Thus by very far, I could say that this was the best experience ever. This now making it our second year in entering the festival, two out of three of our films were selected. This gave us access to much more of the festival. Last year we got there that Sunday and watched all the films produced in the AMC Theater. This year, we were able to stay for five days. Three of which were acquired for the film invitational and two were right for the festival. That Saturday, we had a whole day to watch all of the films that were created. But, before i get to that, the hosts of the festival had thrown a party for all the people thta were apart of the festival at Planet Hollywood where we were offered so much delicious food and drinks. As well as, being allowed to go out and dance on the dancefloor. This was a night where we made new friends and met other aspiring film makers. Then, leading back into Saturday, we were able to see all of the films produced. There were tons of submissions yet, so many were selected. Then it came to Sunday. We started off the day by watching our film "Aberration" on the screen. Then after that, we were free o watch any other videos we may haven't seen yet. There were so many videos that were produced and many of them were very imaginative and creative. Especially, the horror ones. It's difficult for an amateur to create a horror film and there films just happen to be great. Later on that day, the award ceremony was being held at The Kings Theater in Brooklyn, NY. This was so amazing. The award ceremony was far more better than that of the year before. There was a live band playing as we walked in and we were allowed to take pictures and get interviewed on an actual Red Carpet with a lot of famous and well known people. They went through every single topic of videos one by one. This was the part where the biting of the nails sensation was greater than ever. Did we get selected for the invitational. When it arrived to that category all of us grabbed hands and just hoped for the best. If we didn't get selected, we'd be disappointed but atleats the experience was worth while and we learned a lot of new things. But if we won however, it'd be something to share with the whole school and just make everyone aorund us proud. Just to prove to everyone that, "Yes we can!" In that moment the drum roll was being laid out and our hearts were pumping and beating faster each second. We waited for the winner in silence and they were selected. The winnerf the 2015 AAHSFF Invitational Film Challenge wasn't us. All that anxiousness brought are levels so high. We may have not won that night, but the rest are yet to come. The future is set bright and high for the Perth Amboy High School students. Many more opportunities are to come and the program will keep expanding.
0 Comments
The first time my teacher mentioned to us about this challenge I didn't think that Perth Amboy was to be one of the schools that were selected. We've been involved with the All American High School Film Festival for two years. Thus this making it our second year. For the invitational we were given two actors, a mentor, two locations, and editing location, and four prompts to choose from. We had first come up with an idea over the summer about a lawyer who comes across a boy holding signs that reflect towards her everyday busy life. When we skyped with our mentor, he totally put down the whole idea. Yet, his reasoning towrds it had a point. It was too slow paced and we knew nothing about being a lawyer. So a few of the crew members gathered together and created a whole new story. Thus relating to the fourth prompt," I left it all behind...Now i am here." This time the story was far more fast paced and got to the idea quickly. They had decided that the story is based on a girl who left her cult and is now realizing that her past is coming back to haunt her. This man from her cult happens to be in all of her photographs. This meaning that she is a free lance photographer in the city of NY. Every where she went, he was there just standing there, watching her. Here we come to realize that this was a sign why he was there. All of this story was thought processed over our summer break and the first week of school. We were well prepared where we had a Plan B for anything that could have gone wrong. Once we got to NY, we knew we only had two days to shoot this 8-10 minute film. We also only had one whole day credited towards editing but the deadline was at 6PM that Friday, Oct. 9, 2015. Overall, the filming went great in both locations that were given to us and any extra ones we added in. The locations including; Washington Square Park and Grand Central Terminal. We were able to finish the video on time even if there was a little tension with the studio. There are times when we need to stay focused and we need the privacy and space for ourselves to better concentrate. When the video was finally over, everyone of us in the crew were able to see the final product of our film. Which we had named as "Aberration."
The Parent Portal was basically a project assigned to us in class by our teacher where we had to explain what it was about. The Parent Portal will be used by all parents in the district of Perth Amboy. It will allow the parents to view how their child/children are doing in school. The Parent Portal lets the parent interact with the school and check daily on what his/her child/children missed, what their grade currently in class is, and what they are exceeding well in. In our video, my group and I tried showing the basic idea on what the Parent Portal would include. We started off with a parent,(Actor: Rafael Ledesma) logging in to the Parent portal. Then we had a student, (Actor: Me) be in school, and getting a bad grade on the test. We then showed the student at home struggling on their homework, as you would see on the video, and the parent comes along to help. The message being conveyed in this video is that the Parent Portal allowed the parent to see how their child was struggling allowing them in the end to help the child out. In this video, i'd say that we did have some difficulties. I am involved in the soccer team, so finding a day to record was kind of difficult due to the fact that my soccer schedule runs everyday. Another problem that occurred was using our surroundings due to the time periods that we had. Since i was only free that day for only study hall, we recorded in the school and used what we had. Other than that, in our video we were able to convey the message to our viewers and actually complete the video to it's deadline. All thanks to my group.
In this video here we had entered a contest competing against 80 other schools. The people who work behind the contest, gave us an object, a character name, and a title for our story. Everyone was given the opportunity to make a story based around the items they gave us. The object,watch. The character name, Sam Dixon. The title, The Box. My group and i created this video in one week which was all the time they gave us plus the fact that it had to be no more than 3:00 , three minutes. We had fun but there were some difficulties in this. In the end we didn't win but, making a video were proud of and working together was our reward.
Today we basically shot the entire music video of thriller. The cast and costumes and dance all together worked so well. It all came together bit by bit and finally the video turned out to be tremendous. I enjoyed participating in this production and i really hope we can do more like this in the future. While shooting i do wish we took more shots. I had many ideas but on that certain time span, we couldn't do them all. At times it did take very long, but the same things kept repeating. Overall the video came out great and it was fun to work on it.
I was able to go behind the scenes of Shrek The Musical. I interviewed some of the cast to see how they feel in thew making of Shrek. I alongside of Kimberly Cardona and Nicole Rivera, took some shots from different angles to really get
I had recorded and edited this video to show what the students in the Perth Amboy District do. I was able to visualize how talented these students are. I edited the video together to at least give people a visual on how artistically talented each and every student is. To show how committed they are to the visual arts and how they came to prepare for the Christmas spirit.
It is actually very fun working with others because when coming up with a new video, you get to discover the bright ideas other people have. It does get hard trying to come up with the shots and everything else but overall, it is great to work with a group. Being cooperative is the best way to get you there and more people in a group leads to a bigger cast and production. A group lets you get things done faster and gives you less worries. Might as well start now just in case, you continue into the filmmaking process, so that you know what it's like.
|
AuthorMy name is Adriana, and I have been working with film for 6 years now. I am currently continuing my film career as a Communications major in the field of media productions,with a minor in Sports Management at William Paterson University. All my work began with just a class in high school and then through it all, I've learned to love it, and continue my work. I will continue to pursue more with film making and make many more of my ideas come to life. I hope to share my growth as well as my experience with the world. Archives
November 2015
Categories |