the end of my digital days :]

Heya super awesome blog readers! As you all may know, this project is beginning to come to an end! Time has never seriously flown by like it did for me these past few months, it was a little scary just how quick everything was. Now it's suddenly time to reflect! Even though we're not completely done yet it's definitely well worth to just take a breath and look back on everything that happened for this project. My journey, even if it went by fast, was truly a significant one and I have a lot of things to say :] So sit back, relax, and enjoy one of my last couple posts on this blog :]

THE END OF MY DIGITAL DAYS

I am definitely NOT the same person I was when I first started this project back in late February. I have grown, I have changed, and I have learned a couple new things that I'll take away for a very long time.

 My experience with media production increased by a LONGSHOT during last year's project but this year was different..way different! This year I was no longer surrounded by only CBTV kids and even though they were amazing people to work with, it meant that I got CARRIED. Like CARRIED CARRIED. I made up a term for this while talking about my project to my bestie westie Isa, and it's called "CBTV buff." It's real! And it's a huge bonus! This time around I no longer had the CBTV buff (although Juaco used to be in tv and has good media production experience but still :D)!Throughout all of our filming days I did some other things that were very productive instead of just acting and I'm really happy I got the opportunity to do so :] It was exactly what I was striving for in the start of this project. I had to take care of revising the script, positioning the camera for some shots, and even doing the line edit! 

It's also very worth mentioning that I wore the pants in my group :D 

I like being honest even if it's hard and since this post is all about reflecting honestly, I am going to be honest now. During spring break, my group procrastinated. And HARD. 

Throughout the week I really wanted to get things going with the social media, the postcard, the script, the storyboard, the costume design, and figuring out what days we wanted to film. By the end of it, I had a couple social media posts out with more in the making, a name for our film, a bit of a postcard, nice costume desgin.....buttt no script. Or film schedule. Orrr storyboard. 

I was very disappointed and worried to say the least (!) Again, and I will say this till the day I die. My group is lovely, they're my friends and I'm happy to have gotten closer with them throughout the making of this long project. However, had they not procrastinated, had we a had a script done and ready to go during spring break, had we made good progress (from all of us) during that week, we would have been in a much better place during week 7. I was INCREDIBLY busy during spring break too. I had not only this project to take care of, but also my C3 presentation to finish up for AICE Global. Not only that, but during the middle of the week, I had to fly up with my mom and brother to NYC and then attend a State MPA performance on Saturday all day back here in Florida. I got some nice breaks here and there, but other than that, spring break was EXHAUSTING.

 It just felt not so nice coming back from the break with a good amount of work done from my end for this project after being SO BUSY with so many things and seeing my group have not much to present during our group meeting. There are no hard feelings at all, I just wish it all went differently. I was very frustrated, and it was just hard expressing those feelings to my group since I don't like being confrontational and find it hard to be completely utterly honest to people I care about. You guys know me though, and I will also keep saying this until the day I die! I am the physical embodiment of perseverance! Despite everything that happened, I kept on going and kept my faith up for this project!

It honestly took me a long time to actually get accustomed and comfortable with the story we were making since I didn't want to make anything that could cross a grave line or anything that didn't align with my morals. Because of that, I made some edits throughout pre prod and I'm glad I did because it made producing this thing easier for all of us :] After making those edits and after taking a chill pill and reminding myself that we aren't making anything too serious, I began to feel SO much better about this project. I began to feel attachment and love for our characters and got pretty excited when seeing everything start to come to life! When I actually started drawing Otto and Annie and building up the social media, that's when things really clicked for me. What we are making is pretty dang cool :D 

I unfortunately didn't keep that attitude all the way through the making of our project as there have been so many moments where I was just so incredibly anxious and stressing over our video component since I really wanted it to be the best it could be so we could all end up with something we'll stay proud of for a long time. This anxiety is something I haven't ever really felt when creating videos for this class and it threw me off a bit. I think I felt it so dang much because we have so many followers on our social media page anticipating our film's release along with the fact that this project will be seen by my dearest friends, my lovely partner, and my family.

As a creative, there's always a huge need to make everything PERFECT not only for yourself but for those that will consume it, and I get that need SO OFTEN. You'll never catching me creating art unlocked. I am ALWAYS LOCKED when it comes to that stuff and given the fact that my name is VERY MUCH on this project, even more than it was last year, the anxiety really really skyrocketed more often than not. This is also my last big project for AICE Media. Like ever. This class seriously means so much to me and it'd be great to go out with a bang :] We still have yet to submit, but I hope that future Emi will be happy with her final creation. SOSO much time and dedication went into the making of this project and I know it will pay off one way or another. 

I think in comparison to the other groups in my class, my team definitely had the most filming days. Some groups I know had 2, others like 3, but us?? WE HAD 7. SEVEN. SEVEN DAYS OF JUST PURE FILMING WITH LITERALLY NO BREAKS IN BETWEEN. Welll I mean maybe there were some here and there but we never had actual actualll cut out time intended for breaks. You'll always find yourself goofin around on set with your buddies no matter how locked or unlocked you guys are :] During our first day of production, I was honest to God so incredibly nervous.

That same day we had a group meeting with Tstok and it was quite frankly incredibly disappointing knowing just how behind we were, especially because we did not have a script yet and got it literally the day of production day 1. Thankfully, we only got the first few opening shots and truly came back again to film more during the weekend. Because the script got sent late, we didn't have a storyboard on that first day, so on the days leading up to the weekend I worked my BUTT off to finish up a storyboard (especially for the scenes we were planning to film) to make our lives A LOT easier. We constantly referred back to it when planning out shots so I'm really glad I ended up doing that. We were going down the improv route, and I knew if we kept going that way we would have crashed and burned, so yay for the storyboard! :D After having a ton of storyboard done, the rest of the filming days felt a lot lighter and I began to feel a bit more confident in our video component and how it will end up turning out :] 

I'm a very positive person but with this project I've literally only been thinking about the worst scenarios possible. I have truly learned that when it comes to making something so high stakes and so important to myself and the people I care about, I turn into an anxious, pessimistic, stressed out chud of a person. This phenomenon I felt, is  truly out of character because in reality I'm quite literally the opposite of all those characteristics I just mentioned and I never really truly stress SO MUCH about anything most of the time!
Anxiety kinda comes with everything I do but never have I once CARED so much about anything I was making. Never once have I turned into a nocturnal monster wanting every single bit of her project to be absolutely and flawlessly perfect, and never once have I been late in writing a blog post for the week because I'm too busy producing the video component!!

 I'm still working on it, but through a lot of self reflection over the past couple months and year of my life, I have found that I am a person with VERY high expectations, especially on myself. Any minor F up would usually have me in SHAMBLES. It's not quite like that anymore but on some days it hits worse than others. These incredibly high expectations have leaked all over the production of this project and I just needed to constantly remind myself that IT'S NOT THAT DEEP. Sure it's for a very important school grade and college credit BUT EMI. CHILL. We are literally STUDENTS making a 5 MINUTE film about silly devils and stuff, you are NOTT looking to be nominated for an Oscar and YOURE NOT making the Godfather. You can chill!! PLEASE. 

Just chilling has been really hard these past couple of weeks and even though I do indeed set my time aside for other priorities in my life, most of my free time has literally been SOLELY dedicated to this project. I have entered tunnel vision, I entered it last week, and I am not leaving until The Scourge is up and available for you all to see! 

My expectations are still high, but I have learned to chill them out a little bit and just have fun along the ride. And I must say! The ride was very fun :] Sure at some moments it was incredibly stressful, painful, frustrating, and just overwhelming, but it was still the most fun I have had making something in Media Studies A level. And that's something I am just so happy to say. I already expressed this a bit ago a couple posts back but one of the hottest takes I have is that I enjoyed AS Media significantly more than A level. Not to say that A level is awful or anything! I just really miss the magic of stepping into the art of media production and studying it in depth for the very first time.

This has genuinely become a passion of mine that I’m looking to pursue but A level, while it felt like a nice DLC (deluxe content) of AS, had a different type of spark and magic than AS did. It had a more mature spark, and that was something I wasn’t really ready to handle when first stepping into the class. I think I’m just growing up and my hyperness and excitement for absolutely everything  including media is growing a backbone just like I randomly grew one at the end of my sophomore year :D It’s a bit sad to know that loud annoying Emi has never been seen since then. But hey, I legally become an adult and will be on my own a year from now so it’s about time I grow up :]

In complete summary, this project has truly affected my life, who I am, and how I see myself a pretty significant amount. What I enjoy most about these things is just looking back and realizing how much time has passed and just how much I have grown since the beginning. I have learned the absolute importance of time management, creative integrity, and most of all friendship :] It was a pleasure fostering meaningful connections with people I haven’t normally worked with. 

I thank this experience and everything AICE Media has given me these past 2 years of my life. I’m saving a bit of the sap for my final blog post for forever and ever and ever but I just want to say thank you super awesome blog reader for following me along the way :] You literally have watched me grow up a bit! Isn’t that so beautiful? :D 

Goodbye for now my flying cupcake monkeys! This isn’t the end JUSTT yet and I’ll be right back with two more posts this coming weekend :] Chau chau!

also yes the title was a tadc reference