Final Capstone Reflection

¨ The Capstone is a unique and demanding challenge. In completing it, what did you learn
about your subject? Your skill set? Yourself?

For my capstone I created my interpretation of a coming of age film. This was the first time I
made any film on my own. I learned more on all aspects of filming. I had to formulate an idea
on my own with aid from my mentor which helped me learn more about how I create ideas and
what processes I go through in order to create something. I also expanded on my camera
operating skills as I had no one to assist me or double check what I was filming while I was
filming. I learned to be more independant and sure of myself. I devolped skills to look over my
work and self acesss how I did.

¨ How is your project relevant to you, the school or the community-at-large?

My capstone is relevent to me as I wish to to continue on with film in post secondary and for
my career. I have taken video production at the school for the past three years and have grown
to love it. In this project I wished to explore some experimental aspects which currently is my
favourite genre of film. Having free reign to create a story however I like was a great was to be
able to express how I see the world and feel. The story is about a dad and daughter who are
drawn apart as neither of them are happy with their lives, so the take it out on eachother. For
awhile I have been unhappy with my family life but as I get older I’ve started to realize that I
can’t change it and that instead of wishing I need to be grateful.

¨ How did you demonstrate the six Core Competencies throughout this project? (See
attached Core Competency sheet)

I was personally aware throughout the project and demonstarated self determinatation. I had
to motivate myself and be responsible for creating times for myself to complete my work. I
build relationships with my mentor and my actors. I kept the relationships positive by always
being polite and listening to any concerns. Throughout the project I had to assess my progress
by thinking critcically about what I have done and what more I need to do. My capstone
required me to generate many ideas with the materials I had acess to, I had to come up with an
idea for a plot and how and where I would film it. Durring my capstone I would reflect on what I
had done so far, what I did well, and what I needed to improve on in order to keep the project
going and be able to create a final product. My capstone project was a demonstration of my
strengths, I was able to share a story through my vision with my knowledge.

¨ What impact if any did your Capstone project have?

 My capstone impacted on how I see my abilities. Before the capstone I had only created videos
with atleast another person. Now that I have completed a large project on my own I feel more
confident in my ability to complete projects and come up with my own ideas and follow
through with them.

¨ Thinking about the whole process and your finished product, what are you most proud
of?

I am most proud of being able to take my ideas and put them into action. I had very spefific
ideas for some of my shots where I wanted to try something new and difficult. I created a
transition between 2 scenes through the reflection in a mirror. I lined up the angles and had my
actor recreate the same movements in order to make thr transition fluid. I am really proud of it
as I feel it help show what the mind of the main character was going through, going in and out
of her reality.

¨ What was a difficulty you encountered and how did you solve the problem?

I encountered a few struggles with how to visually show my ideas. With the script I created i
often had ideas of visuals in my head at the time but forgot them when it came to creating the
visuals. To fix this I talked to my mentor about my storyboards to see if the visuals would create
a story. He suggested some alterations which I then made. I recreated about half of my
storyboards to tell my story better. I am glad I ran into this issue so I could futher relfect on
what I could improve on to make this project the best I could make it.

¨ What is one thing about your finished project you wish you could change? Why?

I wish I could change how much time I had to film. I didn’t allot myself or my actors much time
for filming which did make some scenes rushed when I should have taken more time to ensure
the quality of them. I also didn’t give my actors enough time to read the script so filming time
had to be dedicated to going over the script and how the lines should be portrayed. If I took
more time for production the overall product would have been better.

¨ What advice would you give to a student who will be completing their Capstone Project
next year?

Advice I would give to someone completing their capstone project next year would be to start
early and know what you want to accomplish. Capstone flies by fairly quickly and if you wait to
start it you’ll soon realize that you won’t have enough time to easily complete the project. Part
of giving yourself enough time is by going into the course with an idea of what to do, of you
start capstone without a general idea of what you want to accomplish you’ll miss out on time
you could spend on working on your project.
 ¨ What source from your research helped you the most? (or least?).

When reasearching for this project I found that ‘Nand, L. (2022). Film text analysis—the
coming-of-age genre, Baz Luhrmann’s production of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
(1996) alias Romeo Juliet and Kate Wood’s “Looking for alibrandi” (2000). OALib, 09(06), 1–14.’
Helped me the most because it provided the mpost detail on the genre I was wanting to use.
The article talked about what makes a coming-of-age film, the typical storylines, how different
props such as mirror can represent self-reflection, and the languge they use in the film.

¨ What is one thing about your approach to your project that you wish you could change?
Why?
¨
In my approach I would have changed how I went about writing the script. I didn’t fill out my
characters before putting them into a script and I didn’t add much detail to my story. Without
complete characters the film lacks some depth and understanding. In the future, before I start
to write a script, I will make sure I have a firm grasp of the story that I want to write and make
whole characters that can be related to and that people can imagine their lives.