Roller Derby Montage

A good friend of mine is on a roller derby team. She is a filmmaker as well, and recently, her coach asked her to make a promo video for their team. Shortly after that, we were assigned to make a montage video for our film class. She asked me to help her film the video, and to kill two birds with one stone, we decided to mix the two projects and make the promo video a montage.

Codecs

What exactly are codecs? They can get pretty complex and confusing. Although they can get very in depth, all wee really need is a basic understanding of them. 

Codec is an acronym for compressor, decompressor. Come codecs are licensed and others are not, which is why computers can only have certain codecs. Lots of people get codecs confused with containers. Containers are types of files, and codecs go inside them. There are different types of codecs for different purposes. Capture codecs is what the camera records. Edit codecs take the capture codecs and turn them into something to edit. Delivery codes are the files you put online or give to clients, and Archival codecs are copies of your finished projects.

Veteran's Day

Recently, I got the opportunity to make a video for my middle school, Chisholm Trail. I met with the school counselor, Ms. Hufnagel, and she explained that she wanted a video the show the students for Veteran's Day. We brainstormed some ideas, and scheduled interviews with veterans who were relatives of students at Chisholm Trail. I, along with two other students, Zach and Brooke, went to the middle school during class and conducted interviews with five veterans. It was very interesting to hear their stories, especially since we interviewed people from different branches of the military. This was out end result.

I sent the video to Ms. Hufnagel, and received an email a few days later with feedback. It said,

"I want to again thank you so much for your time, effort, and abilities in creating the Veterans Day Video.  It has been a huge success here at Chisholm.  We are linking it on our website and sending it to our whole community.  You know the sound bite that you included where Mr. Bradford talked about leaving his wife of 3 months and how that was the biggest sacrifice he had made?  Well, she works here in the district and I was able to forward the video link to her.  She literally came here to the building to thank us for the video.  It had made her cry.    Much of that gratitude belongs to you guys and the work you put into the video.

I hope you guys have a wonderful day and that you feel proud of your accomplishment and how it touched others’ hearts today."

I am absolutely thrilled that they loved the video we made so much. It was great to work with veterans, and I enjoyed being able to make others happy with my project.

10 Camera Techniques

All through high school, I have been taking classes on film. This year I am a junior, and one of the major perks in getting to use the very nice DSLR cameras. I didn't know how to use them at all at the beginning of the year, but I was soon taught by my video teacher and some of the students who had used them before. To help us familiarize ourselves with the cameras and improve our skills, we practiced shooting ten different camera techniques, including different types of pans, zooms, and focuses. I worked with two friends to complete a short video where we used each technique, and while the project was not super creative, it did help us improve ourselves as filmmakers.

Story vs. Plot

In the world of film, the biggest element is the factor of story and plot. Without a story or a plot, we have no film. What can get confusing is when we try to understand the difference between story and plot. 

To understand this whole concept, I watched a video with filmmaker Martin Scorsese, where he describes the difference between story and plot, and explain which one he prefers (which you can access here.) 

I'll admit, the first time I watched the video, I was confused. To me, story and plot were basically the same thing, and I didn't really see a difference. What helped me to understand was to look at everything else in the blog post, not just the video with Scorsese, and discussing everything with my film class.

The plot of a film is the skeleton. The basic outline of the events that happen. The story, however, is the details of the film. It goes more in depth to the movie, and explains why everything happens. I myself prefer story to plot. I like to know the details more than just the basic outline.