thoughts came to my head where I just didn't want to do films anymore, and I'm sure Makayla felt the same way as me. In her 'Integrating' section of her marking period 2 blogpost, Makayla shortly describes how it was for her having to depend on people when filming and how she figured out she'd rather switch her focus to animation. I found this quite relatable since I, too, was having the same complications as she was. And so, though I believe we both did great jobs on our films, regarding our own personal pleasures, I think it was a good idea for both of us to try out something new. And, relating to Makayla's decision to focus on character design for the rest of the year, I wanted to focus on the process of writing scripts and improving myself in that field.
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