The first group that presented their stuff today was Group 4, which consisted of Clare, Stephie, Benny and Kevin. The video was very mediocre. There was a very limited array of sound effects utilized, and the ones that were were used too repetitively (such as the hawk's cry and the rocks falling) , destroying the intended desolate, lonely atmosphere of the first half of the scene. The narrator's voice did not fit the video's setting, the voice was too calm, girly, and immediately made the video seem amateur. I am really unable to recall much of the video but I do remember that there was no background music to compliment the dialogue and atmosphere of the video, which of course left the video to rot in its dullness due to the lack of foley effects, effective dialogue and more. Plus, there was no foley effect of the assassin walking, panting etc, and his voice was not realistic either. It sounded so much like that of a teenager, which of course makes the video unbelievable and thereby eradicates the illusion of film. To sum it up, the video was a waste of 1 and a half months.
After watching the comic video, I was hoping that the documentary was of somewhat better quality in terms of demonstration of knowledge and enjoyability. However it was not. The documentary only starred Clare and Stephie, and they did not present well either. They were both just sitting in front of the camera, fidgeting around, neither composed nor looking like they know anything about the process of creating foley effects and sound design. Their demonstration of knowledge was very limited, only illustrating and displaying briefly on how they created 1 or 2 of their basic foley effects (not the cool ones like the hawk cry either). Plus, they did not use an array of different methods of communication. There was a little bit of voiceover when they were showing how they created the foley effects, but that was it. The documentary was boring and not informative enough. I did not gain any insight from it.
After watching the documentary, the group's main justification for their obviously lackluster products was that they did not have enough time, among with "Oh it was Benny and Kevin's fault!" and "Others have more experience than us". I found this actually quite deplorable because all the other groups had the same amount of time to finish what we had to do, and some of us did a fantastic job. It is no excuse to say you did not have enough time to create something that is half the quality of someone else's creation when you had the exact amount of time and manpower.
Moreover, Clare said that others had more experience than them, which was why their group's products were appalling and ours was not. However, for almost all of us, this was our first time creating foley effects or intensively editing sound. This also applies to Film students. The reason why ours was better than theirs was because we did our research, we asked Ms. Wong and Mr. Chang on how to improve our film project. We asked them if we could do this or that to our sound. We took initiative. That's the difference.
After the bombardment of comments and criticisms, Ms. Wong introduced us to our new project, which is to do with a student film competition. This project is mainly a filler between what we just did and our upcoming major task of creating a documentary, since we would like to deviate from creating the same thing twice. The requirements of entering the competition is to create a 30-second video that promotes intellectual property rights (copyrights). We were to stay with our original groups and create 5 30-second videos in them, with a different person playing a different production role for each video, but never fulfilling the same role twice. Each person has to be a director of 1 video. Immediately upon learning of this task, I had an idea in my head. A brilliant one. Now it is up to my earthly capabilities to bring it to fruition.
Good feedback on the other group's work, but how about your own? What are your thoughts on your final projects? What did you like and dislike about the project and the process of creating it?
ReplyDeleteI thought that our final projects were the best in class. Each and every one of us made great contributions to the quality of presentation of both our comic video and the documentary. All of us were essential, and not one of us did less than the other.
ReplyDeleteLucas made substantial contributions to the editing process of both the documentary and the video. Joshua and I worked to massive lengths at the hands-on part of this project, such as recording Foley effects, all the dialogue (majority made by me for I created the voices of both the Assassin and the Charioteer), and we both also made considerable contributions to the editing process of both projects. Joanna contributed on all aspects of the Create process, especially in working with me on choosing and implementing the final music tracks onto the comic video. Justin was the primary cinematographer in our group, without him the documentary would have been a flop.
I loved everything about this project. We all worked very well together and all took initiative in working on this project, whether it be editing the video or collecting mud and water to record a Foley effect. We all went to great lengths in achieving the quality of presentation of our project. None of us did any less than the rest. I cannot picture any other group members I would rather work with.