For our One Word Film Project, we were challenged to pick a random single word from a cup and bring it to life through a short film that relied on visuals and editing rather than narration, and I picked up the word “serious.” During brainstorming, I thought about times when being serious matters most, and a test setting instantly came to mind, so I sketched out ideas on my brainstorming sheet and built a storyboard that helped me pre-visualize the flow of the story before filming. In my film, two boys walk into a classroom during a major test worth 80% of their grade: one is prepared and serious, the other is unserious and unprepared. The serious student quickly begins working through the problems with confidence, while the unserious student stares blankly, full of confusion and regret for not studying. Using my storyboard as a guide, I shot each scene to highlight their contrast and then used Adobe Express to edit the footage, keeping the serious student’s shots steady and clean while making the unserious student’s shots feel more frantic to match his stress. At the climax, the unserious student taps on the serious student’s desk and tries to cheat, but the serious student refuses, finishing and submitting his test while the other is left behind with nothing completed. Looking back, I think we did a good job making the contrast between the two characters clear and making sure my storyboard matched the final product, but next time I would like to work on adding more dynamic camera angles and smoother transitions to make the film even stronger.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BjqDpl1vGTUlALAA4migzUh1FUziHZ50/view?usp=sharing
