Editing Process #1

 Editing Process

Hey blog, for this post I'd like to show the process of editing our film opening. 

Here are a couple clips of the editing process and putting all the clips together. As well as, adding in sound and music.

My partner wanted to deal with the editing when it came to the film opening, and I agreed because I think that they would do a better job than I would. But, I still gave my opinion on some things. Like how I thought the brightness on some scenes just doesn't look right and washes Evan out. Also, some of the sounds don't match up or there were missing sounds.

I'm not entirely sure which platform my partner edited but from recent conversation, I think it was CapCut. I told them how I felt about them using that app, as well as, how my instructor felt about it. After that conversation, for future editing, CapCut wouldn't be utilized. 

 CCR Question #1

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

Our film opening challenges conventions and represents social issues in a couple different ways.

For example, in the coming-of-age genre, the teens represented throughout the films are often portrayed with mental health issues, or a dark background. Wherever, Evan is generally happy and enjoys life. 

Although of course there are obstacles he must face, we all have those. Adding on, he also displays some signs of rebellion and teenage angst.

The movie Thirteen is a good example of a coming-of-age film that represents teenage rebellion heavily.

As for social issues, the DJ contest has an age restriction that applies to Evan. He ignores this restriction and tries competing anyway by faking his age. This delves into topics on teenage defiance. Evan goes against the rules of the competition and purchases illegal products just to be able to have his moment on the big stage. 

Viewing the issue through another POV, others may believe that there shouldn’t even be an age restriction for the contest. That talent can be founded beyond age, and anyone should be able to participate.

Production Post

Obstacles/Issues

When shooting the scene at the beach, my partner and I ran into many issues. 

Issue # 1

The first issue we ran into was setting up the 360 camera stand. When thinking about shooting that scene, we both thought of having the stand sitting up on the center console of the car, in between the drivers seat and the passenger. But, the stand was too short and we started stacking notebooks and bags under the stand to see if it would reach higher. Although, it was unstable and the driver would've had to hold on to the stand while shooting the scene.

Issue # 2

The next issue was, the lighting, It was night instead of day, when we wanted to film, which threw everything off. You could barely see anyone in the back seats or even in the front. These lighting issues couldn't even be fixed post-production. So, we tried turning the lights inside the car and reshot the scene. That didn't end up working either and the lighting looked worse than before. 

Issue # 3

The third issue had been the speed of the video. The video went too slow and it became boring to watch. We got feedback to speed it up but I wasn't really happy with how it turned out. Also, I was told to layer the video, which now we are going to see how it turns out. Adding on, we are going to reshoot the entire scene this weekend to shoot it in the day light. 

Here is one of the clips we shot when filming the beach scene.

file:///var/mobile/Library/SMS/Attachments/11/01/65FE6423-EA29-4F65-9841-41445F994EBC/IMG_4461.mov

Looking back at it the lighting isn’t as bad as I remember, but I still think it is an issue. Especially when looking at the back seats.

Group Meeting #2

 Group Meeting #2

For this blog post I will talk about my 2nd group meeting. I got some pieces of helpful feedback ad hopefully gave some useful feedback as well.

 

These are notes I took while listening to everyone's ideas.

Lydia - 

Owen, the main character, sees her future when she’s dead, although she doesn’t see how she dies, they have already filmed all their material, unsure for CCR, someone suggested that she could sort of do a scientific study. Completed filming.

Emma - 

Thriller, a girl is accused of killing her best friend, she starts off in a cell looking crazy, she writes raven many times, they wanted to represent her writing raven over and over so she looks crazy. Interrogation scene using her dad as a police. She wanted to do an interview for her CCR. I suggested that she could do an interrogation for her CCR, and someone else added that it could be her dad. Completed filming.

Giovanna - 

Thriller, Scientist who works at FBI and is currently working on a murder case. His department head had been killed, and he was working on the case. His missing daughter was swapped when she was born, and he had been searching for her for years. For CCR she also wanted to do an interview. They haven’t filmed and they will film this week.

Benjamin - 

Thriller/Mystery; Teenage boy goes home, happening at the end of the “film”, cuts to scene in his room, a few hours later, he’s texting his mom and she calls mom, but instead it is a random guy. The guy thinks it’s a joke, but he asks where his keys are… Ends with mystery scene in the mailbox. Blogger: universidadcatolica0. Unsure for CCR, hasn’t started filming.

Amelia - 

Coming-of-age; A girl lives in a small town and is unsure about the outdoor world she really wants to travel but she feels as if her parents are keeping her from leaving. And they want her to go to a college nearby. The opening introduces her and establishes her situation. Suggested: college counselor interviewing her.

Feedback - 

Amelia suggested I could incorporate something with music for my CCR and I agreed. I also wanted to include Evan, or my sister in my CCR.

Eli - 

Psychological Thriller, the main character is schizophrenic, he has a “wolf” that he can only see. He is getting accused of murder and is in an interrogation room with a psychologist, but she was the one who committed the crime and the “wolf” is telling him he saw her do it. Filmed but doesn’t like the result, unsure about CCR.

Here is a picture of all of us discussing our film openings!

 Production Post #2

When producing our opening, two apps are a really big contribute to what we are filming, and how we are going to film it.

The first app is named, Blackmagic Cam

This is where we are going to shoot all of our scenes. We have tested the app out already and I think it would help us out a lot, than to just use the normal camera app. Also, since we haven't recorded anything else on the app besides testing it and shots for our opening, it will be so much easier to be organized and know where everything is.

The second app is, GarageBand

This app is for visuals within our opening. When Evan starts to create music in the beginning, this is the app we used for it. The app is opened on a laptop to really show the vibe of a DJ. You could see many different factors such as, the bass, vocals, etc. This app is useful because it shows what Evan is doing, as well as, when put together with Evan's facial expressions, it shows his determination and passion for producing music.

Another thing I wanted to bring up about production, is when we will film. For the beginning of the opening we have already completed some parts of it. I have a photo of my partner working on those scenes with our main actor in my first production blog post. As for other scenes, such as the one near the beach, we have decided to shoot it on the weekend; Sunday, 2/22. This gives us the entire day and also just makes us happier since its the weekend.

 Production Logo Post

For our production logo we came up with the name Gemini productions. The really name just came up in my partners mind and we decided to stick with it. I personally like the name of our production company and I think it feels simple but memorable. 

When making the label I decided to utilize Canva. I first searched up templates on Canva for logos. I saw this template and wanted to try to make it write Gemini Productions but it wasn't possible.

I kept searching for templates and eventually found this logo template. I thought it was perfect since it had a logo including the letter "G" and could represent Gemini Productions.

So, I typed out "Gemini Productions" to see if it would fit. I ended up really liking it and I think it fits the theme for the logo we were going for, simple but memorable. I also decided to make the logo black.

This is the final Production logo we came up with:

 

Production Post #1

 Production Post #1

For our opening, my partner and I both pitched in to purchase props for our film. I purchased a 360-rotating stand that holds a camera, and my partner purchased a DJ set.

The 360-rotating stand is going to help us film the ending of our opening, which is the scene at the beach with everyone in the car. As for the DJ set, it would be shown frequently and it helps represent who Evan is even more. 

Here is a picture of the stand I purchased: 

For the stand, I wanted to test it out and see how good it works. First, I tested it at my house alone. I was confused and not 100% certain how to use it, so I took it to class the next day.

I brought it to class to try it out with my partner to get their opinion, as well as, my teachers opinion. We all were confused on how it worked and thought that it wouldn't be able to do the 360 rotation like we wanted. So, we had two options; scratch the scene inside the car, or find another way to do the scene. 

After tweaking the camera stand some, I figured out how to make it do the rotation but we ran into another issue. It rotated too slow. My teacher came up with the idea to shoot the scene with the slow rotation, then speeding up the scene a little bit. I thought that was a good idea but after testing how the rotation looked while filming, it didn't look as slow as it seemed. If it doesn't look how we want it after shooting, we would fast forward the scene a bit.

As for my partners DJ set, it came in and they tried it out. It went well and were excited to use it as a prop for our opening. 

Also, my partner shot some scenes with our main character, Evan. I thought that the scenes they shot were really good, the main issue was just that every shot was only displaying one side of Evan's face. As well, the lighting was washing him in a scene where his face was shown. With some editing and reshooting we improved those shots and continued our project.

Due to me having volleyball practice, I wasn't able to make it to the most recent shooting but I wanted to check in and see how they were doing. I asked them to send me a little picture of them together working on the project. 

I feel as if you can already get Evans vibe by the room itself. A lot of what's around our main character represents him in everyway.

Casting

 Casting

For this blog post, I'd like to show different actors my partner and I got for our opening. Both of us would be included in the production, but towards the end. The people we casted for our opening are very close to us, so we know that we could trust them. Also, two people we casted act or have acted before. I think that the people we chose were perfect since were close to them in real life. It helps the sense support, love, and friendship really come alive throughout the opening. 

Meet our actors!

                           Evan                      Paulina                       Zach                         Alex

                            

Character Development

 Character Development

Meet: Evan

Introducing our character, Evan. Evan is the young DJ who seeks success and loads of happiness. In the opening, when the age limit sign on the flyer is torn off, this represents Evan's spirit and grit to follow and chase his long awaited dream. After the tear, he immediately starts composing of different songs and beats. This also helps represent his passion and love for creating music.  

Past Evans hard work, his carefree and relaxed persona is shown through swift dance moves to the music he had just produced. The first people to hear the song he had created were, his friends. This works to show how he has his own little group that strives all together. Also it circles back to his strong feeling of optimism, and how much of a beautiful friendship they all share. 

For our character, we had to come up with an alternate name, Evicii. This is Evan's "stage name". Many artist in the real world come up with a fake name for fans to address them as. This stage name was thought of by my partner. They were inspired by the real artist, Avicii. My partner combined both names to create meaning towards his stage name. 

Here is a mood board I created myself to help picture Evan's vibe/Persona: 

Audio

 Audio Planning

When recording our film opening, a lot of audio that will be produced, would be non-diegetic. Since were focusing on an upcoming DJ we chose the music to be upbeat and fun. Although were heavily relying on non-diegetic sounds, there will still be realistic, diegetic noises. 

For the non-diegetic sounds, which for our opening is music, we reached out to multiple house/EDM artists to try and perfect that vibe were going for.

Different Scenes

An example of using non-diegetic sounds would be towards the end of our opening. During the scene with the main character and his friends at the beach, non-diegetic music is prioritized. We wanted to really bring out the meaning with the music we use. The feeling that nothing else really matters when you surround yourself with the right people. Only friends or family that support and love in the right and wrong moments. 

For different scenes, like the beginning when our main character is viewing the flyer. Diegetic sounds are incorporated. As well as, foley sounds. The same scene where the main character is looking at the flyer, the rustling sounds of the paper would be created through foley. 

Examples of a Foley Stage/Foley:

 

Also, here is a little sample of uncopyrighted music we found incase something goes wrong with the music we originally wanted to use:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=25679f1792&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-a:r-8662053202809627005&th=19c64a96445bcd28&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=19c64a959bfcb962cda1&zw

Mise-en-scene 2

Mise-en-scene 2 

Our characters life is all revolved around having fun, making music, and performing big. The locations in the film opening represent all the places that make him the happiest, even in the worst moments.

Set/Locations - 

The two main locations that we will be trying to shoot at is the beach, and in a room. The part with the room is easy but the beach is going to be a little trickier. Although that is an obstacle, we will work to overcome it.

Examples:

His adventurous life style is represented through bright lighting, as well as, many colored lights. 

Lighting - 

When shooting our film opening, we've thought out that most of our scenes would be shot in a brighter feature. Still, we are incorporating more duller but not dark, shots as well.

Examples: 

Mise-en-Scene 1

 Mise-en-Scene 1

When developing our character, we wanted to create a more chill, laidback teen. He loves what he does and just wants to keep creating music. He expresses this laidback, but fun personality through what he wears. He always down for anything and is just there for the fun of it.

Costume Ideas - 

For our main characters costume design, we want to style him in mor casual, low-key clothing.

Here are some examples: 

A big part of our character is his DJ set. That is his main prop, it describes him as a whole. 

Props - 

Since our main character is so revolved house music and DJing, his main prop is a DJ set.

Examples: 

Media Theory

 Incorporating Media Theory

The Identity Theory - 

A theory that applies to our film opening is the Identity Theory. 

The Identity Theory especially applies to our main character in the film opening. With the film opening starting off in a competition to open for a known DJ, the need to win is due to the "cool by association" effect, which can lead back to the identity Theory. If he were to open for the known DJ, it would make it seem that our main character is associated with other known DJ's. Which overall, would make him more known. 

This is an image the can represent the Identity Theory in a way:

Portfolio Storyboard

 Portfolio Storyboard

In this post I will be showing the storyboard for our project. The storyboard helped us decide what shots we wanted to utilize, and we successfully organized all the shots and scenes together. Also, it helped us think how long each scene needs to be, which helps us fit everything into the 2 minute we have. 

Here is the visual for our storyboard:

Portfolio Project Idea

Project idea and Major Inspiration

Portfolio Idea:

To start off, the title of our film opening is named, Exclusive.

Our film opening is all about a teenager/young adult that is trying to make it big in the house music/DJ industry. And he is that good, the main conflict is just that he is too young. The film opening begins with a flyer to sign up for a very popular DJ contest that he is holding. It's one of his dreams to be performing there but on the flyer it reads, 18+. He is too young and isn't able to join the contest. Although he is upset about this, he still finds all his passion and love in what he does. He continues to create music but then later on he gets influenced to purchase something illegal but will get him into the contest, a fake ID. He surrounds himself with his closest friends that support him always and try to help him make it big within the industry. 

Major Inspiration:

The major inspiration for the opening was just artists like John Summit, Its murph, and Calvin Harris. When I listen to their music I just feel relieved and open. I wanted to incorporate this feeling within the opening. In the production opening, the feeling he gets when he creates music is supposed to represent this feeling, but also that's what his friends are for too. Because although the music makes him feel free, his friends bring out that feeling even more. They bring a sense of hope and happiness and he loves to be around them and music at the same time.

Another major inspiration for the opening was the movie Waves. Originally I thought we would initiate the opening with the same opening as Waves. But, we decided to incorporate a similar scene at the end. We weren't sure how or when we wanted to include it in our opening but we knew we needed to add it in somewhere. 

Theme/Look I'm going for:

Group Meeting #1 Reflection

 Group Meeting #1 Reflection

I started off the group meeting by explaining to my group about my project. I had everyone search up my blogger URL and look through my posts. I received questions about how I was going to portray scenes at the beach or with the DJ set my partner purchased. As well as, how I was going to lay out my credit sequence within the opening and if I was reaching out to any artists to use their song. 

For the first two questions, I responded by referencing to the movie Waves. I told them about my idea with the 360 view of the car and with the city and beach surrounding the vehicle. For the DJ set, I told my group how I was going to show the character getting really in to the music and show their passion and love for what they do. But, it all goes back to how he's struggling with becoming mainstream since he's too young. 

As for the credit sequence and music, I've thought about having the credit sequence go throughout the opening. For music, I'm trying to reach out to artists that mainly produce house music. One example of someone we reached out to is, it's murph. 

Reflecting on Others Ideas

After I talked about my project,  my classmate, Benjamin, began to explain us his idea for his portfolio project. He isn't completely sure whether not he wants to do a production in the genre thriller, or social realism. When talking about thriller, he initially thought about doing the opening in a ark. A random phone would appear and start ringing. 

Next was Noah. He first thought about doing thriller, but is now leaning towards drama/social realism. His idea for the drama opening was about a rebellious teen growing up in poverty. He knew that he wanted the film to start with the protagonist smoking a cigarette. His obstacle with this start was that he wasn't sure if he could show himself smoking. I brought up and idea to him saying that he could show the kid putting out the cigarette or throw it on the ground after he had used it. I also explained that showing the teen just throwing a used cigarette on the ground could immediately represent how rebellious and careless the teen is.

After Noah, Sebastian went. Sebastian wanted to work in the psychological drama/melodrama genre. He wanted to represent a kid who's struggling and is lost with where is he is. There was a specific scene Sebastian wanted to incorporate. The teen would be outside the house with friends where all the colors around him were warm and bright. Then, he would walk inside where it turns cold and dark showing how without the people who surround him with positivity and love, he's lost. I loved his idea and dove more into the scene with his friends. The group asked  Sebastian how and why the kid was so troubled, and h wasn't sure how he was going to show that yet. I suggested that there were many factors that could make a teen feel this way, such as an alcoholic parent, or an absence of a parent. 

I didn't catch the name of the next classmate but he said he was going to produce a film in the Sci-Fi/thriller genre. His idea was abut a scientists who was trying to make glasses that could foresee the future. But then, the glasses malfunctioned and showed him his death. The problem he ran into was that he didn't know how he would show him seeing into the future. Someone in my group also brought up a good point. They asked if he was a good editor, because his film opening would include a lot of editing. Although I thought his film relied a lot on good editing, I also thought his idea was really good.

Emily's idea for her opening was to produce a thriller opening. The opening would start off in a car where a couple was driving together at night. The man would then received multiple calls which he would ignore. The girlfriend would get really mad and tell him to answer the phone. The boyfriend would then proceed to pull over and write a note which the girl gets shocked for. The audience wouldn't be able to see the note which builds suspense and hooks their attention. Someone else brought up that the opening could be too short and suggested new ideas to add time. I also suggested that she could show the man writing the note after the title appears to add a scene after the title.

Finally Clara decided to choose an action opening. It would include a man tied up in a garage and is beaten up real bad. As he is tied up we see flashbacks of people arguing and fighting. I proposed that after his flashbacks and the title she could include a screen saying X amount of hours before to show how he got himself in that situation. 

Overall, after this activity it helped me build my project and get more into depth. My partner also came up with new ideas after the activity which we will love to include within our opening.

This is a picture of my group and I reflecting on our project ideas!: