Group Members for my AICE Media Project!

        Welcome back bloggers! In today's post, I will be introducing my group members for the final project for my AICE Media Studies class. I picked these group members for their individual strengths, and their abilities will be critical in making our 2-minute movie opener. Even though we lack any real idea as to what we have planned for the project, I have no doubt that all of these picks will pay off in the end!

Group member #1: Pablo Mendez

I chose Pablo for my group because of his experience with video editing software such as CapCut and Adobe Premiere. Pablo has been using these editing applications for years, so his experience will be super helpful in ensuring this project comes out as good as possible. On top of that, he has a certification in Adobe Premiere Pro, so his skills are essentially top-notch. He will be especially important once we wrap up filming, and post-production of our film will be a walk in the park with his experience. Additionally, me and Pablo have worked together on other things before, so I can confidently say he will contribute his part and more. As a bonus, Pablo helped create a 14-minute long film project just last year, so all of that editing knowledge will still be fresh in his mind!

Group member #2: Yulian Vargas

I chose Yulian for my group because of his acting skills and creativity. Yulian has been featured in a good few projects already, including 2 musical performances a few years back. He is also quit the creative genius, being able to come up with many interesting ideas, one of which is on track to become what we do our project on. If you can recall, me and Yulian have already worked together before to create our Sound Story! He was excellent in both coming up with interesting ways to create the foley sounds and did his part swiftly and with effort. Yulian has not disappointed in the past, and I am certain he won't now!

Group member #3: Pedro Rodriguez

I chose Pedro for my group because he is flexible and a team player. I have worked with him on numerous occasions over the years and he has never once failed to deliver in times of need. Aside from being a team player, Pedro also has creative experience in making his own projects, even though some of them weren't film related. Fun fact: Pedro and Pablo have already worked together on filming projects before, so cooperation will be smooth and seamless. Thanks to his vibrant personality, I firmly believe that whatever we decide to do for our project, Pedro will play his part and more!

Group member #4: Me

Obviously, the final member in my group is myself! My main skill in any sort of group project is being multipurpose. Whatever I get assigned to, I can pull it off no matter what. Additionally, I learned after finishing the Sound Story project that I'm decent with creativity and especially with getting things done prior to deadline. In Layman's terms, I am really good at planning things out and executing said plans. Plus, I was able to learn a little bit about editing projects during the post-production stage of the Sound Story, so Pablo won't be alone once we finish filming!

My Storyboarding Experience!

Welcome back bloggers! In this post I will be talking about my experience with storyboarding, what I think about it, and showcasing a storyboard I did based off a scene from Breaking Bad!

                 Storyboarding is essentially writing and drawing out an entire scene prior to filming. It is a way to give directors a chance to visualize how their story is progressing, as well as how to capture their ideas on the big screen. Storyboarding combines the inspiration from the mood board and ideas from the script to give directors a way to watch their movie before filming it, including the various sound effects, camera movements and shots, and mise-en-scene. Perhaps the best part of storyboarding is that you don't need to be a talented artist to make a functional storyboard. As long as your storyboard is able to clearly convey how a scene progresses and how it is shot, whether it be through illustrations or through marginal notes, it will be useful for getting the perfect shot once you begin filming. The only challenge then, it would seem, is figuring out how you want the scene to be shot, right? I thought so too, until I actually got started on recreating a storyboard for a Breaking Bad clip, and then I learned how challenging storyboarding really was firsthand.

Clip

                           Above is my attempt at a storyboard for this scene from Breaking Bad, where Walter White asks Jesse Pinkman to cook for the first time. When creating my storyboard, I opted for creating marginal notes to describe what happens in the scene since I knew my artistic abilities only went so far. Still, I tried to put as much detail into the illustrations themselves as I could, including where characters walked, shading in areas to show low-key lighting, and pointing out alternating shots to show dialogue. However, my abysmal artist skills could only take me so far, so I pointed out as much as I could in the marginal notes section. My scene was simple and didn't have too many different shots, so I was able to map the whole thing out within 6 boxes, although that meant I would have to specify each time alternating shots were used. In hindsight it would've been easier to use another storyboard paper to show each alternating shot, but there would've been little to say about them since they all have the same mise-en-scene elements. For a first attempt at a storyboard though, it didn't turn out all that bad, since I was able to describe the entire scene in good detail.