The One Word Film project challenged me and my partner to choose a word and express it in a creative way and show its meaning through a short film. The main goal in this project was to represent the word we got and how it feels to experience it. We were told to use different camera shots and angles to create this film and create a mood of the word.
Me and my partner first looked up the definition of our word "fanciful." Which means imaginative, whimsical, or dreamlike. Our approach was to show the dullness of the reality and then the imaginative escape of it. I started with scenes of myself bored in class time moving slow, zoning out, feeling disconnected. Then, the film moves to playful scenes where I’m outside doing cartwheels and handstands with cats on campus, reading to them, and blowing kisses. These scenes showed the whimsical escape my mind takes when reality is boring.
During brainstorming, we thought about different ideas of how we can represent the word fanciful, we thought about what at school can be magical. We included how we should use a black and white filter in the first few scenes to highlight that sense of boredom and then the contrast to the more fun scenes that had a brighter filter.
The storyboard helped us map out the visual flow of the film. We drew each scene step by step and added notes under it so we knew exactly what we were gonna do when we were shooting it. This also helped us plan camera angles and transitions. It also helped us make sure that everything went smooth and we wouldn't have to go back and re film anything.
I utilized Canva to edit this project since it is easy to use and I have experience using it.
What went well in the project was that the cats were cooperating with us and we were able to capture that contrast between boredom, stress and the weight of reality to a fun, playful whimsical feeling. Next time to do better I would incorporate more different types of shots and more camera movement because I feel as that the camera didn't move much throught this project.
