Short Film project

Short Film

Bases Loaded

Thalia Prehoda Blog

What the project was...

        For our video final, my class and I split into groups to make a short story. Our story was about a boy wanting to join the high school baseball team but he wasn't a good player. A baseball player finds him and trains him, but before he could try out he was killed.

My Group

       My group was made up of 5 people, 3 guys, and 2 girls. I was the cinematographer with Blake G., Michael, and Anna. I was in charge of bringing props too. Blake G. was in charge of editing, and Michael was supposed to bring props too, but he became an actor with the rest of us later on.

What went well

        Since this was our first time making a short film, everything went better than we first expected. Some of our shots were creative and the rest were great. Our script was decent but the soundtrack was great as well. Everyone did a great job with as many unfortunate things that occurred in pre-production especially with acting.

What could have gone better

        A lot of things went wrong when we tried to film. The weather wasn't the best since it was raining and windy. We forgot to white balance some of the shots. We also lost some actors, and this made it difficult to meet up after school. At first we were supposed to have a different and longer script, but because Blake had work and the friends that we were going to use as main actors couldn't help, we had to improvise at the last second. The car crash was rushed because the bully couldn't come to school to help us.

What I Learned

      I learned a lot in this final project, especially with timing. A lot that went wrong was because we shot too high with as little time we had. We need to use the school and our baseball field at C-Back to film more. We also needed to get the shots where the other Blake was going to be there first. We needed a mic for the camera to block out the wind, and if we needed to, we could have used voice overs as well. Blake G. taught me a few things in editing. The end shot I would have never though of putting the voice over in it. I also learned not to use text to jump into another day and to use a fade instead.

What I Would Have Done Differently

       I would have made the story more about something that occurs in school. It would have made it easier to start earlier so we would have had more time to film. I would also make sure to check with others about when they think they would be gone and if they have work. White balance wasn't all that great for some shots, so I will make sure to check the white balance all the time before we film just to make sure.