Weekly updates on the production of Aigen: One Man’s War

Week 15! This week is the final week of classes, with the final projects due by the end of this week. Olivia and I are in the process of trying to finish up some finishing touches regarding the feedback that we were given, software permitting. Olivia’s editing software has been acting up, and not allowing to view or edit anything at the current moment. So, hopefully we can get that figured out before the final piece is due. On Wednesday, our projects are due before the beginning of class so that we can watch them as a class. Everything, including our final projects, are due by the end of the week in order to be graded in time for the end of the semester.

Week 14! We are 2 weeks out from finals week, and 3 weeks out from the end of the semester all together. This past week, Olivia and I completed both the making of/behind-the-scenes and preview for Aigen: One Man’s War. We have submitted those both to be looked over for critiques. Once they are reviewed and sent back to us, we will make corrections or changes that are deemed as necessary. Once we do so, we will resubmit them as our final pieces. This week, hopefully having heard back, we will focus on making these changes and corrections. Besides that, we are pretty much finished with everything that we are aware of for this course.

To be completely honest, I don’t know exactly which week this is, but I believe it is week 13. We have 3 weeks left before we head on into final weeks and before all of this is due. Olivia and I are thankfully making really great progress on our piece. We are almost completely finished with it all. We are hoping to be done with both aspects of our Capstone project by the end of this week. We have a few more sections of the BTS piece to go through and add more B-Roll to, and then after that it is fine tuning on a few parts of that. As for the preview goes, we are working out a few more parts of that and that will be done and ready to turn in. Seeing as Olivia and I are almost done, there’s really not too much left to say regarding what we have to do with the remainder of this project, other than it is almost completed and we will be ready to turn it in shortly.

Week 11. This week, we are once again working from home, or distance learning. This past weekend, Olivia and I turned in our Assembly Cut, which is essentially just putting things onto the editing timeline in the order they are supposed to go in, as well as inserting our B-Roll where it is needed in order to enhance the story. This week, our focus is on putting together our rough cut which will help push us towards our final cut. The 7-minute preview aspect of this project is almost completed, we are just waiting on a few minor details from John Brown in order to help us complete the preview As for the making of/Behind-the-Scenes part of our project, all that is left to do there is animate our still pictures where needed, and fill in a couple more gaps that remain, and fix the audio in certain areas where it either peaks or is too low. The final aspect of that piece is to put together an introduction.

Week 12? Well technically speaking, this is week 11, however due to the current crisis happening around the world, we lost a week of instruction, therefore making this week 10. This week, and from here on out, we will be meeting for class online via Microsoft Teams at our regularly scheduled class time. We will meet for a bit as a class as a whole, then eventually break off and have individual meeting times with our professor. As for our project itself, Olivia and I are scheduled to carry on as originally planned. We have the rough cut of John’s interview put together. Our main focus at the current moment is to go through the footage we have, and pull the appropriate B-Roll accordingly. Today, Monday March 30, Olivia and I were able to pull the majority of the B-Roll that we would need. On Wednesday, our plan is to go through that and drop it in where it is needed, in order to help tell and further the interview of John. After we finish B-Roll, our plan is to go in and focus on touching up the audio in certain places where it needs to be fixed. Other than that, all we’ll have left to do with this making of/BTS piece is to create the introduction to the piece, and possibly a simple outro. In addition to that, we are almost completed with the 7-minute preview piece for the documentary itself.

Week 9. This week, Olivia and I focused on drafting up an assembly cut of the making of/behind-the-scenes part for Aigen: One Man’s War. We took all of the clips from John’s interview, scrubbed the footage, marked where things were, and then took those pieces and created a rundown of sorts for how we wanted these things to flow. We spent about 4 hours piecing the interview itself together. The assembly cut of the interview is finished. For the time being, Olivia and I are focusing on going through and figuring out what kind of B-Roll footage that we will need. We have begun compiling a folder full of videos and pictures that we will use, however, we are still waiting on some pieces from John and Levi. Olivia and I will meet with John sometime this week to show him the updated progress of the piece, as well as to gather some additional B-Roll from him. Once this part of the piece is done, Olivia and I will then begin working on the film preview aspect. In our meeting with John, we will discuss the certain parts of the film that he wants highlighted within the preview.

Week 8! We are officially at the halfway point of the semester. This past week, we ran into some changes. We are no longer taking on the 22-minute preview as we had originally planned. Instead, Olivia and I will be piecing together a 5-minute preview, as well as a behind-the-scenes, making of Aigen: One Man’s War. For the making of, we have already had the chance to sit down with the Director, John Brown and speak with him regarding the project. We had a list of things and ideas that we asked him. Of these, he discussed the beginnings of the project and how it came to be, what is already completed of the project, and where the project is going next. Additionally, John took the time to discuss the processes and the places that he has had to go through and to in order to gather material for the documentary. This particular part of the making of/behind-the-scenes can be beneficial to up and coming, or already established documentarians. As a mass media student, and someone who is pursuing a career in the industry, hearing John talk about things like utilizing the free resources that you have available to you will help you out in the long run regarding your project. They may not be the immediate results that you are searching for, but if you take the time to dig and look for things, you will find them.

Week 7! We are quickly approaching the halfway point of this semester. The project is finally in full swing with us going places, filming footage, and then throwing things on the editing timeline to start piecing our project together. This past weekend, Olivia and I, as well as John and Levi went to Mt. Dora to the WWII event that they held there. We spent about eight hours there going around, speaking to people, and filming things that we will use in the documentary and our preview. We were able to gather a bunch of footage of WWII artillery tanks, artifacts, and the re-enactment that they put on for the masses. This upcoming week, Olivia and I are finally starting to throw things onto the timeline. We have gathered a few aspects of our B-roll that we will be using, and are beginning to piece that together. Additionally, we will be traveling to John’s house and office this week to sit down with him and film some stuff with him. We will be sitting down and talking to him about this project, and how it came to be, where it is now, and what is to come next. We will be using this interview piece as the main backbone of our preview for this class. As always, Olivia and I will continue to spend time this week going through the footage that we already have, and continue watching and logging it. We have a ton of footage to still go through, but our main focus will be going through and logging the footage of George and all of his stories.

Week 6! This week is all about scrubbing footage. Olivia and I have cracked down and have been digging deep into the footage and gathering the pieces that we need for our 22-minute preview. We have gone back and reviewed the rough cut of the preview that John had already put together. From that, we have began piecing together the pieces and aspects that we will have in the preview. The main footage that we are focusing on is the interview footage of George. There are certain aspects from each episode that we would like to have highlighted in the preview. Some of which include George’s drafting and enlistment, his engineer training, some of his time in France and Germany, and ending with a glimpse into his time at Dachau. Olivia and I will be spending the majority of this week focusing solely on scrubbing the footage, and marking where these pieces are, and what parts of these stories that we want to use. In addition to scrubbing, we are taking our trip to Florida this weekend to go that World War II event to film. John and Levi will be heading down Friday morning/afternoon to scout out where everything that we need to get will be and figure out production set-ups. Olivia and I will be heading down Friday night, and get there late, probably closer to 11:00pm. Saturday, we will all get up early and head to the event before it starts so that we can go ahead and get things set up and ready to film the truck. After we get the truck in the morning, we will continue to walk around the event and film other things that may be of use. Then, in the afternoon, we will set up and film their first re-enactment of the event. Once that is done, Olivia and I will head back home that evening. We will spend the rest of the weekend continuing to scrub footage, and prepare for the next week that is coming up.

Week 5! This week was all about wrapping up our pre-production process for the documentary. Last week, we submitted pre-production documents and other paperwork as part of our weekly submissions. This week, each group met individually with our professor to discuss the papers that we had submitted. We explained what we filled out, why we filled it out, and whether or not we were missing any additional paperwork. After we met, we were asked to go back, review, and revise any parts of the paperwork that needed it. Olivia and I went back into our paperwork and revised our image system, a series of images that are used to set the tone and the look of the piece of work. Because we are already so far ahead in the process, due to the nature of our project, we were able to go through some of the footage that we already have and screenshot certain images from them and create our image board from that. We focused on the shots and the looks of the interviews that we have, as well as some of the shots that will be used for B-roll. Additionally, Olivia and I sat down and mapped out our final production schedule. We will be heading to Mt. Dora next weekend with John and Levi to gather footage of the WWII demonstration that they are holding. There, we will shoot footage of some WWII vehicles, as well as the re-enactments that they stage. We will be in Mt. Dora all weekend, February 21-23. As far as the rest of our schedule goes, Olivia and I have come to the conclusion that we will have our final cut completed by the beginning of April. After it is finished, we will be responsible with location scouting a place to hold a public viewing of our finished piece. We hope to have that shown before the first week of May. This week, we will continue to scrub footage, and plan out the order of our 22-minute preview that we are putting together.