The end of AICE Media once and for all...

 After 2 years, it feels really really odd to finally be saying goodbye to this course. So let's look back at this project and see all the things I liked, didn't like, learned, and all the successes and challenges I had.

Hindsight is 2020 so let's go over each part of the project individually. This project all started in the planning phase. The first big choices I had to make where if I was going to work in a group or alone, and which project I would do. Previous I was pretty sure that I wanted to work in a group this time, however in hindsight I don't know if working in a group was everything I thought I was going to be. Before working in a group I thought it was gonna be more easy to keep accountable, less overwhelming, and in general lead to a better project. I remember last year while I was working on my S level project I felt really overwhelmed working on it alone and I thought it was really hard to keep myself accountable since there was no one else but me. But, I think I overlooked many of the downsides to working in a group. It's less overwhelming b because there's less for you to do individually but in other aspects also much more overwhelming because there are so many competing visions and ideas to grapple with. It's more easy to keep yourself accountable, but then you also have to be part of ensuring other people are hurt are held accountable. Additionally, you have to work around other people's schedules and in general doing such a big project in a group can lead to a lot of logistical hassle. Regardless I'm glad I did it in a group and I really enjoyed working with Nicole and manuela one last time, I'm really happy with what we were able to create but, the process was much harder than I expected.

How it felt at the beginning, trying to steer the project along when working in a group

 

In terms of some other difficulties we had I think one big thing that really really hurt us was a sort of decision paralysis. Especially since it was a group of three, there wasn't efficient executive decision making, it felt like every decision we really had to grapple with it and work through it together, and while that led to a lot of cool ideas, it also led to a lot of over planning. It first started when we were choosing our topic, we spend a good week deciding whether we should do a documentary or a short film, and eventually decided on short film after Nicole had the really cool idea of the writing on the bathroom wall. But even after this primary decision was made, the process is continued. Then it was weeks of discussing where we wanted to take the story, there were so many possible options for this story it was just a little overwhelming, the exact same thing I thought wouldn't happen with working in a group.

 

Eventually, after a lot of workshopping potential stories and outlining, I'm glad I decided to simply open up Celtx and simply start writing a script. Even though I wasn't completely sure where I was taking it I wanted to have a chance to fully develop the idea I have and then show it off and sell it to my group. To help me visualize this story along with the script I also created the storyboard. Then I went to my group I sold on the idea, we made a few changes, and just like that we had our script and our storyboard! To me this taught me that the best medicine to decision paralysis is to simply start doing, there's no possible way to know if something's gonna work until you finally do it, there's only so much thinking you can do before it becomes counterproductive.

Our Script on Celtx

 

An area where I wish we would have practiced this more of doing over planning is in our filming and production stage. Last minute I realized that during spring break the week that we would have off cover which I envisioned as the week that I was gonna work solely on the project, Nicole and manuela were both going to be off. As a result I realized that there was number way that we could film during spring break. In hindsight, I would have gone back in time and gone to a weekend before spring break and we would have met up together and filmed everything we could even if we didn't have much of A plan, to simply try things. After a certain degree of planning is done trial and error becomes the key and I think that would if we would have learned this early on earlier on, we would have ultimately had a more polished project, since we would have been able to see what didn't work early on and then gone back again and changed it. Essentially I wish I wouldn't have relied so heavily on having spring break for production, since when that was taken away I felt like I was scrambling. We still tried our best since me and Manuela were able to go location scouting since she got back before break was over, but all of the biggest parts of the project we had to wait until Nicole returned from Colombia.

 

 

In terms of story planning this project also taught me a few key things. As I've discussed in a few other blogs what are your primary lesson that I've learned throughout this whole project is that simplicity is key. Often the simplest thing is the most effective and to overcomplicate for the mere purpose of ornamentation is usually unnecessary. We learned this big time during the production of this project. Our story idea started much grander and eventually made their way down to what we ended up with. I'm really glad we we went through this project of simplification, since last year I feel like this would have been really great for my project to have period I felt that my as media media portfolio project was overly complicated and lacked the beautiful simplicity I enjoy in films. Though it took some time to get there I think this time we were able to reach that point and I really appreciate some of the subtleties we are able to explore in this film and the way we were able to do them by showing rather than telling.

The first versions of the story
(went through many many changes and neccesary simplifications)

 

Now for a final goodbye to ace media. I'm forever going to value the knowledge, the skills, and the lessons I learned throughout the course and most of all the people I met during this course. Mrs. Stoklosa has been one of the the best instructors I've ever had in any class, her passion for the subject, intelligence, and skill for editing is self-evident and undoubtable. To all the people I’ve met and work with, it has been incredible to work with all of you and I'm so excited to see the places all of you amazing people end up. And most importantly, beyond a grade or anything like that, I feel as though I've truly learned and become a better human being as a result of this course.

Thank you AICE Media.
Signing off, Juan