Bryce's - e - Brain

Gotta say, when I noticed that this quarter was halfway over I freaked out. I all of the sudden felt very behind in my work, like I hadn't accomplished anything. This, of course, isn't true at all. I just needed to breathe and take a step out of my cramped up brain.

I think that one of the reasons that I got so panicky was because I have never worked through a pre-production like this before. The majority of my past experience has been with nonfiction works, most of which were done with found footage or animation. With those types of projects the planning period for me was solely some research and gathering of materials, leaving much of the actual project to come together at much later stages. For this current DV narrative short, everything is different in terms of how to think about the project. I feel compelled to develop everything before hand, especially since almost everything is created and not simply gathered or put together. All of the questions I have are from a different universe and I need to tap into different creative modes than what I'm used to. I feel really confident with my shooting and editing skills and think that those stages of production will be much more familiar once I'm there, especially after such a thorough pre-staging process.

I've been doing a lot of reading (as mentioned in my schedule) and it has been a gigantic help in terms of my getting a hold on what I need to be thinking about. I figure by putting in the work and forethought now, I will be saving myself loads of hassle later on in the process. I did discover last year that, though it was fun, holding off much of the creative structuring/aesthetic choices till production time was a stressful decision. I'm now understanding what an important role making the movie before making it is.

Another huge thing for me this quarter, was the discovery that having an interactive aspect to my project, would be a bit over my head, and impossible to do under my time constraints. To have the three channel video work, there would be a lot of new technology that I would have to learn. Also there would be an intense addition of extra pre-planning and shooting to do in order to make it successful. I will still be taking in information on making an interactive piece, but am no longer committing to completing my project as interactive, for my own sanity's sake.

Essentially my pre-production time has had a lot to do with research. I thought that I could get away without it this time, but whaddaya know, here it is again. While doing this research I have been compiling lists of things to be sure to think about, and have been slowly checking things off of that list. A lot of this includes questions about: what camera to use and why, what aspect ratio to use, frame rate, location, costumes, makeup, lighting, overall tones of the piece, textures, budget, storyboards, audio maps, scripting formats, complications of adapting a story, etc etc etc.

I'm feeling a bit more confident in my progress once taking a step back. Especially once noticing that finding all of these questions really is half of the battle. See that? Half the battle, half the quarter. I'm right on track. Not to mention, I have answered a lot of these questions already, the smaller ones sure, but still. I have also made some headway on the scripting process, which has been a lot more difficult than simply writing something in a text editor.

This is all fun, I can't forget that. Working on projects like this was the reason I decided to get my Bachelor's Degree, and the freedom experienced in a program like this is why I chose Evergreen. I'm just where I want to be. I don't know if any of the rest of you needed to read that, but it is important for me to remember.