This semester in LIFE (Literature Intensive and Film Experience) we created original short films focusing on themes of Change. The project's title is "Change is Gonna Come" after a song by Sam Cooke. We were given the options of focusing on Change in Social Justice, Personal Change, Change due to COVID-19, or Environmental Change. I chose to go with Change due to COVID, specifically how COVID is affecting student athletes and basketball recruitment. I was inspired by the way the pandemic has affected sports all summer and how if the changes aren’t made, it can affect future college athletics and professional sports.

To write my script, I started by brainstorming abstract concepts, or theme words, that I wanted to focus on. I selected Education, Sacrifice , and Sympathy, and wanted to express the claim to focus on COVID personal and social change because COVID is one of the countries most talked about issues in modern day. I want to educate my audience with personal experiences and experiences of people around the country with COVID. I want people to become a little more educated and more cautious with their actions because it affects everyone. For my script, I chose to write in prose. Drafting the script came pretty easily, as I knew the message that I wanted to get across. We had to make a cross-curricular connection to something that we were currently studying in another class. I chose to draw connections to US History. For History, I included the facts of how America has faced multiple viruses in the past but made it work out so I used the example of Smallpox. I used graphs to compare the times as well .

To create my film, we created storyboards and first planned out 8 original shots to include in the film. Storyboards are kinda like comics or graphic novels, but they are important in pre-production and helped out once I started filming. I can't draw all that well, but used Kami to draw on a pdf. Even though it wasn't super detailed, it did help me think about how I wanted to frame these shots. For initial filming, I recorded my voice over in a separate audio file. I had to do several takes to make sure that it sounded good and my pacing and pronunciation were effective, and I tried to get rid of excess sounds in the background. I also used a score from iMovie to accompany my voice and audio in my film. I then recorded some of my shots in my kitchen, one of which came out good. I got a lot of clips and pictures of protest from my aunt who takes pictures as a side hustle and I even added some clips of my new hobbies after the pandemic hit . I edited the film using iMovie, which I have used before. To get found footage that wasn’t already mine, I found YouTube videos on my computer screen and recorded them with my phone. I tried to keep the pace of my film fast, so most of my shots were less than 10 seconds or so.

Overall, I am really happy with how the film turned out! There are a few shots that I am not crazy about, but most of the footage came out great. I really like my recording of the prose and how many clips came together as they sound great and expressed my position well. The process did teach me a lot about ways that I can express my opinions artistically, and I look forward to learning more about editing and cinematography.