Filming blog - Finishing up

 Happy new year! 2020 was a hard year. We as students had to adapt to a lot of new things this year. Not only the students but the teachers specially had a really hard task. Teachers had to create a whole new method of teaching and make it effective so students could learn. I’m so thankful for all my teachers for helping me through these difficult times. Today me and my partner got together to finish off the last details of our movie. We went over the movie a couple of times and got feedback from friends and family. After the feedback we made some small changes but nothing too significant. We also decided to film a couple of scenes differently just to see how they would look. We filmed the scenes and added them to the movie just to see what they looked like. We liked a couple of them but not enough to add them or substitute for one of the scenes we already have. I think it was a good idea to film those scenes. It’s always good to have something as backup. It is also good to be open for changes even when the product is almost done. We want to deliver the best movie we can and to try new things is part of that. I believe that what we currently have is the best we could have done. I’m really happy with what we accomplished. This year was tough but I believe what we’ve done is amazing given the conditions we had. Hopefully 2021 will be much better than 2020 and we can do even better things. 

More Research

 Our short film is partially done. The filming and editing are done and the movie looks great. All we need now is the green light from the studio that we want to use music from. I think we should be getting that answer shortly and we will be fine. I am very happy with the “final” product. Even though we are technically done there is still more research to be done. I want to make sure my short film is the best that it can be. Therefore I am doing some extra research to learn new things that can change my movie for the better. I want to learn new editing techniques. I feel like the editing is good as of right now. I believe that it is still not at its full potential yet. I also want to find some new other songs to have as backup in case the ones we are using don’t work. I don’t believe they will, but it is always best to be safe than sorry. I also want to research more about the theme we chose. I want to make sure our short film reaches all the characteristics a movie with the same theme does. Since our movie is a short film we have to get straight to the point in an effective way. I’m going to keep researching and trying to learn new things. Knowledge is never a bad thing. I hope to not have to make any changes in our project. If don’t that’s going to mean that we did an amazing job. 

Adding Music

 Today was a very special day. Today we finished the last step of editing our movie. After adding all the titles I added music to our short film. Music is a very important aspect of a film. Music is what dictates the emotions that want to be transmitted to the audience through a scene. I love music and for me a movie is not a movie without movie. Many movies in fact are well know specially for their good music during specific scenes. There are even awards that are given to the best movie playlists. I didn’t want to go wrong with the music in our video so I really did some research for it. I wanted to find the perfect song that fit with the scene it was being played on. It is not that simple though. Because it is a movie being made we need most of the time we will need permission from the singer or studio that made the specific song. Sometimes it is really hard to get a response from them. I’ve emailed a couple of artists that I want to use their songs and I’m waiting for them to reach back to me. Hopefully it will be a positive note and we’ll be able to use their songs. While I wait I am still going to add their songs to the movie. Since it is not yet finished and I am not posting it anywhere yet it is fine if I just have it there. While I wait I’m also going to look up other songs to have as back up if they don’t reach back or the response is negative. I don’t believe the response is going to be negative but it is better to be safe than sorry. As of right now the short film looks amazing and I can’t wait for what is next to come.

 

Adding Titles

 Today was a really good day. I started adding titles to my short film today. It was one of the last things we have to do for our movie. Adding titles is something that doesn’t take long. It is a very simple process that can be done in any editing browser. It can be an easy process but you have to pay a lot of attention when doing it. There is an specific order names have to follow. That order depends on the role that the person has in the movie. A director shouldn’t have his name next to an actor’s name. There are exceptions to that order of course. Sometimes the same person plays two different roles in the movie. Therefore the same name can show up twice or once in different places. Something that is also very important is spelling. We have to make sure that the names are spelled correctly because that can be offending. It is such a small detail but it can happen very easily. Something very important happened while I was adding the titles to the movie. After finishing adding all of them I noticed that they were quite hard to read. They were hard to read because the color from the background was too similar to the color of the titles. It was really easy to fix but it was a mistake that I was really glad I caught on. Having titles that the audience can’t read because of the color is something that simply cannot happen. I’m glad that it was fixed and we can move on the final phases of our movie. 

Re-edit Blog

 Today I re-edited some stuff that I didn’t like about our film. After finishing editing I noticed some mistakes I made. There weren’t many big mistakes but some that bothered me. I am a very perfectionist person. That can be sometimes good and sometimes bad. It’s great because most of the things I do come out nice and the way I want them to. Sometimes it’s bad because nothing is perfect and so I can get very frustrated. Today wasn’t the case though. Every mistake I saw was fixed and I was really happy with the end result. I didn’t take me really long to finish re-editing. I payed a lot of attention the first time I was editing so I didn’t make many mistakes. I’m really happy that we are almost done with the editing process. We just need to finish a couple more things. We will soon add the titles and music to our film and that’s it. I can’t believe we are so close to finishing this project. I was really happy to work with Xavi in one more project and nothing changed. We worked really well together and it is showing. I really hope we can work together in more projects to come. Now I’m focused on finishing everything and getting feedback. Feedback is really important and I want to get a lot of it. After that we will be ready to submit!

Editing blog

 Merry Christmas! Even though today is a holiday we still have work to do. Today I started on the editing process of our film. For me this is one of the most exciting parts. It is when you can tell how your movie will actually look like outside of the storyboard. We still have a couple of scenes to reshoot but we decided to start editing the material that we already have. It is important to get a head start because we don’t know if we are going to run into some problems while editing. It is good to be ahead of time because if anything happens we have time to fix it before the deadline. I really like to edit short videos and pictures. I came up with the conclusion that editing short videos and pictures is totally different then editing a short film. There is way more work to be put when editing a short film. There are a lot of small details that me and my partner need to pay attention to to make our movie great. I’ve been making a lot of research to gain knowledge on editing. I’ve learned a couple of things but I can definitely learn more. I’m also planning on downloading a new editing app on my computer. The currently app that I use is really slow and doesn’t offer many options when it comes to editing. My partner Xavi is a really good editor. He’s been teaching me a lot ever since we started working together. I believe we make a great team, and that our movie will be greatly filmed and edited. 

Re-shooting blog

 

Today me and my partner decided to re-film. After watching the raw product of our short film we decided that we didn’t like how some scenes turned out. A couple of scenes didn’t come out the way we expected so we decided to re-film and change them a bit. We wanted to re-film our scenes but since it was to close to Christmas and both me and my partner will be out of town we decided to postpone it to next week. I really wish we could’ve filmed this week. I hate the feeling that something isn’t right with what we did. I want to fix this issue as soon as possible and I will. Besides that I really liked how the other scenes looked. They turned out exactly how we planned and I’m really happy. I’m going to start editing them very soon. I’m not sure if I should start editing the scenes I like right now or wait until I finish reshooting the rest of my film. It’s nice to have everything done and prepared for the editing process. It is also nice to get a head start and to speed things up. Our movie is developing in a good pace so I don’t think I will rush things. The deadline is not too far but the last couple of steps shouldn’t take us long to complete. Overall I’m very happy with things are going. Me and my partner worked hard and it is paying off. I can’t wait to start editing and beginning to see what the movie will look like. I think our movie has a lot of potential and it will look awesome. I’ll keep you guys updated.

Social Media Blog

 Today we have checked and followed all of our classmates movie’s social media. We all created accounts on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. We even created a YouTube channel for our short film. It was really nice to see all of the different types of movies and social medias our classmates had. After looking at some of their movies and reading a summary about them I can’t wait to see what the final product will look like. When me and my partner created our accounts we wanted to make sure they would drag a lot of attention. At first our accounts were very basic. Me and my partner decided to take pictures while filming to post on them to make our accounts more alive. After adding our pictures we received a lot of good feedback and I was really happy with the final product. We also decided to add the same pictures to our website. That was a great idea because our website looked so much better after. We thought that the website looked empty before with only our social media accounts and biography. That’s when we came out with the idea of adding pictures from our social media to our website. Hopefully when we finish up filming we’ll be able to take more pictures and post them. We are almost done filming and when we finish we will make sure to start the editing process. Editing takes long. Me and my partner gotta make sure that everything is well cut and scenes transition smoothly. We also came up with the idea of taking pictures of our group editing our short film. The pictures won’t be as exciting as our filming ones, but we believe it is important to show people all of the steps that happen before a movie is done. I’m very happy to finally be close to finishing filming. I can’t wait to start editing. For me editing is one of the most exciting parts because it is when you can really see what your movie might look like. 

Filming Blog: We started filming

 The day finally came! Today my partner and I got together after school and started the filming process. We went over to my house and started to film right away. I was really excited to finally be able to start things. It was also very good to see how the film looked like on camera. I had my sister take a couple of pictures of me and Xavi in action so we can upload them to our website and social media accounts. I also showed some of the clips we filmed to some of my family members so we could get some feedback from them. We weren’t able to film all of our scenes today. We wanted to make sure every scene looked good and that made us run out of time. I’m glad we did that because I know the potential our movie has and I want it to be great. My partner and I are trying to figure a date to finish filming as soon as possible. It is very important for us to finish filming fast so we can get started on the editing process. I know we still got some time but I don’t want to be left behind. I believe that we are on the right track and we will succeed. Not many changes occurred from our storyboard to the final product on camera. I was surprised because in my other projects we used to change a lot from our storyboard. I am glad that happened because I really thought that what we had in our storyboard was the best way we could make our short film. Overall I feel like today was a success. We filmed a lot of scenes and took a lot of pictures of the process. I am really excited of what is coming next. 

Editing blog: Why we couldn't edit

 After many changes in our plans we were finally able to set a day to film. My partner and I will be filming our movie tomorrow. We will film and take pictures for our website and social media. I am very excited to finally get things started. We were supposed to film and edit our film during thanksgiving break. Due to a lot of last minute inconveniences we weren’t able to film or edit during the break. It was also hard to get things done because of the pandemic that is going on. My partner and I don’t want put ourselves and our families at risk. We got tested before and waited for the results and that delayed the process. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t edit over the break. It would’ve been way easier for us to film and edit our film without having to worry about school. It’s going to be a challenge this week but I believe that we can do it. As I mentioned before we will also be taking pictures and recording for our social media. I believe that that is a very important step for our short film to be great. Having good social media and website helps the movie to reach a lot of different people. Social media draws a lot of attention and that’s what my partner and I are trying to do. Adding pictures and clips might not change much but it will make our website look more professional. While we can’t start editing our film I’m doing a lot of research on editing and editing tools. I am not very good when it comes to editing but I’m learning something new everyday. I can’t wait to film and get started on the editing process.

Filming Blog: Why we didn't film

During thanksgiving break me and my partner were planning on filming our movie. Because of the pandemic we had to make sure that we were safe and our environment was safe. We both got tested and waited on a negative result. The result came and so we were cleared to film. The problem was that even though we didn’t have school my partner and I had a lot of extracurricular activities. We only had one day to film so we tried to do it on a Friday. Everything was fine until a last minute emergency forced me to go to a different city and spend the weekend there. We then rescheduled it for the following Monday but both of us were asked to do things after school making it impossible to film that day. Hopefully we will be able to film at the end of this week and finally get things done. When we do film we have a lot of plans of what we’ll do. Since we can’t be together all the time because of the pandemic we are going to try to get as many things done as possible. We will not do stuff related to the film but we will also do stuff to make our social media and website look better. We want to film. While and after filming we will be taking pictures that will be posted on our social media and in our website. We will also get some behind the scenes footage and sneak peeks of our film to post on our YouTube channel. I believe that this will be a great addition to our project and will really set us apart from competition. I am very happy with how things are going for us. Everything that we’ve planned has been working and helping our project look good. I am so excited to start the filming process and to see what the end result will look like. I really hope that we can get to film this next week and start editing right away. It’s good to be done early so we can get a lot of feedback and have time to change stuff that we don’t like.

Storyboard for short film

 Doing a storyboard is one of the most important parts of planning a movie. The storyboard is where the movie comes alive and becomes reality. It is important to have someone that knows the story very well and someone that can draw good. A good drawing really makes a difference because more detail can be added to the picture. A good drawing also helps the actors and directors to not forget any set and acting details when the filming day comes. When doing our storyboard me and my partner had some difficulties. We are both not very good at drawing so that made our job harder. We are also still in quarantine so we weren't able to see each other and discuss scenes in more detail. Even with all of the difficulties I believe that he and I did a good job on trying to interpret the scenes from our heads to the paper. This was a really long storyboard. It took us more than 10 pages to do our story board. It was very hard to do everything because we tried to capture every minimal detail that was in our heads. It is very important to have as much detail as you can so when you forget something during filming you can just look it over on your storyboard. The storyboard will help me and my partner a lot during our filming because we will probably forget some essential details and looking at the storyboard will help us remember to film them. I really enjoy storyboarding because it gives you a feel that your whole movie is coming together and it is actually happening. Me and my partner will try to film as soon as possible to avoid any inconveniences. I am really excited to start filming to see how it will look in the camera. With this pandemic happening the key to success is patience. We don't want to rush things and get sick or someone from our family sick. We will take a lot of precautions before filming and during filming so we are able to get things done safely and in the best way possible. I am really excited and can't wait to get things started safely. 

Planning Blog

 We are approaching one of the most important parts of our project, Filming. Me and my partner already did all of the “boring” parts of this project and now it’s time to have some fun filming. Before filming we have to have a plan first. We will be starting to film during thanksgiving break. It will be easier to film then because we won’t have to worry about any other extra school work. We will also most likely not have any extracurricular activities during the break. We will most likely film at one of our friends house. She’s not in our group or the class but she is helping us with the filming process. She helped us last year to film our movie so we are looking forward to working with her again. Me and Xavi will participate in the filming. We will most likely also add our friend Maya on a couple of scenes. We will make sure we are safe before filming our movie. During this pandemic it is very important that everyone is safe and are taking the proper precautions. We will be wearing masks the whole time. The only time we won’t is when the camera starts filming. We will be using some props. Most of the stuff we use is basic stuff that I teenagers have in their rooms and house. We will be using things like a video game controller, a bed, books, cellphone, papers, pen, pencil, backpack, a car and some other things. The characters in the movie will be wearing basic clothes that teenagers wear and people in the 21st century wear. We will keep it simple because we want to make this movie as relatable as it can be to the average teen.

Short Film vs. Feature Length Film

 After watching both the short film and the movie 9 I’ve decided to compare both of them. I really enjoyed watching both. They both told a similar story and kept everything simple but effective. The plot was really good for both short film and movie. What I really liked about the short film that the full movie didn’t have was the beast. The short film is totally based on the fight between the main character and the beast. I really enjoyed watching both of them fight and was hoping to see more during the movie. There is some fighting against the beast in the beginning of the movie but it is quickly defeated and never spoken of after. The machine was a great villain but I think that the beast suited the plot better for both the short and the movie. What I really liked about the feature length that the short didn’t have was the character voices. During the short none of the characters speak and it was really hard to understand the background of the story. In the full length almost all characters speak and it makes it way easier to tell a story. I get that during the short there is not much time to tell a whole story. I believe that if they added voice to at least one of the characters they could tell a story briefly making it easier to understand the plot. Both have some flashbacks specially the full length movie. The flashbacks are a really good addition because it tells the story of the plot in a very simple but effective way. After seeing both flashbacks in the short and the full length movie I was finally able to understand the story and how it all started. Understanding the plot made a big difference in my opinion. I made the movie and the short a lot more interesting and fun to watch. I really enjoyed watching both forms of media. Although both storylines were the same they both have a lot of differences that makes them unique. 

Research 9, the feature film.

 After a very successful short, the movie 9 was released in 2009. The movie tells the story of puppets that try to survive in a post apocalyptic world. No humans exist in this world after a big war was fought between humans and machines. The movie picks up on the story that was told on the short film. The main character first fights the monster that they call the beast. It is the same monster that we see in the short film. In the beginning of the movie they defeat the beast but end up awakening something worst that turns out to be the main villain of the story. The movie has a lot of characters, each characters has their own number and voice. All characters play a really important role into the development of the story with 9 being the main character. The whole movie is animated and the animation is very well done. A lot of detail is added into each of the characters and it is very easy to tell because of the clean animation. There are also a lot of flashbacks during the movie to tell the background story of the plot. How the war started, how the characters were created, and how the villain was created. All the stories are well told and it is very easy to understand them. Knowing the background story of the plot makes the movie a lot more interesting to watch. The main character 9 develops really fast throughout the movie. At first he was scared of everything and at the end he becomes their leader and helps to defeat the machine. The character 1 also develops a lot during the movie. He goes from always trying to hide and not fight anyone to sacrificing himself for the greater good. I really enjoyed watching this movie. Knowing the story made it very interesting to me, and seeing how everything developed from the short was very cool to see. 

Research 9, the short

 The short film 9 by Shane Acker was released in 2005 being 11 minutes long. I really like this short because there was so much to see and pay attention while watching. The short tells the story of some kind of puppet or toy that is alive and has to survive in this world full of destruction. There is not much background story to this short. It is very straight to the point and it has a lot of action. None of the characters talk, except for the beast that makes a lot of noise. The main character 9, inspired by his friend’s death goes from being scared all the time to taking action against the beast and defeating it. During the short the way that they show a little bit of the background story of the characters is when 9 has a flashback and remembers his adventures with 5. The whole movie is an animation and it is full of special effects. Since this short was released in 2005 the animations are not that good. The lack of tools for the animation kinda of holds on into the possible way that the short could’ve have went. It is still a pretty good material taking it in conclusion that it was made before 2005. Since this is a short film it makes sense that it is very straight to the point. There is almost no background to the story but I get that the producers couldn’t waste time telling a story. I wish that they did tell a story because the plot itself doesn’t make much sense while you watch it and when you are done. I also think that if they added voice to the two characters they could explain the story briefly wasting less time in the process. Even with some flaws the short still pretty good. I really enjoyed watching it, and at the end I wished it was longer. Many people felt that way because a couple of years later they released a full movie on 9 and his story. 

Genre Choice for Film

 Me and my partner ended up choosing the genre Coming of Age. This genre matches perfectly with our pitch and we really enjoyed researching it. Our movie will be about a teenager that is having problems at home and at school. This is a perfect Coming of Age movie because it matched everything we researched on. This genre wasn’t the one we were looking for in the beginning but after all the research it was the one that we were the most excited about. Out of the two other genres we researched Coming of Age is special to us because usually what happens in the movie is happening to us right now. When directing our movie will be very interesting because we know how adolescents feel about school and how stressful it can be. As a director I can add many things to the movie and details that have happened to me in my life. Me and my parter have watched so many Coming of age movies specially the ones listed in our previous blog. I am really excited to start working on this. We can’t wait to share the final project with you guys. 

Genre Research-(Romance)

 The Genre romance is a very popular genre in movies and it attracts a lot of people with different ages. The romance genre uses many different types of CAMS, the most used are Long shots, Two shots, Medium Shots and Establishing shots. They are used to really give the viewer the idea that what they are watching is a love story. Sound plays a really important part on films with the romance genre. Sounds like Voice overs, diegetic sounds, non diegetic sounds and ambient sounds are used a lot during a romance movie. An example of that is when a narrator does a voice over to tell a love story or talk about the two characters that are in love. CLAMPS is probably one of the most important parts of the genre. Props like rings, flowers, clothes always show in romance movies. They are so important to really show what the movie is about. Lighting also plays a big part on the movie because it is very important to have a romantic lighting at a dinner or on a date, and that’s what the directors do when shooting a scene in a romantic movie. Cross cutting is used a lot in romantic movies. It usually works by cutting from two people that like each other and how they feel about something that happed in a scene. Straight cuts are used as well to keep the moving going. Examples of romantic films are Dear John, The  notebook, The fault in our stars. I really enjoy this genre because of the storylines are always great. The settings are always nice and the cities that they are usually shot are beautiful. 

Genre Research-(Coming of Age)

 In a Coming of Age film there is a common theme when it coms to camera angles and shots. One the most commonly used shots is the close-up. They use this because it shows the viewers the characters emotions and/or shows how the character is changing. Along with the close-up, usually combined with it, an eye level camera angle is usually used. These are used many times during these coming of Age films, this is for one main reason. They are repeated so that as the movie progresses, you can see how the character's emotions and reactions change. Another shot used is the two-shot. These shots are mainly used to demonstrate intimacy, like when your main character is talking to their crush. To accompany many of these two-shots the director also uses tracking shots so they can film the two walking around places like their school. Speaking of location, a large percentage of Coming of Age films occur in a school, or have to do with a school. Going back to the close-up shots, an edit that usually comes right after the close-up is an eye-line match. As I said before the close-up can be used to show someone's reaction to something, so you must be shown what they are reacting to. Two examples of films in the coming of age genre would be the movie It, and the film Little Miss Sunshine. Coming of age films are actually some of my favorite movies, like Little Miss Sunshine. In these movies you get to connect emotionally to the characters more than other genres. You also get to see them change as the perceive more aspects of the world. I also feel like I can relate to them much more as they fit my age range. There are also some things that I dislike about them, one of which is the clichés. However, these are only really found in lower quality films. Another dislike of mine is the common themes, this is relatively acceptable as the genre has some pretty narrow restrictions.

Genre Research- (Epic)

 In an Epic movie there tends to be a lot of aerial shots, this is so they can show the audience the extent of a journey. An example of this would be in a lot of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings shot where they show the entire group walking up a mountain. They also use long shots that show the extent of nature of the beauty of their environment. Additionally, in an epic film they use tracking shots to show a conversation through some terrain. In a film there tends to be 5 types of movement: The camera moves in relation with an object , The camera moves in relation to people, People move in relation to the camera, People move in relation with each other and other objects in a frame, Framing elements move in relation to themselves or each other But when it comes to epic movies you will see a lot of tracking shots to carry the conversation. Common sounds in an Epic Genre are Diegetic Sound, Ambient Sound and Symphonic music scores. Epic films can really be put into two categories, mythic/fantasy epics and war epics. In a mythical/fantasy epic you would be heavily relying on nature, using costumes that represent the time period or the storyline. The same goes for epic, but the costumes would be more of a rusty, torn look. You would also see maybe broken trees or devastated areas. Usually an epic movie tends to use natural lighting since they are filmed in nature. However, movies nowadays are filmed inside with green screens, so they have to create their own. There is softer lighting. What I really enjoy from the Epic Genre are the battle scenes and the music. The story is also great most of the time. 

Genres I would like to research

  So, now that we have finished the movie pitch, Xavi and I will begin researching different genres. There are multiple reasons for this process. First, and probably the most obvious reason, is so we can correctly align ourselves with a specific genre. This will slightly shift our overall script, this will help us stick to one area and not go on unnecessary tangents during the film. Second, by identifying our movie with a specific genre will allow us to research common themes in the, sound, lighting, mis-en-scene, editing, and more. This helps sharpen our skills, especially in specific areas related to the genre we select. The first genre we we will be researching is, romance. We decided to select it because it does play a medium sized role in our film. During the film you will be able to see some shift due to the introduction of romance. It can also assist in many scenes, by this I mean the production of these scenes. Like when we research this genre we will be able to see certain aspects of lighting and angles. Even if we don't end up selecting this as our main genre we can still take parts of it. For our second genre to research we selected the coming of age geneere13. I am leaning towards this as the genre we should select for our movie. Xavi and I feel that this best fits our movie. When researching we can improve the production and we can also edit the script so that it fits the genre and common themes better. Finally, for our last genre to research we decided on epic. We knew that this wouldn't be our final selection for the genre, but we did have a major reason, the camera. When shooting a epic you tend to have a lot of long and birds-eye-view-shots, which is one thing we really wanted to incorporate into our movie. Those are the three genres we will be researching.

Pitch Blog

 “You’re a teenage boy struggling with mental illness, your grades, life, and parent’s marriage are all falling apart, but you have to make it work”

Group Blog

 Today was the final day to choose the group that you have to work on for our short film project. I had a lot of people to choose from since you could work with anyone from any period. I chose to work with my friend Xavi. He is not in the same period as me but like I said before we were allowed to work together. I am very happy to be able to work with him. We did very well last year together. Our 2 minute film looked great and our commercial and music video looked even better. I chose Xavi as my partner because we have a lot of chemistry together. We are very used to working in these kinds of projects since we have done 3 of the already. Xavi is more of a tech guy, while I like to be part of the videos. He knows how to film really well, and to edit as well. This works really well because me and him are both comfortable on what we are doing. It will definitely be a challenge to do this project as a duo since its a pretty long video. I believe that we are ready to take this challenge though, we are now way more experienced then when started working together last year. We had a lot of experiences where we made a lot of mistakes last year but also learned a lot from them. Me and Xavi have been discussing the idea of our movie ever since the beginning of summer when we first heard that we were going to take this class again. We have almost everything down and are ready to start filming. With the pandemic still around, I don't know how we are going to film and when we are but I hope it is very soon. We have heard some rumors that we should be getting back to school in a couple of weeks, and I really hope they are true. Going back to school is going to make everything easier for us to create a schedule for our filmmaking process.

Welcome Back!

 Hello everybody, I am very happy to announce that I am finally back from the summer break and will start to write my blogs again. Ever since this pandemic started, I wasn't able to write too much here. There was just so much going on that I kinda left my blog a little to the side. Our school continued even with the pandemic. We had to adapt with online learning, in the begging it was hard but as weeks went by it became very easy and enjoyable to do. I finished my school year with straight A's and was able to pass all 4 of my Cambridge classes including AS Media. Due to the pandemic our Cambridge exams were canceled bu they were still able to give us a grade based on our past school work. Before the pandemic I was lucky enough to be able to meet with my counselor and choose the classes I will be taking my senior year. I was fortunate enough to have Mr. Katz as my counselor that year. He was my previous AICE Media teacher, and really encouraged me to take the next step and take A Level Media my senior year, and that's what I decided to do. That is why I am writing for you guys today. We have started the new school year online since we are still in quarantine. I really don't hate online learning but I want to come back as soon as possible and enjoy my last year as a student at Fort Lauderdale High. I was really happy to know that my last year's partner for most of my projects, Xavi, is taking the same class as me. We have both started talking about of final project and hope that we can go back to school to start filming. I believe that we are slowly going back to normal. After 7 months quarantined my Soccer practices and games have started to happen again. That is the first step, now I am waiting on school. I am very happy to start this new year in this class with my amazing teachers. I have really big things for this year and I can't wait to share with all of you. But that's for another blog!

Audience and Institution Essay - To what extent is digital distribution vital to film?

To what extent is digital distribution vital to film? 

Digital distribution is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other software. We take technology for granted nowadays since it is so accessible to us. However, digital distribution plays almost the biggest part in how well a movie does before or after its release.  

Digital distribution can continue a film’s legacy even after it premieres in theaters. The Fast and Furious franchise released a DLC pack 7 days after the Fast and Furious 7 film officially premiered. They did this through cross-media convergence. Universal Studios and Microsoft collaborated to bring the audience the ability to race in the game as if they were players. This benefitted both companies because they both profited from people learning about and playing the game. Another way that digital distribution can help films is by supporting small companies and indie films. Charles Matthau wrote an article for WIRED titled “How Tech Has Shaped Film Making: The Film vs. Digital Debate is Put to Rest.” In this article Matthau explains that distribution through the platform “YouTube” has significantly altered the ability for small companies to get their advertisements and movies out, and for the better. Matthau writes, “Distribution through YouTube has been the most common form of marketing for quite some time. Studios have released big budget trailers, while indie filmmakers have sought funding and interested eyes posting content through various YouTube channels. [...] YouTube users also crowdsource what is popular with a thumbs up, helping others to find new and interesting content without spending too much time digging for it.” This is just one example of how digital distribution can help films that may not have been seen, become seen. 

Warner Bros. has shown a trend when releasing films in their “Lego” franchise. Usually, they will release a video game first, then a movie. They did this again with The Lego Movie 2, releasing yet another video game beforehand. This caused audiences to draw their attention to the entire franchise, creating more money for the first movie and its video game, as well as its successor. Media distribution also benefited a lot the Movie Black Panther. The movie was not very “hyped” before its release date, but after it was finally released the movie gained a lot of popularity and profited a lot from it. After the release of the movie, Disney also  released the movie’s soundtrack for download. That was a major key for the movie to be talked about for a long time and never “die” in popularity. Disney has a history of very good marketing and Media distribution. Before the latest Star Wars Movie, Disney partnered up with Epic games and their game Fortnite to bring in game outfits, known as “Skins” for players to buy and use. They also had a live event where thousands of people joined and watched parts of the movie inside the game with their friends. The event and the “Skins” players bought created a huge hype for the movie and certainly Disney and Epic games profited immensely from it. 

The movie Spider-Man Homecoming was a movie that had a lot of people very excited when it was announced. The movie certainly did not disappoint and got amazing reviews and people really enjoyed watching it. After the release of the movie Sony also released The movie in streaming devices like Xfinity stream and other streaming sites. Sony benefited a lot from that since many people don’t have the time to go out to the movies or simply just don't want to leave their homes. In the article “Ins and Outs of Hollywood Film Distribution” the author Jonathan Paul writes about digital distribution and how companies profit out of it. In the article Paul writes, “With each passing year, Digital Distribution Is positioning itself to surpass disc-based media as the top home-entertainment revenue. Studios and distributors are including digital copies with physical copies. They’re even beginning to Release digital versions of films to online retailers like iTunes, Amazon, and Google Play before the disc-based option is released.” This shows that digital media distribution is increasing its popularity every day and will soon pass disc-based media and maybe even media delivered in the movies.

Digital distribution is vital for the success of a movie. Digital distribution not only increases the movie’s “hype” and popularity in the case of video game DLCs and cosmetic items but it also keeps the movie alive even after months of its  release by soundtrack releases and by allowing people to watch those movies on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Xfinity stream and many others.

Extract Essay - 24

          The theme of the extract feels like a rivalry between two people. The man, that can be assumed as a police officer or detective, is trying to get information from a woman that is being held in custody. There is a feeling that they have met before that scene, but the woman will still not be cooperative with the officer making him feel really angry. The officer is very nervous because people’s lives are in danger due to the bomb that the police is trying to disarm. The woman is the only one that knows someone that can disarm this bomb and she won’t tell the man, that creates a big sense of tension and rivalry in the scene.
          The scene starts with the man opening the door to the interrogation room that the woman is in. We are able to see the woman through an over the shoulder shot, that type of shot is great to show the actor’s perspective. After that, the director zooms into a close up of the woman’s face to show her reaction to seeing the officer, that type of shot is a great way to show someone’s emotion or reaction to something. From the woman’s face the scene changes to an eye line match to show the officer looking at the camera, that shot helps the viewer understand that the officer knows that he is being watched and that anything he does can be used against him, that shot is great to help the viewer to understand how serious the scene taking place is. There is another over the shoulder shot but this time it is to capture the officer’s emotion when staring at the woman. The camera moves into a close up to the officers face to show how serious and mad he is when staring at the woman. The officer then puts some papers on a table in front of a woman, that prop helps the viewer to understand that an investigation is going on and that the papers might contain evidence of a crime that the woman committed. After the papers are thrown the director cuts and shows the people monitoring the cameras in the room in a two shot, that shot helps the viewer to understand how serious the situation is. Another eye line match takes place when the woman looks at the clock in the room, a non-diegetic sound is then added to show the clock ticking, that shot helps the viewer to understand that the woman might be in a hurry.

          The scene transitions from the clock into a close up of the woman’s face. She then starts the dialogue saying that she wants to keep the interrogation short, adding to the conclusion that she is in a hurry. An over the shoulder shot is used to show the officer’s response to what the woman said, that shot is a good way to show both of their reactions to what is being said. During the dialogue we can hear the officer’s footsteps in a diegetic sound, the sound helps the viewer to see how apprehensive the officer is at the moment. We then see a pan from the officer’s shoulder to the woman sitting in the chair. The medium shot of the woman in the chair helps the viewer to see that she is tied up and to understand more the situation. The officer then is fed up with the woman and throws the table on the ground making it a really loud diegetic sound, that sound helps to catch the viewer’s attention to the scene. The scene then cuts into a close up to the man watching the room through the cameras. That shot helps to see the man’s reaction to what is taking place in the room.

          The scene transitions from the man’s face to another two shot of the people watching the room through the security system. The camera then closes up on the woman’s face once again for her to say a line that would make the officer crazy enough for him to attack her. That close up is really important to the scene because it shows very clearly the woman’s reaction saying that line, she was having fun and even smiled, and that could probably be the reason the officer attacked her. When the officer is running to attack the woman there is also a tracking shot, the camera tracks the officer until he grabs the woman by the neck. That shot helped to see how mad and how hard the officer wants to hurt the woman. When the officer pushes the woman we can see the chair she’s sitting on scratch the floor. A diegetic sound happens to put more tension in the scene. After the officer bangs the woman on the wall we can see a split screen of the woman being chocked and the people watching the room through the cameras run to try to intervene with what is happening. The split screen shows very well both of the reactions of the man and the woman and it also transmits a lot of suspense to the scene. In the split screen a tracking shot takes place as the camera follows the man running trying to get to the room where the officer is. The tracking shot also helps to add suspense and action to the scene. Score sound is also added to the scene bringing a lot of suspense and action to it.

          In the extract, the director tries to add suspense and the feeling of rivalry between the officer and the woman as much as he can, by the use of sound, camera angles, movement, shots and etc. By using a lot of close ups to capture emotion and reaction the director was able to give the feeling that the two main characters hated each other. Using specific diegetic sounds and adding non diegetic sounds and score the director was able to add a lot of tension seriousness and suspense to the scene, making the sure the viewer was always hooked to the movie. 

Movie: CCR and Video

Question 1:

Question 2:

Question 3:

Question 4:

Music Video: Video and CCR

Commercial: Video and CCR

Re-edit Blog: Why we couldn’t re-edit

After the peer review during class 2 weeks ago me and my partner decided to reshoot a couple of scenes in our movie. Our original plan was to reshoot those scenes the weekend of peer review day. Due to some inconveniences me and my partner weren’t able to reshoot those scenes and we had to postpone our reshoot to the week after. What we didn’t know was that the Covid-19 virus was going to have a massive outbreak in the United States that week. The outbreak forced schools to close and people to be stuck in their homes for a while. Because of the virus me and my partner weren’t able to reshoot the scenes making it impossible to re-edit most of our movie. I went over our movie and watched it a couple of times and tried to find any mistakes or things I could’ve done better when it came to the editing process. I couldn’t find nothing major but I was still able to fix some minor cuts to make them feel smoother. I also edited edited some scenes out of the movie to cut some time off of it since our movie went over the maximum time which was 2 minutes. Those were very insignificant changes and when we finally reshoot our scenes there will definitely be big editing changes being made. Our school is supposed to go back to normal on April 4th. Hopefully after that me and my partner can meet up and finish our movie once and for all. The situation we are living on right now is very scary. Luckily for us most of the assignments we have to do for this class are online and we are able to complete most of them with success. Currently my family and friends are safe and I hope we can make it through this without anyone getting infected. I really hope things get back to normal very soon we can get things back on track. Hopefully everyone will be safe and me and my partner can start working on our project again.

Reshoot blog: Why we couldn’t reshoot

 Last week me and my partner finished our movie and got feedback from it during the peer review in class. The person that reviewed our movie really liked it and pointed out some shooting mistakes we made. After reviewing the peer review sheet me and my partner decided to reshoot some scenes that needed fixing. We decided to film last weekend on March 8th. Everything was going well until I had a game scheduled on that day and my partner couldn’t film on the day before. We ended up deciding not film that day and postpone it to next week since we will both be free. The due date of our final project still far away so my group still has plenty of time to finish  everything. When we film next week, we will be reshooting 3 scenes that happened on the inside of the house. This is really good since we won’t depend on weather to finish our project. For the first scene we had some problems with the audio. When watching the scene we weren’t able to hear part of the scenes’ dialogue and that needs to be fixed as soon as possible. On the second scene we were able to see one of our friend’s foot when the letters fall on the ground. We weren’t able to crop his foot of the shot so we will have to reshoot that scene. That won’t be that hard of a fix since the scene is really short. The third and last scene that needs to be fixed is the scene where the main character is playing videogames. We tried to show that using a high angle. When we rewatched the scene in the movie the angle didn’t look too high so we will try to reshoot that scene and lift the camera more when we do it. If we have time we will also review some other scenes with more depth and see how we can improve on them if we can. Hopefully everything will go well this week and we will be able to film this weekend. I am really excited to finish our movie and see what the final product will turn out to be.

(Props used in the scene we are reshooting)

Peer review: watching another group’s film

One thing I really liked about their film was the storyline or the idea. I think that the movie was underdeveloped and hard to understand, but the thought process behind it was good. The film was about a girl being kidnapped from what I could tell. While this is a very generic thriller storyline, I think it could have been an interesting film. I have a few suggestions, but my biggest one would be the transitions between scenes. It was very obvious that there wasn’t any editing done for in between scenes. For example, you could see the actor walking back to the camera to end the clip. I think it looks unprofessional considering it’s not supposed to be a documentary type movie. Another suggestion I would make is making the kidnapping scene more realistic. In the film the guy just grabs the girl and puts her in the back of the car with no struggle and drives away. This obviously would not happen in reality. I think that to make it more realistic, she should try to run away or get tied up or get knocked out. Also, the scene where he locks her in the car and drives away is repeated. Another big issue was the lack of titles. There was not a single title so I didn’t know what the name of the movie was, who was in it, etc. In addition to all this the movie was one minute over the time it was supposed to be. There were quite a few issues with shots and angles as well. They only had about six of the fourteen we were supposed to have. I hope that this group will take my criticism constructively and adjust their film accordingly. I think that once they’re done it can be a great film.

Filming blog: Our issues with filming

When we were filming last weekend, we ran into a few issues. The first one began with our camera. We used a school camera to film the first few scenes, but the camera would not let us film more than a few seconds at a time and eventually didn't let us film at all. We had to switch to a different camera, so we moved the SD card to a camera that my friend had. However, for some reason the footage was not saved. We had to reshoot all of the clips we filmed, about 5 or 6, on the new camera. This ended up working out and we shot the first half of the film. Then the camera died, our second issue. We had to let it recharge for about an hour which wasted a lot of time. We also ate at this time in order to save whatever time we had. After the camera was almost fully recharged, we filmed whatever was left to film in the house. We then had to go to the airport to finish. The first issue here is that we had to pay for parking. It was around $10. This wasn't a big issue it was just more of an annoyance. We were at the airport for about 30 minutes. It was really busy so we had no way of clearing a path for us to film. This resulted in some people getting in the shot or walking in front of the camera, causing us to have to reshoot a few times. It was also really loud because of all the people. We had to talk really loudly, and basically yell over the noise. We also had to reshoot the talking scenes a few times in order to make sure the sound was perfect and that we could be heard in the video. Overall, these were the only issues we had.

(We made pizza while waiting for our camera to recharge)

Editing Blog: Why we haven’t edited yet

Me and my partner finished our filming process a couple of days ago. We are very happy with all the footage we got and we hope it will look even better when we finish everything. Me and my partner Xavier haven’t started filming yet because we had some small problems during the process. In the beginning of the week on Monday we had class time to edit our movie. We had our SD card with us but the computer that the school provided us was really slow and some of the footage was not opening. We tried many times and in many different apps to open our video but nothing was working. On that day we decided to take a break and just talk about what we were going to do when we had to edit our video, what editing software we were going to use and etc. After a long discussion me and my partner decided to edit our video on iMovie since we are more familiar with that website. We chose iMovie because we edited both of our last projects, the music video and the commercial using the iMovie software. It is a really good software and it is also really easy to understand it and use it.  The following class our plan was to edit our video during the class time our teachers provided us. When we came to class Xavier told me he forgot he’s computer at home so we couldn’t edit again that day. It was really frustrating because I was really hoping to get things done and see how our movie looked before the peer review so we could make some adjustments in time. We tried to use one of our friend’s computer that supported iMovie but he was using it to edit his video the whole class period. Due to all of these events me and my partner were not able to start our editing process. We are planning on getting together this weekend to start editing at my house. Hopefully everything will go the way it should and we will be done with our movie by the end of this weekend. I am really excited to see the final result of our movie. I believe our movie is going to look amazing. I can’t wait for the peer review, it will be really fun to show all my classmates my movie and get some feedback from them for future changes if necessary.

Filming Blog: My day of filming

This past Sunday February 23, my partner and I got together and filmed our movie. We woke up at around 9 am because we wanted to be at our friends house to start filming at 10. When we got there we revised our storyboard and looked at all the camera angles, shots, sounds, and editing that were required to be in our movie. After that we set the camera that the school provided for us up, and started filming our first scene. It was a rainy day but luckily most of our scenes had to be filmed inside the house and some in the car so that was not a problem for us. After we filmed the first 4 scenes we noticed there was a problem with the camera the school gave us. The camera would stop recording by itself when we tried to film the next scenes and an error message would pop up on the screen. Luckily for us our friend Maya that was helping us film had a really good camera at her house  and we were able to use it to finish filming our movie. The only problem was that when we transferred the SD card to the new camera we noticed that the scenes we filmed were not saved, so we had to film the same scenes over again. About 2 hours after we changed cameras we had half of our footage filmed. We noticed that the camera battery was about to die so we decided to take a break, let the camera charge and eat since it was already 1PM. We waited for about 1 hour for the camera battery to charge and we continued to film our movie. There was only one scene left to film before we had to go film at the Airport. The last scene we had to film at the house was the hardest one in my opinion. Since our movie genre is drama, that last scene required very good acting because it was a sad scene and I’m not a very good actor. I did my best and my friend Maya did really good and we felt like the scene looked good. Me and my partner Xavier left with Maya to go to the airport and film there. The airport scene was really short but the problem filming there was that there was a lot of people moving everywhere, but we ended up being able to get really good footage there and in a fast time so we didn’t bother anyone that had a flight. We went back home after finishing the last scene at the airport and finished the day by helping our friend Maya film her movie. I am glad we were able to get everything done by last weekend because that gives us an extra week to edit our video and make sure it is ready for grading.

Filming Blog: Why my group didn’t film

This is my first filming blog. Our final project is due in about 2 weeks from now, on March 3rd. My group and I haven’t started filming yet because we have been really busy with extracurricular activities in the past weekends. Thankfully we will be able to film the whole day this weekend on Sunday since we will be both free. We have already spoken to our friend that is not part of our group but will be in our movie and she will be available too. We will be filming at her house because it is very close to the Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood International Airport where we will be filming some of our scenes too. We needed permission to film there so we emailed them (picture of the email below). The airport administration was really fast answering us. They asked for more details about our movie and we replied giving all the detail they need and we are currently waiting for a reply. I believe that they will be fine with us filming there since we are not doing anything crazy and the scene will only be around 10 to 20 seconds. Our original plan was to film in a different airport closer to our houses. We emailed them twice but never got a response back. It is a private airport so maybe their staff is smaller and they weren’t able to pen our emails on time. I also believe that they wouldn’t allow us to film there since it is a private airport. I believe that it worked out for the best since the Hollywood airport is closer to the place we are filming and it is bigger and more crowded making the scene more realistic. When we get there we will also be helping our friend film her video too. She is taking the same class but she is a different period. She will also be filming at the airport so this will be good for both of us. Me and my partner are really excited to film this weekend. It is a really fun experience and we always have a lot of fun filming.

planning blog: storyboard

The storyboard is one of the most important things a studio needs to do before filming their movie. It is a process that needs to happen, and to be done with care and attention because what is on that paper should be what will happen in the movie. Making this story board was quite difficult. Me and my partner are not very good at drawing but I believe that what we have down on the paper can be easily understood. This was a very long story board, I took us about 10 pages to complete it. That was one of the hardest parts because we needed to capture every detail that we had memorized in our heads and try to put everything down into the paper. The storyboard will help me and my partner a lot during our filming because we will probably forget some essential details and looking at the storyboard will help us remember to film them. I really enjoy storyboarding because it gives you a feel that your whole movie is coming together and it is actually happening. Me and my partner will try to film as soon as possible to avoid any inconveniences. I am really excited to start filming to see how it will look in the camera.

planning blog: title design

This is my presentation. It talks about the exact placement of each of the titles. It also talks about eh font, size, color, and insertion of each of these titles. These titles can be the silent killers of the project because if there is a poor transition, then it could break the flow of the movie. The viewer never notices how well the titles are inserted, they only focus on it if it obstructed their viewing ability. In this presentation I talk about how and when the transitions will be inputed. One example of this is when Recruit gets out of his car and opens the mailbox, this is a common title insertion as it is introducing the setting. This is probably the most important portion of the whole project, the titles.