Abbey Heller's Blog

My knowledge of technology has greatly improved during my four years in e-Comm. When I came into e-Comm I knew how to use the basics of Mac products and how to use computers, but now I know so much more. I have learned how to use most of the Adobe programs including Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects as well as Final Cut. But those aren't the only things that I learned about. I also learned how to use different types of cameras like panasonic and canon 60, 70, and 80D cameras. I also now know how to work with audio equipment like the Zoom and different types of mics. Most of this was self taught, but when I didn’t know how to do something I would go and look for a tutorial on youtube or ask a teacher. I got my most experience with the cameras specifically the DSLRs during my junior year because of the Behind the Season: Band Documentary that I made with Mallory MacDonald. I taught myself how to use the DSLRs because I had no experience with them and then all of a

This year I worked as the UPM and Makeup artist while on set. Both of those jobs kept me very busy during our time both on and off set. While in class I worked with Sarah to plan out filming dates and any other thing that she needed help with. That includes helping with schedule breakdowns, call sheets, and assigning jobs to everyone in class so they knew what to do to prepare for our next filming dates. Last year I was also UPM, but this year was very different and more difficult in planning out. I think both Skai and myself did a good job of helping Sarah and Keenan out when they needed us and for planning out filming dates. For Makeup artist I mostly did all my work on set and not very much that was needed outside of that. That includes putting on all the regular beauty makeup and special effects makeup that made the fight scenes really come alive. This year wasn’t as hard as last year when makeup was involved since everything I did this year is the same as what I did last year, bu

This video was the PSA that I made with Mallory, Katie, Olive, Erin and Cyle. It was suppose to be very different from all other PSA's about depression. This project was the first one that I made this year, so it was a little different/hard to get back into the mindset of making a video again. I learned how to work with new people and how to get back to working with people that I haven't worked with in a while. The most challenging thing about making this video was the edit because there were so many ways that you could edit it and every way would make it different. This was my video for the 24 hour film festival that I made with Sarah and Armin. This video was very different from all the over videos that I have made because we were filming all night long and then editing all day. This was a huge challenge because I was working with people I had barely collaborated with before, I worked with actors I didn't know, and I was up most of the night filming it. But this vid

MX4D is an immersion experience that make you feel like you are in the movie you are watching in that theater. Before going to see justice league in MX4D I was interested in it a little bit, but I knew that it would probably be something that I would only see once. The experience didn't meet my expectations just because I thought it was going to be more interesting and immerse me into the movie, but instead it just took my out of it ad made me more focused on the movements and staying in my seat than actually watching the movie.  At first my favorite part of it was the moving of the chairs, but after a while it got hard to stay comfortable i the seats while they were moving. It was also hard to balance yourself so you wouldn't fall out of the chairs. My least favorite part was the strobe lights when the gun shots went off and when the flash ran. I thought these were just too distracting and made it hard to watch the movie because from where I was sitting it looked lik

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GVljtgMx68 This short film was interesting to say the least from the beginning when Tanner stood up and read his treatment for it. I knew almost immediately that I wanted to make it into a short film, but there were a few hurdles that we had to get over before we could actually make it. The first thing was trying to find a location that would let us use it. It was particularly hard to find one because we needed a restaurant preferably after it was closed and we needed to pretty much pour blood all over the place. As you might imagine it didn't go so well with everyone we asked. So we started planning out how we could fix this major problem since our hole idea revolved around using a restaurant setting. The second obstacle that we faced was, naturally, actors. We needed two older people to play the parents, one kid, and about 3-4 other people to play the wait staff and extras to make the restaurant not look empty. So, again, you can see the problem

The concept that was first pitched by Katie was a PSA about depression where someone off screen would ask the question "Can you laugh without smiling?" and the rest of the group loved the idea so much that we just went with it. The preproduction was fairly easy since Katie had a really in depth idea of what she wanted, so she naturally became director and led the rest of the project. Writing the script was the hardest part since we were mostly relying on the reactions of the people we asked and didn't know how they would at first. Thats were editing really came into play because all of us kind of had a different way we wanted to edit it so it was really put up to interpretation towards the end. I filmed some of the people, but since Olive and I started so late that day we didn't get as many people as Mallory or Katie did. Since this was the first project of the year I learned that I'm a little rusty with my camera skills since I haven't used a camera since l