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Final Multimodal Project

Check out this mockumentary-style movie I made for my final project!

As I labored over this short film, I was pleasantly surprised to see everything I've learned this term in Writing 8 come together. I got to take all my observations about what constitutes a cohesive, well-done composition, combine that knowledge with the editing skills I've acquired, and end up with one final product.

The road to that final product was a bumpy one. I had promising ideas in mind, yet I struggled to bring those ideas to life. Since I chose to go home for a family member's graduation the weekend before the project was due, I left myself little time to film. I had prepared a general storyboard-type outline. I wrote a loose script. I had strong visions and ambitions. But it was Monday of finals week and difficult to recruit actors. Under high pressure, I ended up shooting all of the scenes in one day. My friend Matthew was incredibly helpful; I cast him as the main character and he had some terrific input. He would stray from the script, coming up with funny lines or doing something ridiculous on the spot, and I think that those candid moments really added to the end product.

Given my limited time and resources, I obviously encountered challenges. For instance, when I sat down to edit the film and played back the scenes I shot outside,  I realized that the audio quality was often compromised by the sound of a lawn-mower I hadn't really noticed while I was filming. I didn't have time to do another round of takes, so the editing process proved exhaustive, working long and hard to remedy what I had. I stayed up all night doing everything in my power make the very best of the limited footage. Considering these hurdles, I think the final product turned out pretty well. I deliberated over the smallest details, from jump cuts to sound effects to even removing unwanted laughter from the background by muting small segments, copying unobtrusive audio from another portion of that segment, and superimposing it onto the problem area of the clip.

All in all, despite the stress and the excruciating editing, I thoroughly enjoyed working with different media to make this little movie. It's got quite a few views on YouTube, which is inspiring. I may just make another!

 

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