Wednesday, March 28, 2012

20 Shot Story: The After Effect

Well the 20 Shot Story is complete! I think it went really well and I had a ton of fun with it. I've seen our video about five times by now and I still find myself laughing each time (: It ended up being a very fun time despite a couple bumps in the road. Below I'm going to make a list of some issues we had to deal with and how we solved them.

  • Flip Camera = Dead ): This made the video process a little harder to complete. After every shot, we had to plug the camera into a laptop for a minute or two to let it charge. The positive part about this = it gave us some time to talk about how we wanted this shot to be filmed.
  • Time Frame = At first, it was a little complicated trying to find a time in which all of us could meet up. I figured it was going to take longer then fifty minutes to film all twenty shots. Luckily we all had a little extra time after class to get it all done. Also, the extra day we had to story board really helped us. 
  • Video Uploading = After we shot our scenes, we had to figure out how to upload it onto a computer. The actual uploading was actually pretty easy. Then there was a little trouble trying to save the video onto a file that would work on all the computers. Eventually, a group member uploaded it to YouTube which allowed the group members to access it. 
  • Storyboarding = The story board was very helpful actually. Without it, it would have taken a lot longer to physically work out every shot. We ended up modifying a couple scenes along the way. If we forgot something in one shot or wanted to add something to clarify a part in another, it all worked out smoothly in the end.
As you can see, each of these 'little bumps' ended up working out and sometimes even helping the process! The only thing I would change about this project would be to have a little longer to do it. If I was doing this in class, I would allow the students to film their 20 Shot Stories but then I would collect the cameras and do the uploading myself. That way, I can watch the films before they are shown and eliminate the students from worrying about having editing software. Especially if some students don't have access to computers at home. All in all a fun project and thanks to my group for working hard and making it a great time (: 

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you about extending the amount of time to do this project. If I used this in my own classroom I definitely think the students would be overwhelmed by the short amount of time to complete this project. The Technology Resource center was not open on Friday (which my group was unaware of) and I went to pick up the flip-cam only to find out I couldn't get one and we were unaware that they were offered at the library to use so we tried shooting with a digital camera which doesn't have very great sound quality and resulted in my group having to do it twice. Luckily our original due date was extended to Wednesday instead of Monday or else we would have never got the project done in time! I think if I were teaching this in my class I would make sure that the students all had access to the cameras before beginning because the Technology Resource center had different hours the two weeks that we were working on this project and that can really mess things up. I also would probably make it a couple class periods longer just so that students could have time to get everything done and not feel completely overwhelmed.

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  2. I hear you both, and will definitely take this into consideration. One thing that I think we should always consider when we work with technology is Murphy's Law, which states "anything that can go wrong...will." But you all sailed through and had fantastic projects!

    I'm glad that the storyboarding really helped you. While I'm interested in seeing how you use the language of film to analyze a story, that's not all I look at. I am very interested in how you use other modes, like gesture, color, space, etc. I think that if you do this in the classroom the rationales are very important because the students become responsible for sharing their thinking.

    All in all, I'm very happy that you found some value in this while having fun!

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