In Search of Serenity

Roles

Video Shooting

Storyboarding

Interview

Video Editing

Staging

Scripting

Tools

Adobe After Effect

Adobe Premiere Pro

Adobe Audition

Type

Team of 3

Date

February - April 2017

Contributions

My role in this film was to communicate and find an intriguing character. On the other hand, I worked on pre-production, storyboard, and narrative as well. Furthermore, I was in the care of filming, lighting, staging, and makeup. In addition, I was involved in editing and color correction.

01 Logline

For New Media Image course in a team of three we made a documentary short film that featured, Phoebe Huang who was a dental assistant leaves her job and hometown to explore her pathways to search for inner serenity and happiness. Making visual contemporary arts, through her personal voyage becomes a vessel to fast forward towards her goal despite the financial challenges she faces after quitting her job. However, how far she has been successful to find self-satisfaction by making artworks?

02 Process

As a team, for this project, we interviewed Phoebe in order to make an engaging narrative for this film. We came up with a script by ordering the answers that she gave to our interview questions. Based on the tale, we went to shoot B-rolls that are related to what she says during the film. Finally, we edited the video and synced the cleaned interview sound.

For making this film, we had to film the interview scene twice. Furthermore, the first interview shot took a full day, and that did not give us enough time to shoot the B-rolls. When we watched the interview shots, we realized that the background is overelaborate and there is an inadequate focus on the character. Also, we understood that she is gazing directly at the camera which isn't ideal for an interview shot and it does not seem natural. Therefore we decided to re-film the interview scene. What was challenging here was that, our actress was only available for two days to perform in our film and so to bypass time-wasting, we micromanaged the pre-production. To do that we met up to discuss, how we can film the interview picture, and what B-rolls we exactly need. My responsibility was to draw the storyboard for the B-rolls. We went early to the filming location to set up the interview background and practice so that by the time she arrives we can start filming.

Another idea that eased us to save time was that we shoot the interview scene in one go, and that preserved enough time for us. After taking a few interview shots, we began filming the B-rolls based on how we planned and sketched. We were able to film a high-quality video in only two days.

03 Outcome

What we achieved after delivering on the project was that we were awarded the best documentary film out of other projects and we were able to get a high mark on that. Also, the film was presented at the FCAT conference 2018 as an influential film.

Takeaway

What I learned from this project was how to make a short film in a short quantity of time especially when the actress is only volunteering to help, and we must respect her time. I acquired that planning the shooting scene and practicing beforehand can help to save so much time during filming and in the post-production process. Furthermore, since this was my first documentary/ interview film, I discovered how to position the interviewee and how to set up the lightning to make the character pop up, and how the character should look at the camera to make it look professional and natural.