Self-Portrait Response

The self-portrait assignment was quite a learning experience for me. I haven’t worked on a lot of film projects completely by myself, and while I liked working by myself on my own schedule doing exactly what I wanted with the film, it was challenging in some ways. I realized first that I really am not very good with a camera. I struggled with getting the right settings, f-stop, and focus for the shots that I wanted, and it was difficult making the images in my head a reality. I definitely felt like I did some things right though. I think my lighting conveyed the mood I was trying to create, even if the picture didn’t look great. I also did a good job planning every single one of my shots before I even picked up my camera, which helped me minimize the amount of time I actually spent shooting so that I wasn’t wasting time going back and forth between locations and camera setups. I also realized that I really, really like sound design, and I spent way too much time playing with the sound design in this short film, but at least I had fun while I was doing it. I’m tempted to make my own sonic self-portrait now, because this project gave me a lot of good ideas for a self-portrait that consists of only a soundscape instead a soundscape and images working together. I also had a lot of fun editing my project together, and I learned a lot while doing so because I spent so much time experimenting with different effects. I do need to work on my color correction skills a bit though. Overall, this project was fun and insightful for me as a filmmaker and an individual, and it only reinforced my love of sound design and editing.