Group meeting #2

We had another group meeting, but this time we focused on the topic of CCRs! To start off, I am going to tell you guys my idea for one of the CCR videos just so you actually know what I'm talking about when I describe my group meeting.

One of my ideas for the CCR is to do one of those, "What's in my bag?" videos. I thought that this would be a fun, creative way to bring up the answers to the CCR questions. I would simply have a bag or purse shown while taking a few things out of it. I would have a few things of my own, like lip gloss and a camera, as well as maybe a few things from the film, like the envelope Ben used for the note, and caution tape. 

I found a "What's in my bag?" video that had some characteristics I would like to include in mine.

Vogue: What's in My Bag?

I liked how there were two different cameras used because it makes the video feel more professional and it adds some depth so that the whole video is not just filmed from one perspective. I also liked how she talked about a few of the movies that she was in or is planning for because I am thinking about doing something similar where I talk about my film opening and the certain genre conventions I had to plan for as well as what I executed. 

CCR question #1 is: 

"How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

Because my genre is mystery/crime, I will talk about how I included the genre conventions; a detective, low-point lighting, clues, etc. To incorporate this question into the "What's in my bag?" video, I can pull out caution tape, or something else that is a genre convention of mystery/crime. I can then mention how that item as well as other stuff was purposely used to convey that mysterious feeling in the film opening.

Moving onto the actual group meeting itself.... 

It went well!! We each discussed our ideas for what we are thinking about doing for our CCRs, and then we gave some suggestions.

Introducing... my group!!

So, starting from left to right, Mckenna, Anastasia, Nicole, me, Diego, and Dani. yay

We tried to do one of those awkward, funny, photo shoot pictures, soooo if you don't find it funny maybe just give it a little fake chuckle. Thanks!!! <3

I told them about my idea, (what's in my bag) and they thought it was such a good idea!! This gives me some hope... lol. The thing I was struggling with, is making the video creative, because I have seen many "what's in my bag?" videos before. Nicole suggested that I should include props that were included in my film. *Thanks Nicole I really liked that suggestion!!* I know that this isn't part of the group meeting, but I was speaking to Omer, and she gave me the suggestion that I should use the bag that Ben carried out of his house. I thought that was a really good idea that helps tie the film opening to the creative critical reflection even more!

So, Nicole was the only one out of my entire group who has already completed the filming portion of her CCRs (I think). She said that she pursued a podcast, and a lie detector test. I really liked both of those ideas, but especially the lie detector one. I thought that was a fun and creative way to answer the questions. Dani mentioned that she originally wanted to create a "get ready with me/beauty secrets," but then was told not to do that because it is very overdone. Dani, as well as Mckenna and Diego had mentioned that they were thinking about doing a talk-show-like video. I thought this was a good idea and I suggested that they could have their family members or friends be the ones to interview them. Diego had also mentioned doing a monopoly/board game video. I believe that it was either Nicole or Anastasia that mentioned putting the CCR question on one of the cards. I thought it was a unique idea that could be executed well.

Overall, I found this group meeting to be very helpful because I left it with so many ideas, and a lot of feedback!!

CCR Research #4

Okay... this is the last and final CCR question, and it is one that is a little hard for me to answer just because my answer is really simple. 

The question is:

"How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?"

The reason why my answer to this question is so simple, is because my group and I didn't really use many different technologies. We used my phone to film the footage, and a flashlight at times to get the lighting that we wanted. The only other lighting device we used was the police light that we had ordered off of Amazon. We used that throughout the whole crime scene scene and that is about it! 

I know that I already included this video in my "Set design #2" blog post, but I wanted to include it again to show you guys what the police light looks like, and how it affected the lighting.

My group and I also didn't need a microphone because we have no dialogue in our film opening. We do plan on creating foleys, but we have not done them yet so when we do, I am thinking of including them in next week's blog post as a bonus!!

For the software portion of this question, I unfortunately have not done the editing yet so I don't really know what I will be using. I plan on getting the editing done sometime soon!! I know guys... my procrastinating is really bad.

Here are the notes I took for CCR question #4:

CCR Research #3

The third question that I will be researching is:

"How did your production skills develop throughout this project?"

I think that this is the question that will be easiest for me to answer for many reasons. 

Here are some:

Time Management:

Because I am the world's biggest procrastinator, managing my time has always been something that I struggle with. Throughout the entirety of this project, I have had to think out every move I make. Whether it is choosing to wait a day to do my blog post or doing everything BUT editing my film opening (which is something I am still struggling with). I am 100% still having trouble managing my time for certain things, but it has without a doubt gotten better within the process of this project. When we first began working on the portfolio project, I had made a schedule. *CLICK HERE TO VIEW SCHEDULE* I believe that this genuinely has helped me in the process because if I ever feel that I am behind on something, I just take a look at the schedule to make sure I stay on task. Also, working in a group means finding days that work for everyone. Unfortunately, Camila had gotten sick when we were supposed to film so we delayed our filming by a few days. After waiting a few days, hoping she would get better, she had gotten worse, leaving us no choice but to start the filming process because we had to stay on schedule. This experience has taught me that not everything goes to plan and that's okay!

Hiccups:

Going off of what I said in the "time management" section, it is perfectly fine to have "hiccups," or things go wrong. Yes, it is stressful in the process, but you learn from them. I made a blog post talking about a few things that went wrong in the process of filming. *CLICK HERE TO VIEW* What I had listed on that post is only half the things that went wrong. As you can see, it is perfectly normal for things to go not exactly to plan, and that is okay! This project has definitely taught me that.

I found this website that discusses what to do when something goes wrong when working on a project. After doing all 11 of those things, my group and I were able to solve all of our problems, and it gives me hope that we will succeed!! 

When a project goes wrong, do these 11 things.

Pre-Production

The last and final thing I will be discussing is what occurred pre-production. I found creating a storyboard is one of the most helpful things when developing any sort of production. It's just something about already having the outline of your project and only needing to make that outline/plan come to life. This has definitely given me ideas for future school projects, as well as in real life projects.

The storyboard:

Here are the notes I took for CCR question #3:

CCR Research #2

Yayyy welcome back for another week of blog posts. 

The second CCR question that I will be researching is:

"How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Target Audience:

The first part of this question is discussing the target audience. For my film opening, it mainly is targeted towards anyone who is over 16, just because it involves murder, drugs, and other harsh topics. The next part of this question is to discuss how my production works with the target audience. This is done by providing scenes of the crime scene, and also the mystery that is provided through Ben writing the letter and then giving it to Ms. Travers.

Distribution: 

Lastly, I need to discuss how I plan to make my film available to audiences. Because I am an amateur filmmaker, my film would not be released in theaters just yet. Instead, it would be released on something like You-Tube. I was told that there are some theaters that purposely give viewings of amateur filmmaker's movies, but I felt that uploading it on You-Tube would just be the most practical choice.

Here are some notes I took in class when we were discussing question #2:

CCR Research #1

It's time to talk about the Creative Critical Reflections (CCR). 

The first question I am going to be researching, is:

"How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

To break down this question, I need to talk about which genre conventions I chose to include in my film opening, as well as which ones I did not. I also need to discuss representation.

I took some notes in class because we went over the "dos" and "don'ts" for our CCRs and the specific questions that we need to answer. 

As you can see, I need to integrate all of that into a media product, as well as question number two, which I will discuss in next week's blog post, so stay tuned!!

Here are some more notes that I took when we were discussing the creative critical reflections:

Post Production #2

 The coloring used in a film can depict a specific emotion or mood for the audience. For example, if a character's house is filled with multiple red items, they can come to the conclusion that danger is near. 

The lighting can also suggest the mood in a film. For example, a bright (high key) lighting can either symbolize a ethereal, or happy mood. On the other hand, a dark (low key) lighting can symbolize a mysterious, or frightening mood. For my film opening, my group and I wanted to achieve more of a low-key lighting rather than high key, because of our genre being, mystery/crime. 

Because my group and I filmed in three different locations,

-House: Ben writing letter 

-Park: crime scene

-School: Ms. Travers office

the lighting was different for all three scenes. This made it a little tricky in the editing process, because if I want all three scenes to have similar lighting, I am going to have to edit each clip, on by one. This process may take a good portion of time, but I think it will all be worth it in the long run.

I screenshotted a part from a specific clip, and I only edited one to fit the "vibe" of the mystery genre. (The actual picture itself is a little different, because I could not screenshot the same part of the video twice... sorry!!)

Before:

As you can see, this photo appears darker and has a little bit of a more mysterious feeling to it. 

All I did was change:

-"exposure" to -98

-"highlights" to -74

-"shadows" to -7

 -"brightness" to 2

-"black point" to 3

Post Production #1

 Now that filming has concluded, it's time to start the editing process. I am not a good editor, so this part is going to be a little challenging. I have tried using Adobe Premiere in the past to edit, but honestly, there were so many things on the screen that I was just filled with confusion. I tried to use it again for this project but after adding in all of the footage, I didn't know what to do from there. I watched tutorials on You-Tube which did not seem to help, and I asked one of my group members, Omer if she could help me, but she was also having trouble with it.

I think to edit, I am going to use either CapCut, or I-Movie, because I have used those platforms many times before, so I am already used to them. I do hope that I can eventually learn how to use Adobe Premiere in the future, so that I can use it to edit my projects later on.

CapCut:

I-Movie:

Filming the final scene

So... I have something special for today's blog post. Because this is our last blog post discussing the production of our film opening, my group and I recorded behind the scenes footage of the Ms. Traver's office scene, so we could put all of the clips together and create one video to upload! 

Take a look:

We decided to make this video to illustrate the production process for this specific scene. I think that it was so much fun to film and edit this video so it gets me excited for the rest of the portfolio project, as well as future projects. Now that we are done filming, the rest of my blog posts are going to be about either post-production, or creative critical reflections.

What went wrong?

 Unfortunately, when working on the film opening, my group and I stumbled across many problems. Although they were annoying and set us back, it seems to be working out alright. Here are a few of the problems that we encountered:

Sickness:

A few days before we planned on filming the crime scene and Ben writing the letter, one of my group members, Camilia unfortunately got sick. Even though we really needed to get the project done, we weren't going to put Camilia through a bunch of work when it is even hard for her to stand up. For most of the parts that we filmed, we managed to get the correct footage except for one part in particular.

The dead body:

So... before we knew that Camila was going to be sick, we had planned on me being the dead body while Camila being the crime scene investigator. Once we were minus one person, we had to come up with another plan because we needed to have Omer film. The only option was to have my ten-year-old little sister, Noah be Mavrick, the dead body. I know that my legs wouldn't look anything like a 20–40-year-old man's legs but just imagine a ten-year old's... yeah... not so good. I hope that it looks alright when we put all of the footage together.

Mr. Travers:

A current situation that my group and I are facing is finding a Mr. Travers. Originally, it was supposed to be Omer's dad, but he is currently in another country and most likely won't be back for another week. Our second option was my dad, but he already played Ben, so we didn't want to use the same "actor." I think our only option is to change Mr. Travers to a Ms. Travers, and she will be played by Omer's mom.