Last week was insane. Me and a team of 4 other guys made 19 videos in 5 days. I worked 83 hours and probably did more video work in one week than I have in a year. I loved every minute of it. We made funny videos, we made a series, we made highlight videos from every day, and we made time-lapse/stop-motion videos.
I like to view my life like an RPG video game. It's always good to level up. It's always good to upgrade your equipment and knowledge. But the higher level you get, the more XP is required to level up. It's been getting harder to level up lately, but last week I leveled up...several times.
First of all, I learned to delegate. Usually I'm pretty much a lone wolf when it comes to video, but in order to get 19 videos done in 5 days...I had to delegate. Luckily, I had a spectacular media team around me, and they always exceeded my expectations whenever I trusted them to do anything. I hope I can get back the exact same media team next year.
Secondly, it was amazing to see how much can be accomplished in a week with video when me and 4 other guys put our minds to it. Some of the videos we made, especially the ones with Micah's D7000...were pretty stinking awesome. Seriously, I'm not just talking about the quality of the video in the purest sense of the word, I'm talking about the fact that these videos are just as good, if not better, than anything I've ever made before. And we made them all in 12 hours or less! That was all the time we had. There were a couple times when we maybe wanted to color correct better or add something else, but since we were in a time-crunch we could not. But I haven't heard a single person say "Hmm, that video would have been better if..." I have asked for a lot of constructive criticism. I have compared the videos we made last week in a very short amount of time to videos I've made in a longer amount of time, and they stand firm as great videos that are awesome the way they are.
Once again I was reminded why video is my passion. It's the whole process, from beginning to end. You start with an idea and a "oh that would be funny!" thought. Followed by going out and filming the ideas you had and then maybe coming up with more funny ideas as you film, importing the footage to see that some stuff worked even better than expected while other stuff might not make the final cut, editing the footage, adding music, color correcting, fixing errors in filming so that no one would ever know that there was a mistake in the first place, and then finally exporting the video and showing it to an audience. We did that process many times last week from beginning to end in a short time, and we showed our work to an audience of about 200 people twice each day. Normally that process spans over a few weeks and the pure joy of it can get lost because it's so spread out. However, last week it was video after video after video- so much that it was overwhelming at times. But the joy of creating videos and the high that comes with that was non-stop. I can't wait for next year! Thanks be to God for giving us the creativity and strength to do what we did last week. He created us, we created 19 videos. He gets the glory.
Below is our Media Team intro video that we made for the first chapel. There is an annotation on the bottom of the video that will take you to a playlist with the rest of our videos that week. Enjoy!
Stuff I learned from making "I Am Facebook Legend"
Last time I posted I talked about producing I AM FACEBOOK LEGEND. The end result was very pleasing. Throughout the process I learned so much. I learned more about color correction in two weeks time than I did in my entire life. My favorite scene by far is the warehouse scene. The natural lighting in there was spectacular, and I would love to film again there in the future.
This video had about 13 audio layers. Needless to say, that made it easily the most complicated video that I've ever made from an audio perspective. Thanks to some great products from http://www.videocopilot.net (Pro Scores and Designer Sound FX), I was really able to make the audio reach a professional level. I also pulled sound effects from a few other websites with free sound effects and royalty free music (freesound.org, soundsnap.com, incompetech.com). Many people made positive comments on things like the color correction, cinematography, the acting...ect, but to me the audio is easily the best and most professional part of the finished video, and is also what makes the video good in my opinion.
My computer is pretty fast, but it has its limits and I Am Facebook Legend pushed it to that limit. By the end of editing, I was pretty sure my computer was going to just explode into a giant fireball.
I had to stabalize a few shots with after effects. Even though I am still light years away from understanding that program or comprehending its limits, it was good to get my feet wet in it.
Above all, I learned a lot about myself through this project. I learned that if I am ever going to do a "short film" again, I don't want to burden so much of, and I want to delegate some of the project to my very talented friends. For this video I directed, filmed, edited, and produced. I thought it would be good to put a deadline on the video, so I released the trailer and gave myself two weeks. However, in the future if it is just me editing and producing the video, I think I will be more realistic with myself...because after I released the trailer I basically spent every waking minute of free time working on the video. I wasn't getting good sleep, I wasn't exercising, and I wasn't spending much time with my family. It was not the ideal situation. This all goes back to me delegating next time or not putting a deadline on it if it is just me.
However, all that said, I would love to do another short film like this again. Finding the time for it is the greatest hurdle. After that, with my friends' help, we could do just about anything! Especially since next time we would use even nicer cameras and equipment. We filmed this with the Canon HV40, and that camera does a pretty decent job. However, to really achieve that true film look, you need more than just great quality. I think great depth of field is such a huge component to that, and that's why in the future I want to start using DSLR cameras as much as possible.
In the end, this is the first video I have ever done that I feel (kind of) comfortable with calling a "short film." Even though there are thousands upon thousands of short films out there that are better, but this was definitely a positive step. I love challenging myself as I try to perfect the art of film making. I have a long ways to go, but this was a lot of fun, and as I said at the top, I'm very happy with how the finished video turned out.
This video had about 13 audio layers. Needless to say, that made it easily the most complicated video that I've ever made from an audio perspective. Thanks to some great products from http://www.videocopilot.net (Pro Scores and Designer Sound FX), I was really able to make the audio reach a professional level. I also pulled sound effects from a few other websites with free sound effects and royalty free music (freesound.org, soundsnap.com, incompetech.com). Many people made positive comments on things like the color correction, cinematography, the acting...ect, but to me the audio is easily the best and most professional part of the finished video, and is also what makes the video good in my opinion.
My computer is pretty fast, but it has its limits and I Am Facebook Legend pushed it to that limit. By the end of editing, I was pretty sure my computer was going to just explode into a giant fireball.
I had to stabalize a few shots with after effects. Even though I am still light years away from understanding that program or comprehending its limits, it was good to get my feet wet in it.
Above all, I learned a lot about myself through this project. I learned that if I am ever going to do a "short film" again, I don't want to burden so much of, and I want to delegate some of the project to my very talented friends. For this video I directed, filmed, edited, and produced. I thought it would be good to put a deadline on the video, so I released the trailer and gave myself two weeks. However, in the future if it is just me editing and producing the video, I think I will be more realistic with myself...because after I released the trailer I basically spent every waking minute of free time working on the video. I wasn't getting good sleep, I wasn't exercising, and I wasn't spending much time with my family. It was not the ideal situation. This all goes back to me delegating next time or not putting a deadline on it if it is just me.
However, all that said, I would love to do another short film like this again. Finding the time for it is the greatest hurdle. After that, with my friends' help, we could do just about anything! Especially since next time we would use even nicer cameras and equipment. We filmed this with the Canon HV40, and that camera does a pretty decent job. However, to really achieve that true film look, you need more than just great quality. I think great depth of field is such a huge component to that, and that's why in the future I want to start using DSLR cameras as much as possible.
In the end, this is the first video I have ever done that I feel (kind of) comfortable with calling a "short film." Even though there are thousands upon thousands of short films out there that are better, but this was definitely a positive step. I love challenging myself as I try to perfect the art of film making. I have a long ways to go, but this was a lot of fun, and as I said at the top, I'm very happy with how the finished video turned out.
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