Portfolio Project - Week 8 Update 4 (Last one)

Finally!!!

Film Opening

CCR Questions 1 and 2

CCR Questions 3 and 4

Portfolio Project - Week 8 Update 3

 Final Reflection

I'm finally done, this project has been a total energy drainer and despite how much fun I had, I'm excited to get some free time in my life again. I loved this project, as it allowed me to explore my newfound love for camera work and directing. As well as helped me grow closer to the people in my group. Starting the year out, I never would've expected that I'd know as much as I do now and I'm honestly extremely proud of myself for how far I've made it.

Portfolio Project - Week 8 Update 2

 CCR - Postproduction

The editing process was honestly really fun, I tried my best to maintain the satire nature of the first one with some silly transitions but also did my best to maintain the information. The second one was extremely basic, and I left it at that.

Portfolio Project - Week 8 Update 1

 CCR - Production

Making my CCR's was honestly really interesting. The process was really fun, as I invited one of my friends over to help me out. Our idea is meant to be a satire towards interviews with directors while at the same time answer the necessary questions. 

The second CCR was meant to be a relaxed contrast to the energy in the first one as I didn't want to make them too similar.

Portfolio Project - Week 7 Update 4

 GROUP MEETING #2

🙈 

We had our second group meeting for our portfolio project this week and it went really well. I personally enjoyed the first one more because my original group had more passionate people but nonetheless, I still benefitted from it. This time around we each had our ideas fully developed and the majority of the project completed thus we only really gave each other a synopsis of how our project is going and then asked each other about things we were having trouble with. For example, one of my group members told us that her story is about a dancer with a heart problem. One of the filming locations she used had a surplus of mirrors which made it difficult to hide the camera. Overall, it was really interesting meeting all these different people who each had their own ambitions with this project.

On terms of how it affected my project, all it really did was slightly change the order of my scenes. As working with an animal is really difficult. We ended up completely scrapping an entire scene and using its footage at the beginning of the film opening and it turned out pretty good.

Portfolio Project - Week 7 Update 3

CCR - Research

Question 4

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

This question is asking how different types of technology were used in my film opening.

"How did you integrate" - This first part of the question is asking me how I combined or incorporated different technologies into making my film opening.

"Technologies – software, hardware and online" - This specifies the 3 categories of technology:

1. Software - Which are programs or applications that I used throughout the production of my film opening.
2. Hardware - Which refers to the physical devices used in the production process, like cameras and microphones.
3. Online - This final category is talking about Internet-based tools and platforms such as google drive, social media, online research, etc.

"In this project?" - This is asking specifically about my project and how all of the things prior contributed to my film opening. 

Portfolio Project - Week 7 Update 2

CCR - Research

Question 3

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

This question is asking me to reflect on my growth and improvement in my production skills throughout working on my film opening. 

"How did" - This part of the question is asking for a process or progression, basically meaning I need to explain changes over time rather than just talking about my current skills.

"Your production skills" - This refers to the technical and creative abilities I used to create my film opening. This includes editing, camera work, scriptwriting, sound design.

"Develop throughout this project" - This section of the question makes me describe where I started, the challenges I faced and how I overcame them, the new techniques I learned and used, and how my final project shows improvement.

Portfolio Project - Week 7 Update 1

 CCR - Research

Question 2

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

Similar to question 1, this question can be broken down into 2 parts:

- How does your product engage with audiences? (Part 1)

- How would it be distributed as a real media text? (Part 2)

Part 1

This part is asking about the ways my film opening connects with its target audience. When answering this question, I need to consider who my film opening is aimed towards and how the techniques I used attracts and keeps the audience's attention. I also need to think about how it emotionally engages with the audience, as my film opening is psychological drama., and through what mediums does it interact with my audience.

Part 2

This part focuses on how my film opening would reach its target audience in a real-world setting. I need to consider whether it will be released in theatres or if it will be distributed through streaming services, as well as how other films of its nature are distributed.

Portfolio Project - Week 6 Update 4

 CCR - Research

Question 1

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

This question can be broken down into 2 parts:

- How does your product use or challenge conventions? (Part 1) 

- How does it represent social groups or issues? (Part 2)

Part 1

Conventions are the typical rules, structures or expectations of a particular medium, genre, or industry. Some things I need to consider when answering this part of the question are whether my movie opening follows the traditional conventions of psychological dramas, or does it break them? If it follows them, how does it help my audience engage with my movie opening? If it breaks them, why did I choose to do that? What effect does it have on my audience?

Part 2

The second part of the question refers to how different groups of people or social issues, are represented in my film opening. To answer this, I have to take into account the different social groups that appear in my opening as well as if they're shown in a stereotypical way or if I raise awareness for said group.

Portfolio Project - Week 6 Update 3

 Sound Design

 Another part of our postproduction process is our sound design, being one of the most important aspects of our opening.

Music:

The only bit of music used in our movie opening is the first 30 or so seconds of "You'll See My Ghost" by Elliot Fulla. Despite this short duration, it is one of the most influential bits of audio in the entire opening.

What's Wrong | Elliott Fulla

There are 2 main reasons for this:

1. The first 11 seconds of this song are extremely aggressive. We want to capitalize on this, as it represents the chaos that ensues within our characters mind.

2. The contrast between the first 11 seconds of the song and the remainder accurately reflects the difference between how our character perceives the world and reality.

Song (YouTube)

Song (Spotify)

Foley:

A huge problem with our music video from a few months ago was that our foley was very poorly done, we want to make sure that were able to make a much better and much nicer sounding video this time around.

We're also currently deciding whether we want to voice over certain scenes or if we want to redo them altogether since we didn't have access to microphones when we filmed.

Portfolio Project - Week 6 Update 2

 Editing

Although my group hasn't started editing our opening yet, we do have some detailed plans on how exactly we plan to edit it.

During filming, everything was made with the edit in mind. Therefore, we did every take at least 3 times to make sure Nina (Designated Editor) has some room to work with. We're going to be using the school-provided editing software: Adobe premiere pro. We plan to use many of its features to really get the best out of our film.

Introduction to Video Editing in Adobe Premiere Pro | Envato Tuts+

Portfolio Project - Week 6 Update 1

 This week, me and my group met up to begin filming. It was honestly a bit of a rollercoaster because of a few different things. 

1. I was supposed to go pick them up at 10 AM this morning but I woke up at 11 to a phone call from Juaquin. I WAS LATE. I rushed to get ready and picked them up as fast as possible.

2. I was very low on gas, so after picking them up, I went to a gas station and to my surprise, it was FULL of cars. I quickly made my way to another one and I was able to get some. 

3. We went to both dollar tree and goodwill to look for props, which took up a very large portion of our time. Thus, we had to hurry back to Juaquin's house to regroup.

4. At Juaquin's house, we prepared some of the scenes we needed to record and took some photos that we need to print for a portion of our opening.

Afterwards we decided to head on over to Juaquin's old house and start filming.

5. Something I'm yet to mention, is the fact that our movie opening is being recorded in 2 separate locations made to look like one. Filming the entire project at Juaquin's current home has a few restrictions as the plot of our movie opening is dependent on the environment being as grim and dark as possible in order to depict the living conditions of our character.

As Juaquin's old house is being sold, we can use the empty space to really sell the whole idea that his house is empty, reflective of his soul.

Here's an example of some of the footage we got from that house:

Portfolio Project - Week 5 Update 4

 Casting:

So currently we have everyone we need for our video. In total, there's only 3 characters:

MC:
The main character is either going to be played by Juaquin or by Nina as they both volunteered, and our story really doesn't depend on our character being male or female.

MC Friend:

The second character is the main characters friend, their only purpose is to annoy the MC about getting help about their drug abuse and to start some sort of conflict. Their gender doesn't matter either and we already have someone in mind for this certain character.

MC Partner:

This character is the main characters main motivation and love interest, as it's the only connection they have to a world outside of drugs and temporary pleasures.

Portfolio Project - Week 5 Update 3

 Production (Camera Shots)

During the meeting at the Panera Bread, we also decided on the specific shots and movement we were going to include, as we wanted everything to be perfect.

Rather than going through each individual shot, I'm going to talk about the most important ones because it would genuinely take 1200+ words to get through all of them otherwise.

1. Low angle closeup of a broken picture frame:

- The low angle close-up of the broken picture frame is mainly to foreshadow the final part of our movie opening. Since the picture frame has a lot to do with the plot of our main story, we wanted to involve it in a creative way during our movie opening.

2. Wide shot High angle over the shoulder:

- So, this super specific shot is specifically done to separate the camera from what is going on in the story. Intentionally placing it away from the character, interacting with the other character, is done to emulate the disconnection the character has from the rest of the world.

3. Mirror POV

- The mirror POV is done not to showcase the character but rather change the main focus of the opening from visual to audio, hinting at some conflict going on across the house, it's also a cool way of moving the camera around without literally following the character.

These are definitely the 3 most important shots I'm going to use, as they're unique and interesting ways of portraying the story we want to tell.