MY FINAL MAJOR PROJECT: BLADE RUNNER 2049 VIDEO ESSAY

FMP Evaluation: 

For the final Major Project, the theme was to do with “Change”. And I had decided, since it was to do with change, this would be the opportunity and choice to do a Video Essay. The reason I chose to do a Video Essay is because I was fascinated with deeper exploration of context behind Film Media and what it was trying to convey and tell towards the audience. I picked the film Blade Runner 2049 as part of my Video essay for my Final Major Project because the film heavily explores and reflects upon about understanding what it is like to be human and exploring what it is like to change and to also understand what it is like to show human emotion throughout the film. 

Research: 

When starting the research, I knew that I could not just simply find everything out of nowhere. I had to use my skills and knowledge in terms of research to find and use resources that would help me create my video essay.  I firstly had done some research first on the Film Blade Runner 2049 by understanding the much deeper layer of what the whole purpose of the story was and how the theme “change” was heavily involved. The process for this was quite easy considering how to create the video essay, prior knowledge of the film was needed. And though prior knowledge was needed, I went ahead to do more to help me develop and gain more proper knowledge of the film. And then I proceeded to do research on video essays, through video essays I was able to understand what they’re used for and how for my final major project I was able to use that knowledge to move onto creating the video essay. A problem that was faced during research was not including any visuals as part of my feedback that was given to me by my tutor, I went through the research and context and overall, it was solved and made it more interesting.  

Process and Production: 

For production, the way I was going to start creating the video essay was working on a script and a shot list. The script was important because in order to speak about the film Blade Runner 2049 in the video essay, I had to make sure it was structured well and in order and to also speak about the specific parts, the purpose of the film and how its theme is to do with “change” in the story.  I also used a shot list to help me see in order what clips I had to use in terms of editing and to also link it up with the script.  using equipment was one of the important parts in production as I needed it to record audio and speak what is said in the script and to add that as a visual to the editing. The audio part was a problem as during the editing and watching through the video, I noticed that the audio level was not correct.  to fix this, I had to research and look for what is the right suitable dB level of audio and change that up so that it is in the same place as the rest of the audio. But then following that, it still had not fixed my problem. So as a final decision, I decided to re-record my audio and use that as a replacement for the editing/ the final exported video. 

A second problem I had faced was decision making on where the video would be uploaded onto. At first, the plan was to use a platform such as YouTube. However, at the end, I had decided to upload It onto my website as it was more suitable and better to represent my work of the video essay. 

Conclusion: 

As a conclusion to my Final Major project, I had followed what the original plan was at the beginning which was following the Final Major project theme “Change” and the plan of creating my Blade Runner 2049 Video Essay to explain the establishment of human emotion and the process of change in the film.  and though despite problems that were faced which was during production, this had helped me move on during my journey and to expand upon my skills and understanding to do with video editing and more to do with what I had to include, such as the research and context, production and self-reflection.