Capstone progress

Working through Capstone this past week has been quite a heavy load as I continue to produce this documentary. I have basically been searching through font types and music in order to see what works best in the final product. I continue to look through the theories brought about in Alexander Cook's The Use and Abuse of Reenactment as it focuses on critiquing how reenactments romanticize nostalgia and help us to understand a different kind of culture. I've been able to work through the footage better with an outline in hand as my director suggested it to me. I've learned how to merge several sequences into a master sequence as many tapes had been logged in separate areas. I am not a master of Final Cut Pro, but I will say that working on this has helped me in becoming better at three point editing software.

Battle of Sunken Road (Bloody Lane) Reenacted

As I have mentioned before, video editing is a very time consuming task. I've spent hours simply trying to pick out certain shots over others. The trick is finding what is relevant to the research I have in hand. I'm learning a great deal about which kind of dissolves might work over others for particular kinds of films. A consistent use of dissolves can be what makes or breaks video through edits. I have a lot of battle footage that I'll be using. Underneath the footage will be Civil War music that I've recently discovered for free. Some of the raw sound bytes that I have from the event itself will also be used as some is in fact music while other is ambient. I cannot stress how important ambient noise does for a project such as this. It's elements such as raw sound bytes that make can bring a documentary film to life.

I'm really focused on what the viewer will think as this project is intended to be for every audience.  This upcoming week is going to be very strenuous as my presentation to the faculty is coming up very soon. I really need to have some kind of copy of this completed for them by next Monday, March 4th. I'm curious to see what they will think of it as I am expected to represent the Communication Department professionally.

Advancing forward in Capstone

As my Capstone project progresses, I find myself learning more and more each time I look at the content. Discovering how the art of reenactments romanticize nostalgia, glorify wartime, and  improve our understanding of their world has been a very interesting task in itself. So far I have some clips that I really believe fit the theme. This past week, my director Jason and I discussed creating an outline as opposed to only an AV script to aid me in my research. We also discussed what Motion Graphics could do for me in using a specific civil war themed font in order to fit the atmosphere of the film.

My director encouraged me to keep with the documentary idea instead of switching to a trailer. The film may not be as long as I originally intended it to, but I believe that I will still be able to produce something great (even if it is only 5 or 10 minutes long). Creating an outline makes the process a lot more manageable and understandable as I will have a beginning, middle, and end theme to work around. Among the raw sound bytes that I have from recording the event, I have also discovered some free Civil War music to use as background. Having an outline in mind really helps my artistic vision of where this film will go and the journey it may take the viewer on. I'm really excited about putting everything together and running through a few decent cuts of the film once I finish my editing process.

Though it has been a challenging journey so far, I am very proud of what this project is becoming. I never thought I'd be able to bring across communication theory as effective as I plan to. Even through just scrubbing through the footage that I have, I found so many ideas that I can stream off of and use in the actual video. I've been learning a lot just by fooling around with Final Cut Pro a little bit more. I feel that a consistent use of cross dissolves in between sequences will make a difference. Although it may not be a 20 minute film, I believe that this project will be very informative as well as unique in context.

Capstone progress

The whole reason why reenactment is an interesting representational form is because it is a performance that is conceived by invoking a supposedly closer simulation of past realities than other forms can offer. It ambiguously appears to be closing off the past which suggests that the representation is how it was in real life. In attending this reenactment, I found myself questioning whether the exercise of attending one can help to improve our understanding of a different world and the behavior of its inhabitants. As Alexander cook suggests, there are ways of exploiting the genre to provide something of value for both participants and audience. For the fore-seeable future, reenactment is here to stay as a form of public history.

As I have learned within my college career, time is a crucial factor in being able to produce a clearly convincing video project. I've continued researching and working on my AV script. I've broken it down to a few approaches to this documentary. I know that if I cant produce it on time, I may have to make a really good trailer for it. That being said, I'm not sure that there will be enough time to produce a full on documentary film without the appropriate amount of time to edit through a couple of cuts. As this is a learning experience, I've still been messing around with Final Cut Pro to edit through the footage that I do have. I've found that I might be better off by simply making a 5 minute trailer that will bring together all of the components that I've mentioned above. I still believe that I will be able to bring across my ideas effectively, it will just be a shorter video.

Although the video may not be as long as I intended, I still believe it will make a really nice Capstone project as good trailers still represent good student work. I plan on discussing this with my advisor during this week so that I can keep on track. I feel that I can make a trailer project work a lot more effectively as I am still brushing up on some of my editing skills. The most difficult part has been the fact that I have so much footage to go through and track which shots will work best in one sequence to the next. I'm trying to keep myself up to date on the progress schedule that I made earlier. If time allows, I'd love to incorporate some graphics from Adobe After Effects into the titles. It's surprising how quickly an idea can change from one thing to the next. Again, I believe it is more reasonable to create a really good project instead of either something that looks mediocre. This week I will be finishing up the VA script and continuing to edit through the footage.

Onward

So far, I've really enjoyed discovering shots that I may not have noticed while actually shooting this documentary footage. I've basically been running through the footage tape by tape while continuing to research various concepts and ideas relative to cultural communication. This past week, I met with my advisor, Jason McKahan to discuss my progress with the project so far. We discussed the origins of creating a VA script, and the necessary elements to how it will work with a documentary film. I'll be using a Celtx VA script template in order to complete this variable.

I recently was assigned to create a schedule that I turned in this past Tuesday. I am still trying to figure out the whole Gannt chart scheduling process, so I just went with creating a Word document that lays out a weekly schedule. This will benefit both myself and my advisor in seeing which points in time certain deliverables may be due. I will be able to complete things much easier this way as it allows me to complete tasks at certain intervals. At this point, I am just working to pull in various ideas and theories in coordinance to my research. The challenge will be selecting the correct footage to match the voice over and overall idea of the project. Jason and I also discussed the necessity of including a basic log sheet as it will guide one through time intervals and points within the fully completed video.

Reviewing Final Cut Pro has been very strenuous and time consuming so far. I'm fairly comfortable with the basics (as I've edited with it before; but this project is definitely going to need a good amount of attention between editing audio and video transitions. During the meeting, my advisor (Jason), brought up an episode of The Cleveland Show which features a comedic approach to how America (as a diverse nation) perceive cultural events such as reenactments. It was interesting to watch the episode, so I am considering including a scene from it in order to illustrate some ideas. Even so, this merely serves as a portion of the research I have constructed. I am still working to find exactly what it is that I really want my audience to see in this documentary. I think that the most difficult thing so far has been trying to get it to a point where it will relate to more than a few kinds of audiences.