Final Links!!

 Here are the links to our film opening and my CCRs

Project Final Reflection

We have finally officially reached the end of the project, making this my last ever blog post before I submit the final links. These last 8 weeks have been incredibly long and tedious but I feel like we were able to create something we're all really proud of and I've definitely learned a lot while working on our final project.

I was really looking forward to beginning this project when I first joined the class, as I had friends who took the class before and mentioned the final project being some kind of short film opening. When the time came to begin the project I began to feel nervous about the outcome, since I wanted to make something I could be proud of and show how much progress I've made throughout the year. Overall I definitely feel like I've learned a lot in this class thanks to Mrs. Stoklosa but also because of all the other projects we've done. There's a lot of room for improvement but my only real issue with our final project is the camera quality, but there's not much that can be done about it with our current lack of equipment. I'll definitely invest in better equipment next time around and I'm determined to keep improving as I progress through my film studies and end up where I can do all of this for a living. 

There's a lot that goes into making a film and I can really appreciate every step as we finally wrap everything up. During the moment, it all feels very overwhelming as you try to figure everything out and overcome alllll of the issues that come up during production and post-production, but seeing everything come together in the end really makes all the stress and late nights spent trying to fix an issue worth it. I'm really looking forward to doing this and other similar projects again as I move from high school to college and begin taking film production classes to really study and master the fundamentals of film making. I had a lot of fun working with my friends on this project and look forward to all the future works I'll produce in this field. 

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy watching our film opening as much as we enjoyed making it.

CCR Post-Production

 There isn't really any post-production needed for my first CCR since it was just creating a presentation, so this post is focused on my CCR podcast answering questions 3 and 4. I decided to record my voice on Canva because I found it really easy to use the notes space for my script and record my lines in a way that felt organized and easy for me to read.

I obviously didn't put much thought into making it look nice since it was just for my script. After I recorded all my lines, I found my sound effects and the song I used in the beginning using pixabay and then began the process of combining all of my audio clips together and cutting out any odd empty spaces in the audio and adding the sound effects where they were needed.

For some reason, my Adobe premiere school subscription expired so I wasn't able to edit the audio on Adobe and I had been having issues with DaVinci and something about a codec on my computer which doesn't let me open .mov files. I honestly don't know what the issue is and how to fix it but I decided to move on and use Premier Rush to edit the audio. It's not ideal, but I've spent a lot of time trying to fix the issue on my computer to no avail so I figured I would try my last resort and edit on my phone for this last part of the project. Editing was pretty straight forward after I figured out how to use Premiere Rush and I was able to combine the audio clips and upload both of my completed CCRs on Youtube.

CCR Production

For my first two CCR questions I decided to create a Canva slideshow presentation because it felt like the easiest way to articulate my thoughts and answer the questions in a way where I could elaborate my thoughts properly. I did originally plan on creating a video for both of my CCRs, but I'm going to be honest I had a lot of trouble speaking on camera, memorizing my lines, and presenting it in a way that got my ideas across. Clearly, I'm more comfortable behind a camera than I am in front of it.

For my Canva presentation, I split my questions into multiple parts so that I could answer my questions thoroughly and have multiple short and specific slides as opposed to two long slides with no clear idea. I also added the scripts I had made in my earlier blog posts to the notes so that I could read from them as I recorded my slides.

For questions 3 and 4 of my CCR I also decided to go for an audio medium as opposed to visual for the same reasons. I created a podcast titled "Inside Entertainment" where I discuss celebrities and read through articles about them as if it were gossip. I wanted to do something similar to those "ATA" Podcasts or "True Crime" Podcasts where the person speaking is just reading commentary and reacting accordingly.

 I also wrote a small script for the podcast and used my past blog posts as my script for answering the questions. I also created a logo for the podcast to have as the video background while I address the audience and answer my questions. All that's left is to add the music and edit my audio clips together so that I can finish my podcast and submit both my CCRs.

Group Meeting Reflection 2

Yesterday we had our second group meeting where we discussed post production and plans for our CCR as we begin to wrap up our portfolio project.

During the meeting, We all talked about where we were in our production/post-production process and most of us were on the same page. Aside from a couple of reshoots and some light editing, we're all pretty much finished working on our film opening. We went around showing our peers our group opening and gave each other feedback and suggestions. When it was my turn, we got a lot of positive feedback with only a couple suggestions about altering the establishing shots to include the opening credits during the montage.

DaVinci Resolve

Also, one of my group members found an amazing editing software that I used today to add the credits to the film opening. I'd never heard of DaVinci Resolve but it was honestly a lifesaver, Adobe Premiere is a nightmare to use. Although I still found myself looking things up constantly to find out how to do certain things, I found that DaVinci was a lot easier to navigate and was a lot more straightforward, which eased the editing process a lot. 

We didn't really discuss any ideas for our CCR, and I'll be honest I still have no idea what I want to do for mine other than having the questions answered. So for now there's not much of an update I can provide for my Critical Creative Reflections process.

Overall, meeting with other groups helps us get someone else's perspective for our project and even though there wasn't that much advice given, we still got great feedback which assured that we are on the right track for our film opening. I'm really excited to get everything finished and uploaded so that we can start wrapping up.

Group Meeting

4th And Final CCR

Okay so, unfortunately I still don't have any ideas for how I want to present my CCR. I feel like I want to do something very creative and different that can illustrate the way I think, so for now I'll just continue to answer the CCR questions so I can continue brainstorming and come up with something to begin filming and editing next week.

Script for third CCR, "How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware and online- in this project?"

"Before we could begin production, we had to plan everything out and we mainly used WhatsApp to communicate our ideas. All of the media we would eventually post on our blog during the planning and production process we shared with each other through a group chat we made and eventually through OneDrive. A lot of our planning also needed visuals, and we felt that Pinterest could give us the kinds of photos we were looking for when searching for clothes and decorations for Jordyn's room so we could develop her characterization. We also used Spotify to create a playlist for Jordyn before putting everything together into organized collages using Canva. For the last step before production, I used Canva and Procreate to create and animate the logo we used for our production company "ELMAI" in the opening."

"For our production process, the main hardware we used was my iPhone 15, since I had the best camera quality in the group and none of us had access to a more professional film camera, but we made do. I'm also going to use my iPhone 15 to film my CCR since it's the best quality hardware I can get my hands on. Of course, throughout the entire process I used Blogger in order to update you guys every step of the way. We also used the website Premium Beat to select our royalty free song after the Inhaler song "It Won't Always Be Like This" didn't end up working out."

"Once we began post production, the main software utilized was Adobe Premiere Pro. My group member Elke did all of the editing on Adobe Premiere Pro since we had all done previous projects in the class with that software and had some kind of experience. I honestly found the program difficult to use and we couldn't figure out how to add the credits using Adobe so after exporting it Elke sent me the project to add the finishing touches. After discovering DaVinci, I learned how to navigate it easily and was able to add the credits before exporting it and uploading it to GoogleDrive and Youtube."

"Overall, I found a lot of useful software programs that were able to aid us throughout the project and I learned a lot about different ways to go about the production and post-production processes utilizing different technologies and resources."

Software Used

Script For 3rd CCR

  Script for third CCR, "How did your production skills develop throughout this project?"

"Although I've always wanted to join the film industry, I can admit I had almost no experience in filmmaking or film editing when I first joined this class. I'd done some editing when I was younger using KineMaster to create YouTube videos, but my experience was vague and my skills were amateur. Throughout this class, I learned about all the different steps that go into filmmaking from planning to production to post-production and learned both the technical and theoretical aspects of making a good product."

"We spent a lot of the class working on individual assignments that allowed me to really grasp all of the different choices that go into filming like angles, composition, colors, and lighting and how al of those play a part in developing meaning to your film. We also went through a lot of the different steps you take in filmmaking like storyboarding and creating soundscapes using foley and other sound effects. Post production wise, we used programs like Adobe Premiere and later I found DaVinci, which I was able to learn to navigate and use to really perfect the editing in our film."

"I feel like I've really gotten the hang of all the different parts of filmmaking and directing, but I can tell there's definitely still a lot of room for improvement. I've also learned a lot about working with others. During the year, we had a lot of different projects where we got to select our groups and some where we had our groups selected for us. Working with people I didn't always share ideas with helped me learn to compromise and come up with something great that we can all put thought into and do our best to make it great. I worked a lot with my close friend Elke Gomez and we also ended up working on our final film opening project together, along with Mariana Aldana. We had some complications along the way due to tight schedules and some disagreements, but we made the most of it and were able to end up with a product that the three of us could be proud of. Overall, I really enjoyed the process of creating "18 Before 18" and this class has taught me so much, I'm excited to move forward and to keep working towards my goals involving film production and the steps that follow as I move onto college and continue to hone my skills."

First Film Project (One Word Film)