1&2: ccr 1 finished.mov
-google drive link
3&4:ccr 2 finished
google drive link
if a link doesn't work, must of my work is uploaded to the Youtube Channel "videos mediastudies"
1&2: ccr 1 finished.mov
-google drive link
3&4:ccr 2 finished
google drive link
if a link doesn't work, must of my work is uploaded to the Youtube Channel "videos mediastudies"
This whole experience has been a rollercoaster and it coming to an end kind of makes me sad. This was my first time ever working by myself on this class and im actually happy that I didn't pair up with my friend because I got to be the director, the editor, the cinematographer, the writer and more jobs that are really important to create films. Having that responsibility helped me learn this I didn't knew before and to improve on this I wasn't the best at.
Having to do this project helped me reflect on all the work people put on films because at least for me creating a 2 minute film was HARD, I can't imagine creating a whole movie. I know for experienced people my film might not be the best, but im actually really proud of it, I learned, planned, edited, directed and filmed it and this class is not provided in my country so this year was my first year of having any media related class. This experience also help me realize that there's always room for improvement and I can't wait to learn more this about media and maybe one day make a short film.
For next time I think I need to start doing everything sooner because recording and editing is really time consuming, editing 2 weeks before the deadline and having a vacation in between those days wasn't my best decision because if there was a shot I needed to redo, I couldn't do it or else I wouldn't have finished on time.
Im really happy I changed my schedule last year and added this class, I learned a lot from it and it made me even more excited to do things like this.
Hi guysss!!!
In the other blog I commented how when you start editing you don't know how to start the clip and how to follow it to tell the story in the right way. After a lot of thinking and trying different clips I decided to start my opening film from a black background to a tight close up shot of my main character's eyes to introduce her.
Back to props----> In order to have enough garbage and papers, I collected my brother's snacks for a week and put them in a recycling bag. Mainly my brother is the only one who eats unhealthy snacks, so literally every time he ate something I reminded him to put it in the recycling bag. This process was a little gross but you have to do what you need to do, otherwise I would have wasted a lot of food.
I think filming the food and the garbage was a little difficult because my camera was moving a lot but to fix that, when I was editing, what I did was I put the clip on and slowed it down a lot to make the clip smaller and more stable.
Finally, every time I zoomed with the camera it ruined the original sound because you could hear in the clip how the lens moved, as I zoomed in most of the clips I had to remove the sound from all the clips that are in my film and what I will do is to add a mix of foley sounds, copyright free sounds and the sounds that are not ruined from the scenes. Overall I only have to re-record one scene in the whole film that I don't like because i didn't film it in one shot and you can tell when there's a cut which makes it messy and look like a mistake. Im currently on my last day of spring break so I cant re-record it until I get back home from the trip, Overall im really enjoying the process but I hope adding the sounds is not to hard to do.hi guys!!
so far everything is good, I started editing and at first I didn't know what clip to use first, something that i did messed up and would do different next time is adding something at the beginning to differentiate the scenes and the takes.
Honestly, having to create a film of any kind without the will or time of the other people is more difficult since you may need to repeat a scene a few times and forget details, for example, in some shots I forgot to go back to the lighting it needed. That only happened with a couple of scenes but I managed to fix it by adding a free effect from CapCut called Purple limbo.
I didn't mention it before but in order to get television to project the news video what I did was to make it all one long video, putting together the video of my stepfather playing tennis plus the news video and finally the emergency message and upload it to the youtube channel where I upload most of my behind the scenes and projects. The only bad thing was that the video was only about 1 minute long and due to the fact that I had to record a scene more than five times to get the perfect shot, I had to be constantly rewinding the video, to avoid problems with the lighting and that scenes from the beginning came out with the background of the message and vice versa. Having to rewind it was annoying but it worked for most of them except for the clips that I put the CapCut purple limbo. effect on.hi guysss!!!!!
Okay I started recording today, and I can tell you it's way harder than what I though. First of all, I was going to use my phone to record because I have a phone stabilizer that it's really good quality but the things is the iPhone camera SUCKS at night, it gets grainy and it just looks really bad. I ended up using my camera, it still wasn't the best with dark shots because sometimes it was grainy.
To avoid getting grainy shots I needed to add a little bit of light near the camera, I used my little desk lamp and sticked it to the camera with a blue tape. I used the same blue tape to create this blue cold light effect by sticking it to the little desk lamp light, that really helped me out to give more depth into the film.
The hardest part though was that my hand was shaking so much that it was messing up good shots, I tried doing everything, all of the stabilizers or tripods I had where for phones and taping the camera to the stabilizers would have been to risky. Sometimes I did need the shaky effect for the film when my actor was walking to the door, but when I didn't I tried my best to avoid shaking the camera by supporting my arm to my chest.My mom-main character is not the best at acting but she really tried her best. Overall she didn't have to do much, she only had a few scenes where she would make facial expressions and no scenes with dialogue. We did have to repeat a lot of times the scene where she gets annoyed and silences the phone and tv because she was over reacting her anger. Honestly, she did a good job but i'm glad the opening film didn't have dialogue because having to do a film and wanting it to be actually good when your actor is bad, sucks and makes the process longer.
hi guysss!!!
part 2 of editing the tv prop!!
Okay, in this blog I will get more into detail of how I edit the clip. First I want to mention that I though of instead of playing the tennis video I was only going to show first a reporter showing the weather and it would change to another reporter telling the breaking news but even if I liked that idea better, my sister didn't have enough time to record both parts and it would have been hard to record the weather news using only my own media.
After recording the clips with my sister, I opened up my computer and I made the background I talked about last blog. That was a little bit stressful because I didn't know if I could use another person's design and it took me a few minutes until I realized I could make my own design. After that I transformed the background picture to a video, and removed the background from the clip I did of my sister. CapCut offers some text frames that are pretty similar to the ones they use at the news, the frames really helped it look more realistic and I used Canvas once again to create the background of the broadcasting emergency message. I think the hardest part of this prop was thinking what to write on the text frames, I didn't want to give many details that could maybe spoil it but I also needed to give the scene more suspense and not let it be just a woman using her computer.
Film background:
video of me editing it in fast speed:HI guys!!!
this blog will be part 1 of editing the tv prop.
Editing is definitely on of my favorite parts of this class but it is also the hardest, the school does provide me the adobe apps programs, which of course are better and more professional but even after watching 1 hour long tutorials, I genuinely don't understand how to use any of the adobe apps, so to edit I always use the app CapCut because it's the one I understand better.
The TV is a really important part of my opening film because it hints what may be happening in the future. It changes from something entertaining showing in the TV to the news to an emergency message. The TV helps relate the story better and in this occasion it helps the viewer understand that something serious is happening.
All the media I use has to be mine, therefore, for the entertaining tv show I recorded my stepfather and his friend playing tennis after I went to the gym to use it in the film. I was going to use my one word film project but I needed something with a lot of sound in the background so that you could hear the difference when she silences the tv and phone.
For the background I was going to use a news background thing I found on google but I got scared that could be against the rubric because even though i'm only using it as the background it's still someone's work. I tried looking for copyright free background designs but i didn't find anything so I ended up doing my own design on canvas. I chose the color blue as the main color to really emphasize the contrast of when the TV changes. At the end I added some symbols to make it more fun and more similar to what a news background could be.
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| what my camera looked like: |
hi guys!
When my class and I were introduced to this project, the first thing the teacher said was "don't do animation if you are not experienced", of course its understandable because animation takes so long and it takes a lot of patience and time for it to actually be good. On my last blog, I talked about two ideas I had for the CCR, but the one i'm going to talk about in this blog is the drawing idea. In the example I gave, the original Youtuber drew everything on a white board.
I like better the idea of animation and adding an image of a hand moving to create the feeling of the hand drawing on the board. The thing is animating it would be ten times harder but i still decided to do research and give it a try.HI guys!
OKAY i know it may be a little bit early but you know what time goes by soooo fast and it's better to think about this know than to think about it last minute. After my teacher gave my class a lesson about the creative critical reflection, I learned that I needed to use at least two productions to answer the four questions. I had some good ideas...
For the first one, I got inspired of the example we saw in class of a girl copying the 73 questions videos that Vogue does to celebrities. The idea is to get inspired of the interview WIRED does to celebrities, where they answer the web's most searched questions, so what I would do is answer the two questions how they do it ( by removing a sticker from a google research history paper that reveals the web's most searched questions)Hi guys!!
Today in class we learned about one of the most important parts of this project... The creative critical reflection!! We learned that the purpose of this section is to reflect on production, to respond questions and express personality. I have to answer four questions with a minimum of two products and maximum of 10 minutes for all the questions.
product options could be:
- Presentation with voice over.
-Director commentary.
-Podcast talk show.
-Others.
How does your product use or challenge convention and how does it represent social groups or issues?
To answer this question, which is really important, the teacher recommended to start by discussing genre conventions and cite where you found the information. Next, she recommended to discuss genre conventions you chose to challenge or discuss why you chose not to challenge genre conventions and end with a discussion of choices made in how individuals, groups, events, and issues are illustrated).
How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
Her recommendations were to answer how you arrived to target audience and how your production choices, content, etc work to engage with your audience and lastly address realistic options fir ab amateur filmmaker.
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
Reflect on how your audience evolved throughout the production, discuss your approach to production ,for example, what did you have to change or adapt as you worked on the project. End it with a reflection on where you started and where you ended. You can discuss previous projects completed in class and how they helped to develop this project.
How did you integrate technologies- softwares, hardware and online- in this project?
For the last question my teacher recommended to discuss software such as blogger and HOW I used these technologies to solve problems.
The final statement should reflect on the project as a whole to discuss what you have learned, what would you do differently if you could and how could you improve.
Im glad my teacher did this lesson this week because it helped me understand a lot more a big part of the project. Also on spring break i'm going to record the most important parts and edit to hopefully finish earlier so that I can also have enough time for this questions. My teacher also told us what not to do and if my teacher hadn't talked about it, I would have probably done everything I shouldn't have done.
overall tips: -create script-incorporate research-creativity-cite sources- no talking heads.
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| example of a creative way a student answered the questions |
Hi guys...
today's blog is not as good as the others because we have a problem.
I went to Miami to record some videos in the city that I could use in the background and I recorded the videos with the camera I own, but when I came back to my house I tried using an SD card reader that you plug in your phones to transfer pictures or videos and I remembered that my current phone doesn't have the normal usb for iPhone and it uses the usb c one. I asked my mom to go with me to the store to buy a 'usb C to usb' adapter, but at first she didn't want to go because she drove to Miami to record some parts of the city, to convince her I told her that this project it really important for me. She did ended up driving me there and we bought one for 10 dollars at a tech store. When I came back home the first thing I did was plug the adapter and the SD card to transfer the photos but sadly my phone is not reading the card reader. Actually, this is not my first time this happens to me, when I got the phone I used the charger that comes with it and the usb-c port from my last phone and it also didn't detect it so that day I had to charge my phone with the computer's charger. The only three people in my house with iPhones have the same one as mine, therefore, they also use iPhone C chargers.
I have three options...
1-buy a new one but I might waste more money.
2-ask a friend that uses the other type of usb if I can borrow their phones
3- call apple
I actually think i'm going to do all of the options. I really need to fix this so that for next week I can upload the film's videos to my phone and then to my computer to edit it. By the way, apple computers also only have usb c ports which makes it even more difficult. I watched some Youtube videos about it, trying to find a solution and the videos said to force a restart on your phone, which I did but it still didn't work. This USB problem plus my actresses not having enough free time are really making me have a hard time.
My sister, who is the journalist in my film, was studying all day for her exams. That means, we couldn't record today but she promised to give me some of her time tomorrow. I did create a dialogue for what she's going to say, which will make things easier for tomorrow.
I spent the rest of my day watching videos of how to edit a breaking news style video with multiple editing apps.
here are two of the videos I watched:
hi blog!
In the world of filmmaking props also play the role of bringing stories to life. Some props are meticulously done from scratch and others find their origins in unexpected places like the trash. Yes, trash can be transformed into props with creativity. In my case I don't have to do much with it since I just need the trash, to look like trash.
I need to start recording this weekend, but one of the hardest things for now is planning when we are going to record since it has to be at night, my mom (who is the main character) needs to have free time and ideally no one else should be at the house. Those three things are complicating a lot my schedule because the times where I could record was because my mom left the house with my brother to hangout with her friends. She did promise that this weekend she was going to stay home with my to record it and I really hope she doesn't forget.
On the other hand, back to props, I've been asking my family to put their "clean" trash and office paper works that they don't need in a separate box, so when I start recording we already have a lot of trash to work with. The rest of the props are cups, that I already own, and the pizza that we will order that day.
If my mom does stay home on Saturday I will hopefully record some of it that day, but since everything I use in the film has to be mine, i've been thinking: what am i going to put in the TV? How am I going to do it ? I could maybe use the ADELINE X music video my classmates and I did a couple weeks ago or I can make it from scratch. Analyzing more how I was going to do it, I remembered that if I use the music video me and my classmates did, I would need Lorde to let me use her sound, which is not happening.
For what's shown in the Tv at first, I might do a quick "documentary" of nature to put behind or record my little brother playing with his friends to mimic a Tv show and for the News and warning parts, I asked my sister if she wanted to be my journalist and she said yes! I will put her behind my Tv, that is going to be reproducing a green screen video, and I will make her look exactly like a TV journalist. Later I'll add the background, sound effects, and the emergency screen.


HI GUYS! FIRST OF ALL, ITS LEAP DAYYYY, TODAY IS FEBRUARY 29TH !!
its crazy to think that for my next leap day i'm going to be 21!!!
Anyways...
Today in my class, my teacher made us get into groups of around 5 to 6 people and talk about our projects, what we have done so far, what we are planning to do, the plot, background characters and ask for constructive criticism or recommendations! Sadly, no one in my class could spend too much time talking about their project because we also had a fire drill! :/
When It was my time to talk, I started by telling them my main character's "Jillian" background. I told them how she came from a very bad and poor environment which later motivated her to study and work to get a better life for her future. That determination led her to becoming a workaholic, having problems of loneliness and not realizing whats happening around her.
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| Idea my classmates gave me for credits |
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| (this font is not necessarily going to be used for project) |
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| Jillian's hometown |
I realized that it's been three weeks so far that I have been working on this project and it still doesn't have a title. The title is more than just a a label, it portrays the essence of the film and captures the mood, atmosphere and theme of the story.
For starters, the title should be evocative and intriguing, for my film it should bring a hint of mystery and tension to connect with the narrative. Brainstorming I was thinking words such as "Whispers" or "Shadows" evoke this sense of mystery and intrigue that i'm looking for, but it also may be too predictable.
I decided to go on Pinterest and create a mood board to maybe help me find the perfect and memorable title. My goal of creating this Pinterest board is not only to find or get inspired to create a title but also establish the tone of what the film will look like. The first images consist of what I want the environment to look or feel like. The lightning of the inside of the house I want it to be dark and have some blue and white lights from the computer and TV. It creates an evocative atmosphere adding more depth to the visual storytelling of the film.In a film, every aspect of the audiovisual experience is crafted to make the audience feel like they are part of the story and bring the film to life. Foley sounds refers to the reproduction of everyday sound effects added post-production to perfect the audio quality. Some examples of foley sounds are footsteps or rustling fabric.
The foley sounds have to be made in advance because it sounds easy to do, but believe me, it's not. A couple weeks ago, at school, I had a foley sound project in where we had to create a 2 minute scene using our own sounds. Recording this sounds and making them actually sound accurate or real is soooooooo hard. I didn't do too well on my foley sound project, that's why for my film I better start practicing now.
In the psychological thriller i'm creating the atmospheric environment is very quiet. I need to create or find the best foley/effect sounds to create suspense, tension and punctuate key moments in the film to evoke reactions from the viewers. The absence of sound can be just as powerful as its presence and in this film one of the best sound effects is the manipulation of silence.
Here are some sounds I need for now to create or find for my project:
(the sounds in cursive are the foley ones)
-Phone ringing/vibrations
-Footsteps
-Tension sounds such as piano
-Door sounds
-Knocking
-Background white noise for silence
-Computer Keyboard sound
-Paper
1&2: ccr 1 finished.mov -google drive link -link 3&4: ccr 2 finished google drive link if a link doesn't work, must of my wor...