Was I lost? My movie making journey

In my 9th grade, I had an idea for a movie, but I did not implement it. Then two years later, I picked up that idea, built on it and executed it. The result of that was the “Are you lost??” movie. I faced many challenges during the process of making the movie.

The movie is a compilation of several short videos and photographs of all the ways a person can be “lost”. For me coming up with ideas for the videos was the easy part. However I learned that I wasn’t specific enough when I was visualizing how I wanted each shot to look like. Yet that was a skill I got a little better at in the process, thanks to suggestions from friends and family.

Another valuable lesson I learned was the need to stop thinking and start doing. When I had all my ideas in place, I kept waiting for the right time with the right people, however I did not get people to act as everyone was very busy. This left me disheartened. Then at one point I decided to just start, with or without the exact cast list I had in mind. I made a few changes to the cast list and then everything started falling into place. I learned that it is okay to make changes to a plan in the middle.

Once the shooting was done, I had to do the editing. I started the editing process and was done with the entire thing except the background track (I did not know I had to do the music and editing together). Then when I came back, and tried doing it, I could not find the project. It was not in the recycle bin, it was nowhere. It was bewildering and extremely disheartening. I was very disappointed and I cried a lot. I wondered if names did have a power because ironically I had named the project “the lost project”. People told me I could do it again. I knew that too, but this was one of the situations where intellectually knowing something did not help.

I abandoned the project for a while. Then I got my new mac book. I decided to edit my movie using the iMovie (as opposed to windows movie maker that I had used earlier). This was a new software and initially I was resistant to it. But when I did figure it out, I realized it was a much better software and my movie came out much better than it had come out earlier. So maybe everything that happens probably happens for the good.


Learning outcomes achieved:
1. Increased awareness of my strengths and areas of growth
2. Undertaken new challenges
3. Planned and initiated activities
4. Worked collaboratively with others
5. Shown perseverance and commitment in the activities
6. Developed new skills