First Thoughts

I've always liked watching movies, and recently I've been thinking of all of the hard work that goes behind making a movie. I feel like there is a lot to learn from this class about the basics and techniques of making a complete film.

I am familiar with the films that come from Hollywood and the Indian Cinema, also known as Bollywood. I think I am more familiar with the actors and directors from India more than Hollywood. Watching a movie seems to be the simplest task, and many times you sometimes even change a slight bit once you've seen a movie. I personally don't realize what makes someone a good actor or bad, for me the story is first most important and then comes the casting. I think reasonably everyone do great work, being in the film industry, except for a select few people who I believe have the acting capability but do not deserve all of the fame they tend to get. But this is all from a Bollywood watcher's perspective, of course.

This winter break, I got the chance to be a part of a little short film we made in our community to present at the annual New Year's Party. This was when I realized that the actors are merely puppet dolls, its the camera man, the director, the editor, the writer, the story-teller, the props manager, and the list can go on who do the important work. The actor merely is told about the scene, their lines and then Bam! they act it out! And that is all they do, but then again some actors do deserve credit, there are actors who really try to study their character they are playing and try to be a new person each time a new movie is being made. For this short film that we made, I found myself having to direct people and tell them what their lines are, and later I realized that someone had to do this job for some sanity to remain during the time we were recording all of the scenes, and me and this other girl helping to direct each scene helped everything to go faster. Overall, it was a great learning experience, and I didn't even connect this experience with the fact that my class this semester would have any correlation with actually making a film.

The first class in general was really fun, I wasn't bored any minute of it. Although it did get kind of uncomfortable for sitting around for so long, but the breaks were very timely. I was really fascinated by how everything really started. In hindsight, the concept seems quite simple, especially because even our phones are capable of video recording these days. Technology has grown so much, that people find life impossible without a cellular device. Perhaps the discovery of the picture in motion becomes even more significant and amazing. I was also amazed by the amusement (I don't know if that is the right word?) that people found in the segment from How I Met Your Mother about Suits, probably because the entire situation seemed normal to me being Bollywood influenced. Each movie usually has at least three or four songs, sometimes the song is how movies are recognized, and sometimes the songs are the only thing good in the movies. But the fact that Donna brought up how much work and effort goes for segments like that made me wonder how much more burden it seems the Bollywood Industry has, they have to have a good story and good songs. Another thing that amazed me was when Donna mentioned about the fact that the extra people in a scene, people casually walking in front of the camera, that was all thought and planned out before. Even the extra people make a significant difference to a scene and the overall effect of the movie on the end, before it was the natural movies that fascinated people, and I believe we have gotten to the point where we like to see movies that are looking as real as possible and those movies which have characters with whom we can relate to often.

Overall, I'm excited about what I will learn in this class, and really excited about making a short film also, and learning how to edit videos. I've always wondered how the people on youtube make such great edited videos, the best I've made is one with pictures!..