Course Reflection

My role in the group was an Actor.I played Jeremy, the main character in our film, "Happy Halloween", whom tried to figure out why he continued to wake up and continue to die each day. The first couple days of actually starting to talk about the project, I believe I contributed a lot of ideas and what could happen after we came up with the idea for Groundhog Day and Halloween. I also continued to add comedic ideas that would, in my opinion, make the movie better throughout the time. I drew the storyboard, although it wasn't really used because we all had a good idea of what we wanted. I made the Alpha Squad introduction and collaborated with Cheese on how to get good, still shots for hallway scenes. He ended up using a lot of tape. Although I did not edit, I tried to give my insights on what we could add in here and there and also a couple of nice camera angles when needed, but I wanted to leave those up to the Cinematographer and the Director. I also brought in some of the important props, such as the camera, tripod, and boxing gloves for the final fight scene.

In this course, I actually learned quite a few tips and tricks that will definitely help in the future. I definitely learned how much doesn't go on in the shot, with everything going on in the background, although this was just the start of it. I learned all of the different types of camera angles, which could be used in different types of situations, especially for important reasons. Transitions are important as well, as you don't want to fade in/fade out every time a scene is done, that will just make it look bad. Watching all of the movies we watched helped us get an idea of what we should be doing for film ideas, with the camera angles especially. I learned how to correctly right a script, which isn't very general and how to pitch a good idea.

I actually believe our group was the most functional and cooperative, who really played their roles out correctly. We completely let our Director, John McDermott, make the final call on everything and let him handle the important decisions. Everyone gave their insights in our group, but he made the final decisions. He also split up half of the editing, the other half went to the Cinematographer, Andrew (Cheese). Cheese filmed mostly all of these scenes, and provided some great camera angles and had no probably retaking the shot if he didn't like it. The editing overall is great, and they did a great job. Will Hunter, an actor, played his role, Michael Myers, very well. He had his signature in the movie as well, the shrug, and gave some good, comedic ideas for Myers during shooting. Colby did the same, giving ideas for us to use throughout editing and filming, as well as making the beautiful poster for us. Overall, we were one of the best groups in my opinion and all cooperative.

I would probably spend a bit more time on a couple of scenes that we didn't have enough time on that was probably a bit important to the plot. That's about all I would really change in our film, as I believe with the effort we put into it we made it the best we could, with the available resources.

I honestly think we budgeted time pretty well, in what you taught us, let us watch, etc. and filming and editing. We were practically finished by Thursday, after being instructed by you and Mr. O'Brien's blogs and watching movies, we had enough time to film and edit and make a very good product, as well as make a poster and a trailer. I like the course the way it is, and would like to be back in the course some time again.