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Melanie Herrera

Mrs. Lazarski

Video Production 3

16 December 2020

Self-Reflection Paper

My initial idea for my pitch has changed a very good amount from what my video

concept is now. My pitch was a documentary film based on Colombian culture and personal

stories of Colombians’ experiences. It resulted in becoming more of an interview with

Colombian-natives comparing life in the U.S. compared to Colombia. The format of the

storytelling aspect of the film stayed the same, but as for the actual subject of the video, it was

changed. The main reasoning for most of the change was realizing how much of my

documentary included a lot of copyright content. Thanks to the lesson in class, I know what I can

and cannot use, and how to give credit as well.

The pre-production stage includes brainstorming, creating a script, storyboard, cast

actors, creating a budget if needed, and creating a shooting schedule. My pre-production phase

went pretty smooth. Coming up with the concept at first was hard to think of, since we were all

limited to what we wanted to film due to COVID. The advice of “film what you’re passionate or

have knowledge on” definitely helped me come up with my concept. I had many other ideas in

mind, but the constant limitation to what I was able to film felt like it was weighing me down,
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but I decided to look around and realize and use what I always had available, my family. I know

if I would’ve filmed with people outside my home, it would’ve slowed down my process for

sure, and cause issues due to availability and social distancing. As for paper work, I was familiar

with storyboards and scripts, but never properly understood how to form them until this project.

The production phase consists of shooting and capturing the film. My production phase

was very interesting for the most part. It was hard to film my parents since they have very

different schedules and I also had my soccer season going on, but we still made it work. Luckily,

I ran into no problems other than the issue of scheduling. The biggest “uh oh” was when I

wanted to re-film some shots, my family and I were all put into quarantine for nearly a month,

making it harder to progress with the film. Deadlines were getting closer, so I had to improvise

with what was available to me.

The post-production phase consists of editing and cutting footage, color grading, audio

mixing, adding visual or audios effects, graphics, and animations. My post-production phase

came, and the issues I had was being a bit unfamiliar to my editing software. I was editing on my

phone, so the transferring of clips from Video Blocks on my Chromebook to my phone was a

long process, but like always I powered through. Other than that, I played around and did a bit

“adventuring” on my own with the editing app and finally got to my final product. This phase

was probably the easiest for me.

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My favorite part of the production process was definitely post-production. To begin, this

phase officially marks the beginning of the end. I was curious to see how my film would piece

altogether, and see if it really rose from the circumstances as I had expected. It is also my

favorite part of the production process, because I enjoy editing. In my opinion, I believe editing

and filming is vital to really piecing together a film, but editing is my expertise. Editing is always

a never-ending learning experience, and every time you edit, you improve your editing skills.

My personal strengths are my perseverance and motivation to get my work done right

away. Despite my issues with quarantine, more than ever, I really pushed myself to get this film

finished. Patience was starting to run low, but I really wanted to create the best project possible,

even with all of my circumstances holding me back. My weaknesses regarding this project was

my loss of vision (for my hook). Mid-way into my project, my vision was dimming low

(figuratively) and I felt like I had hit a dead end. My struggles were getting into my head, and I

was losing the drive I had for this project. My two suggestions to improve myself is for when

I’m in the brainstorming stage, to use people who are available, and also to try something new

(as I did with this project). Getting out of my comfort zone, is what I know will help me improve

myself in this class.

Although my film underwent changes as for its main hook, I believe it still stayed true to

the target audience. The genre as well remained to be a documentary, but more opinionated than

historically based as I had originally planned. The target audience remained the same, involving

both young adults and adults in general. My video didn’t transfer the way I had envision, in some
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aspects. My original vision was history based, but my new concept became more opinionated

and my characters were more involved in my film than expected.