Final!

 Hi blog! Here are my CCRs and film opening. 

Film opening:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zrh2F-9jIusj0cd4z3QW67LMge87-7aW/view?usp=sharing

CCR #1 (questions 1&2):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EOHFRlUkNeaLPqCXtRJjsdMp5WDd9moa/view?usp=sharing

CCR #2 (questions 3&4):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Q2abkzfbMu6EfvnaySCIQUfv1WWU_kw/view?usp=sharing

Final Reflection

 Hi blog! This blog is about my final reflection on this project. I hope you like it!

Personal Growth and Development: 

This portfolio project was my first long-term project, and it definitely was a little overwhelming at first. As for my technical skills, throughout this project, I was able to combine all of my skills together into one project. From shots and angles to sound to mice-en-scene elements, it definitely was an experience. I got to showcase all of these skills while learning at the same time. I really enjoyed putting all these elements together to tell a story. It was very fun to just unleash my creativity, which I typically do not do often in school. I made new friends through my group meetings and became closer for sure with my group mates. This wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for everyone, including my very supportive teacher. My biggest takeaways are for sure time management and trusting my creativity. Without proper time management, you could very easily fall behind and it is difficult to get back up and continue. In addition, it was stressful to have just a big white canvas with only yourself painting it. But, in the end, everything came together and I ended up with a beautiful painting!

Challenges:

For sure, my hardest challenge to overcome was the scheduling conflicts. I worked with three others so during the filming week, all of our schedules had to align. Not only that, but we needed permission from the owner of the gym to be able to film. We only had two days to pick from and my group mate Arianna asked our boss (the owner of the gym) and we had to make the decision right then and there. Thankfully, everyone was able to come and film at the gym so it all went well! As for editing, I struggled slightly with the layout, but by the end, I became a pro! It was definitely worth the patience and practice! My new editing skills will definitely be a useful tool in my future academic courses. 

Impact: 

I feel like my project stands out. The main reason why is because of the premise of the plot being about gymnastics. I am not saying that people do not know what gymnastics is and that it is a new and improved invented idea. But what I mean is that who actually has access to a gym and gymnasts to film a film opening? The second my teacher proposed the project to us, my mind began running through ideas and I loved the idea of being related to gymnastics. I had the connection to secure the setting and characters so it was a perfect match! Not only this, but my plot goes beyond the average injury story. She is already injured before the film begins so we do not see Gianna injuring herself and having to quit. What we see instead is the perseverance of the individual, and her learning to trust those around her to heal. I hope my audience will be able to see this as well. 

Technology: 

Without Adobe, iMovie, Google Drive, and Pixabay, I do not know where I would be. These tools worked together to bring my vision to life. Without Adobe, where would I have used the masking effect for the fonts? Where would have all my footage gone without Google Drive? What about my CCRs without iMovie as a backup? And let's not forget about Pixabay, for helping me gain tons of sounds and music which played a significant role in my film. Through this project, I gained a better understanding of using all of these platforms to enhance my projects. 

Final Verdict: 

All in all, I am most proud of my film opening. All of the elements worked together to make my vision come true. Yes, I changed certain things midway during filming, etc, but it was still what I envisioned. I am very proud of my commitment to this project as well, and not let the conflicts I faced hold my project back from its potential. Maybe I dislike editing a tiny bit less thanks to this project, but it still is a tedious task I'd rather avoid. Thanks to this project, I will definitely appreciate films more, since it took me roughly a month to only create two minutes of content. The dedication to creating a film is mind-blowing and amazing. This project has also awakened my possible interest in studying media in the future since I am a sophomore at the moment. I am glad I was able to take you on this journey with me and I hope you enjoyed! Goodbye. 

CCR Production

   Hi blog! This week I have begun filming for my CCR! I am excited to see how they come out. This blog post will discuss the production process of my CCRs. 

Ideas and Process: 

I will split the questions into two productions. My first one will answer questions 1 & 2 and the second one will answer questions 3 & 4. As for my ideas, in my AICE media class, we have discussed possible ideas such as a podcast, slideshow presentation, etc. The CCR consisting of the answers to questions 3 & 4 will be a video of me drawing on a whiteboard, expressing my ideas. I have already filmed for this one, however, I realized I filmed a little too much... so I will re-film and shorten my ideas. As for my second one, I will just film myself discussing the topic while integrating photos and videos of my project. The other CCR will be reading a bedtime story, which is related to film, and answer the questions for questions #1 and 2. I will wear my pajamas and set my phone down while I hold a book and "read".

CCR #1 photo(s):  

As for my setup, I simply put my phone up against a cup of water and sat on my bed. 

CCR #2 photo(s): Here is a picture of my setup: 

Here is a timeline of my editing: 

I ended up using iMovie because Adobe would not load on my personal computer. 

Challenges: 

I am aiming to have only around 10 minutes of CCRs, so they will both be around 5. minutes each. When I began exporting my videos even after speeding things up, it was well over 8 minutes. To fix this, I will re-film. To put it into perspective, I chose to write the question on the whiteboard, erase it, and then draw a visual together. To fix the insufficient time, I will draw the visual smaller with the question being written down. Hopefully, this will save me some time! In addition, I wanted a clear view of the whiteboard, however, I do not own a tripod or anything similar to one. I was pacing around my room looking for things to put my phone on. Luckily, I have a piece of furniture with bars and I balanced my phone above the bars, with the space being between the camera and it worked out perfectly! Thankfully, I did not run into any issues in regards to filming for my first CCR

Plan:

In order for filming to go by more smoothly, I wrote my scripts down here they are: 

CCR#1: 

CCR#2

Safe to say, filming my CCR's is now complete! 

CCR Post-Production

 Hey Cambridge! Filming is complete! 

CCR #2

Thankfully, my strategy to shorten my second CCR worked. For some reason, Adobe was not working on my personal computer, so I edited it on iMovie. It is a little weird, but it will get the job done! I mainly cut and edited my clips. Since I tried to limit my CCR to around 5 minutes, I sped up the clips of my writing and drawing. Some clips were a little bit faster than others since I had a shorter response. I audio recorded my responses and imbedded them one by one, to organize all of the footage. There were some gaps between the different clips, so I felt that it was important to add some light background music. I found one of course on Pixabay. Here it is: song. The song is around 10 seconds, but it is a loop so I just copied it and cut it so there are no small stops in the music. The music added a nice vibe to the CCR and elevated its quality. Of course, I turned down the volume so you could hear my voice instead of being overpowered by the music. All in all, I am very pleased with how my second CCR came out! 

CCR #1

Once again, I edited on iMovie. As stated, I cut and lengthened certain clips, so the ideas would flow smoother. It was a lot easier to edit this CCR since I was not speeding up the clips. I tried my hardest to make sure that the places where I cut, it was not too noticeable. I felt as if music would once again heighten my product so I found a song on Pixabay again. Here it is: song. In addition, I decided to make an intro as well as an outro to organize my ideas in a more understanding, better way. To make it more official I included a song too! Here it is: intro/outro song. Furthermore, I found a copyright-free template, to use as my introduction on FlexClip. It added a very nice touch to my CCR and I am obsessed with it! Furthermore, I created an outro on Canva as well. I used the font Brasika and included some 5-point stars and combined this all with the corporate animation! All of these combined to make my CCR come to life. 

This concludes my editing for my CCRs!

Group Meeting #2

 Hi Cambridge! Last class, (Wednesday) I had a meeting with some of my classmates about our Portfolio Projects. Here is a breakdown of what occurred:

Brynn

Brynn went first. She is still figuring out the name of her film, so we gave our suggestions and we liked the name "20 Questions" since it goes great with her film. The genre is a romance comedy and it is about a teenage girl who gets a mysterious text from a boy in her math class and they end up playing the game 20 Questions over text. She has struggled to find an appropriate time to film due to scheduling conflicts, but she is currently working through it. One big element in her film is the fun lights. She uses LED lights and something called a Sunset Lamp to create the aesthetic of her film. As for her CCRs, she's doing it with a friend and is planning on doing something with questionnaires. It is a basic everyday teenage girl and it represents girlhood. She will film in her house, the living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Believe it or not, she actually composed her own music in Garage Band. 

Audrey

Next, went Audrey. Her film is a Psychological Drama. It is about a guy, who really does not think he is a bad guy. He sees an imaginary guy who blocks people from speaking using red tape. The red is the main thing that stands out in the film. The red symbolizes anger. The purpose behind the film is related to freedom of speech and it is inspired by Cabaret. She composed her own music as well on her keyboard. Some obstacles she faced were scheduling conflicts,  her editing being deleted, and her location being unavailable. However, all of these challenges were overcome! As for her CCR, she was inspired by street interviews like Billy on the Street. 

Sergio

Afterwards, Sergio went up. He is also doing a sports drama, similar to mine, yet he focuses on powerlifting. His idea is about a medical student with a terminal illness who has deteriorating muscles. The main character is obsessed with the gym and it is basically his will to live. He only has one more scene to shoot and the reason why he has been unable to is because of scheduling conflicts. His film opening starts with a monologue (voiceover) and it is Batman-inspired. The protagonist uses himself for his own research and if he does nothing his condition will become critical. The idea, of show, don't tell is heavily implied as well throughout his film.  He shot in his house and the gym (La Fitness). In addition to this, he composed his music on a piano I believe. As for his CCR, he is planning on doing a self-interview. 

Maria

Lastly, Maria went. Her genre is a Mystery Drama. It is about a girl who disappears who is very well known and has a good status in her society. She is accused of being involved in a drug scandal, but it is odd since she normally would not correlate with things in that area. A detective is sent to find her, but many believe she overdosed and has passed away. The detective is very dedicated to finding her and we see this throughout the film opening and film. They show montages of the detector working hard in her film opening and they use baby power to portray the drugs. She uses a bulletin board with pictures inspired by the average detective board with string connecting the pictures. All of these elements of the Mice-en scene help provide context and tell the story. However, the board struggled to stay in place every time it fell off the wall, they would need to re-shoot everything, ng or else the board would occur in different places. The lighting throughout is very low-key and the title is "Interwoven". A cool aspect I liked was the use of fingerprints. One big challenge she had was with the lighting. She wanted the light turning on and off to be smooth but it was choppy. To fix this she ended up timing the light to ensure a smooth transition. 

As for mine, I did not really receive any comments since I finished my project besides them saying they enjoyed the film opening. Anyway, this wraps up my second group meeting! See you next week. 

CCR #4

Hey, blog! I broke down question #4 "How did you integrate technologies- software hardware and online in this project?" into 4 sub-questions to ensure I fully answer the question! Here they are:

How did software enhance your project?

After filming our opening, it was time for editing. To edit we used Adobe Premiere. We have used it in previous projects and I have always hated it. For one of the special effects with the names popping up, I used a mask so it goes off the screen differently. Other than that we just cut and lengthened some clips, while adding transitions occasionally. To transport the clips, we airdropped the scenes shot through my phone or sent them through a Google Drive, to ensure the quality was up to par. 

 

What role did hardware play in your production?

To film, we used my iPhone 14. We did not use special microphones since we relied mainly on the music. We did use the simple microphone you get from Apple headphones to film some foley sounds. As for lighting, we used a small lamp in the house, since it just helped imply that this was occurring at night. I said before how we could not really play with the lighting in the gym since this film opening was filmed in a public space, but if we could have it definitely would have been taken advantage of. Unfortunately, we did not get to use a tripod since we could not sign out one due to our hectic filming schedule. 

How did online tools and resources support your project?

Before editing, I rewatched a video on Adobe because I was a little rusty. The video just aided me in using the platform saving me some serious time. As for our sounds, we used the copyright-free site Pixabay. All of our sounds and music, besides the foley, came from there. Without this software, I have no idea what I would've done, especially for the music since I am not a beats maker. Google Drive was probably the biggest eye-opener since it allowed me and my group mates to seamlessly share our clips and projects without the quality downgrading, I for sure got more comfortable with this platform thanks to the Portfolio Project.

 What challenges did you face with technology, and how did you overcome them?

The main challenge we had was with sharing the clips since we filmed with various different phones. It was mainly mine, but some behind scenes were shot on my group members phone. We sent all the clips in our group chat, but we realized the lack of quality the clips had, it was REALLY bad. Thankfully, we attempted to share them through Google Drive and success was found! Other than this, it was really time-consuming to edit since we overshot a little too much... We had over 20 minutes of filming in the gym alone since we were afraid of not having enough content because we only had one opportunity to film in the gym and we wanted to get everything done in one day.  I am just grateful that Adobe didn't break down on us and cause us to lose all of our editing progress. Unfortunately, that happened to my classmate. I think I would have sobbed for 20 minutes straight if that happened to me. In the future, I will definitely ease down a little on the overshooting to not overwhelm myself with the countless scene choices and editing. On the same note, even though this is not relevant to technology, the biggest aspect I will ensure to correct is scheduling and staying organized. We had to change our filming day(s) countless times and it simply added unnecessary stress. All in all, I am grateful for the opportunities and experiences this project has given me. 

I am excited to show you my CCRS, they are currently in the making! 

CCR #3

 Hi blog! I will be writing my script for question #3. 

Question #3

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Sub-questions:

How did your pre-production skills improve?

Before this project, typically I would never plan or organize my ideas. However, I decided to take a much different approach. I sat down with my group and we shared hundreds of ideas together, I think we brainstormed the idea alone for around a week. Before we began the project, we also wrote down a schedule that we planned to follow, and believe it or not, we stuck to it despite the scheduling conflicts. When we created our storyboard, at first it was just a rough draft. But after perfecting it, the opening came to life! I am glad I did not procrastinate, even though sometimes I did for the blogs.. but mainly I was dialed in! Was it difficult, yes, but I am thankful for this opportunity since it gave me experiences I typically would not have. 

What did you learn about cinematography and filming?

For this project, I did tons and tons of research as you can see in my blogs. Whether it was films in similar genres, color schemes, or fonts, the list is endless I learned a ton. Before this class, I took film in middle school so I already had a small idea of camera angles, camera movement, lighting, costumes, etc. However, actually combining all of these aspects made this process magical. Figuring out what angle to use to portray a specific scene and feeling, perhaps of Gianna getting ready to train, taking multiple shots to ensure success, and instructing the actor(s) of what to do, all while making decisions left and right was hectic but genuinely fun. I gained a deeper understanding of all of these techniques working together to develop a theme or purpose.

How did your editing and post-production skills develop?

I have always hated editing. It is just time-consuming busy work. Don't even get me started on that one time; my work was never saved. I always struggled with editing, I just had difficulty figuring out how to use the platforms. Throughout this project, I did indeed improve. I got better at cutting the clips more efficiently, integrating sounds into my project, and just simply becoming better rounded at using Adobe Premiere. I would freak out over technical issues and often just give up, but I did not have the chance to do that in this case... so I worked through it step by step and figured things out! This project has taught me that patience is key and essential while making a project.

What role did sound and music play in your project?

The background music in our film opening played a significant role in our film. It really set the entire mood to an uplifting energetic vibe. The music then mellowed down once Gianna arrived at her house, emphasizing that she felt best at the gym, not worrying about her problems. The use of non-diegetic sound (the music) really added a nice touch,  and I am so glad I found the perfect match ( I will never stop talking about it). Timing the music with the cuts made the opening very visually appealing, but it was a pain to do. We used diegetic sounds such as the knock on the door, text messages, papers scuffling, etc. It was difficult to pair the audio with what you were seeing on the screen, but in the end, everything turned out well. 

How did your storytelling techniques and audience engagement improve?

 Within our film opening, we integrated tons of visuals, sounds, and characters to connect with our audience. For instance, the clips with the medals and Gianna's skills are visually appealing to the eye. The music provides an upbeat tone to the film opening, and the diegetic sounds give a more realistic appeal and place the film opening on a higher level. Relatable character(s) also help us connect with our audience. Simply liking and rooting for a character makes an individual ten times more intrigued by the film, wanting to find out what happens. In addition, elements of surprise and suspense keep our audience engaged and not falling asleep during the production. Elements like whether Gianna will perform well in her competition and get the scholarship really help emphasize this.