End of Year Reflection

To be honest, the independent research script we did this year was one of the hardest assignments I've ever done in our  IB Film class. The assignment required us to have a rationale which provides the intro-like summary of what you aim to accomplish through the script. Next, we did the actual script which shows the relationship between the audio and the visual aspects in a two-column documentary format. Lastly, our annotated list of sources was like our bibliography in which all the articles and sites and sources we use to do the script were kept.  I feel like I had a limited amount of strengths when approaching the research required in the class. I was very organized in planning out my script and the focus areas were very well thought out. However, I spent too much time researching for the script and looking at articles which would help me in my script rather than taking the time needed to thoroughly complete it. I think my strengths were organization of topics, knowledge of both movies especially in the areas of cultural and societal influence, and also analyzing the visual effects within both of the films I analyzed. I feel like I need more support and training with becoming more detailed and specific in my writing. Although my film language has developed largely over the year, I think I can still get more fluent with it over time. I don't have any other suggestions for this because I learned so much from taking this class this year.

The oral presentation was actually one of my favorite assignments this year. I had many strengths in this assignment in particular because I have been developing my talents as a public speaker through previous presentations. I felt comfortable when I was talking into the mic which recorded our analysis of the five minute dissection of the famous thriller film, Psycho, that we were to choose. Also, I was strong in knowing the techniques used in my five minute excerpt of the film. I was able to identify and analyze them and I felt that my viewer, or listener in this case, was easily able to understand what I was saying and I feel like I was able to paint a picture for them inside their heads. I feel like I need to work on not stuttering in the few cases in which I did happen to stutter because it made me sound as if I had less knowledge of the five minute film extraction. I also could have gone a little more in depth when picking out the filmic techniques in the section by explaining why the section was placed there and what influenced its creation. I suggest that we do a couple more of these oral presentations for more practice.

Looking back at it, this was a great year in this film class. I have learned so much and I want to keep learning more. I feel like I accomplished a lot this year. I got to learn about hands on production in our Mustang News which is aired every Friday at school. I especially enjoy manning the camera even though it is not the most difficult task. I also learned a lot about being an actual director, as I was given this role in our short films and really all our group projects that we worked on this year. I got the chance to work on the production of a real life documentary which I enjoyed because I've always wanted to make a really interesting and issue-portraying documentary to share with the public. I also feel accomplished with some work regarding being a cinematographer because I also took on this role. I feel like I need to work more on editing pieces. For our senior sendoff piece, my group was given the arts highlight piece that I edited entirely by myself and  was actually really impressed and proud of my own work. I had little to none experience around editing because I had only done small composite pieces or the documentary I mentioned earlier so this was a milestone for me. I still, however, have some room for improvement and I think becoming better at editing will help me become more well-rounded in my film pursuits.