Camera Shots Quiz!

 For our first AICE Media Quiz, me and my partner were asked to create a 15-shot project based on what we had learned about camera angles and types of shots. We had to select one or two inanimate objects and bring them to life, while also having human characters in the story. We were given 10 shots that we must include and were also given the creativity to include 5 shots of our choosing.

In coming up with an idea, I like to look through silly stuff I've watched on the internet, and refine what I find into a more doable idea. In this case, me and my partner were brainstorming, and while looking online, I remembered a short clip from the Reality show "Dance Moms" that went viral a couple of years ago. In the clip, Dr. Holly, upset that her daughter was not there to perform, screams at a chair, yelling "Empty Chair, do a Solo!" While we dismissed the video as silly at first, we later revisited it and decided to center our story around a chair that keeps moving away every time someone tries sitting on it. For the big climactic moment, the chair rolls away from the room, passing a student, out to freedom.

After finalizing our concept and shot list, we began production. Due to time constraints during class, we completed our quiz the following day. Lucky for us, we stayed at school promoting our club for an extended time at the open house. We took advantage of our free time after the event to film our quiz.

A big part of our quiz was the edits made during post-production. It's hard to simulate something moving very fast on a still photo, so we added motion blur to the chair in Adobe Photoshop. By using motion blur in post-production, we were able to create the effect of the chair moving very quickly, when in most shots, it wasn't moving at all. In order to have an extra layer of control over the final look, we also used the iPhone's "ProRAW" feature to be able to better color correct the photos in post-production.

Adding motion blur on the chair as it rolls away from the guy.

I think we did well on the project regarding the creation of the idea and the post-production process. However, I think I could improve on the actual story in the future. We might have focused too much on the human characters and not as much on the chair, and in the future I wish to have better time management so we can have ample time to record our project.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IGFz4hnrfm1rGb9YmEQxS8ytmjUnH4WK/view?usp=sharing