Production Reflection

 My production process is complete! It was a long process but I really like what I have created. In this post, I am going to reflect on what I have done and highlight some of the key moments in my process. 

It started with an idea (that sounds so cheesy). I knew I wanted to create a fantasy film, so I began my research. One of the first blog posts I had done was research on the fantasy genre, so that became useful because I could build on it and elaborate further. As I was doing research, I realized what I wanted my film's opening to be about and how it wanted to be portrayed. I looked at some film openings for films I love that were in the same genre to have a good reference and sense of inspiration that I could use in my project. Once I knew exactly what I was going to do, It was time to plan everything out. 

When planning, I started with the plot. I developed what the plot for the entire movie would be if I was to film and write it all. As someone who loves creative writing, this was really fun. I also developed the main character, Delilah, which was just as fun. I love creating and developing characters, especially through mediums like Pinterest and Spotify. My favorite part of planning however was creating the mise-en-scene elements in my film opening. Although it was time-consuming, I thought it was so fun to create the little details that don't usually cross people's minds but are essential in making a film what it is. Although I'm upset I never got a response from the music artists I liked with permission to use their song, the song I chose ended up working perfectly with my opening, so I don't regret a thing. I did the screenplay, storyboard, and shot list to finish up my preparations and know exactly what I wanted to do shot by shot, then I was able to film. 

Filming, aside from the rough start, went very well. When I wasn't able to begin filming on the day I anticipated, I'm not going to lie, I panicked. After evaluating my options and dressing the set, I filmed with minimal issues the next day. I was able to finish filming everything in one day which was great because allowed me more time to edit. Editing was a bit different. Editing was a bit more stressful, mostly due to time constraints. I didn't have as much time as I thought. As mentioned in other posts, editing took longer than expected and was the part of the project where I made the most changes. I cut parts of my project down, added more footage to the end, and changed the main effects. I was surprised I changed anything but, I realized through the process that change was important and required for the project to meet certain requirements. 

I loved creating my film opening. It was cool having so much creative liberty over a big project like this and so cool to be able to dictate every single choice that was made. From creating the concept to research to filming to editing, it was awesome. I'll admit, at times working on this project was definitely stressful. Moments that come to my mind are being so busy I barely had time to sleep, filming complications, and editing time, but I was able to overcome all of them and come up with something amazing.