CR Blog

 1.  How do your products represent social groups or issues?

The movie relieve means a lot to us. The movie talks about something that is definitely an issue in today’s days, Bullying. In the movie our main character Mason is faced with many difficulties not only at home but in school too. He is mistreated by his Dad, peers and even principal despite his disability. Mason is autistic and that can be very hard because without someone to constantly advise you and keep an eye on your things can go very wrong. That happens in the short film and also happens in real life too. Many kids get tired of their everyday living and simply can’t take it anymore, they either take their anger on other people or themselves. That is something that happens every year more than you can think, and we tried in our short film to show how terrible the outcomes of these acts can be. We want to raise awareness and help reduce the amount of people that hurt themselves or hurt the others because of bullying. You might think that it can never happen to you or a close friend of your but this is more common than you can think. 

2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

Our short film has a very common topic that many people can find interesting. This type of Bullying happens more often than you may think and so by producing a movie like this it attracts attention from a lot of people that want to raise awareness to the issue as well. Teachers specially are our main target because most of them are there, in school where everything happens, and we want them to know how to react to a situation like that. Because our topic is very popular, I believe that It will attract the attention of many schools create some sort of brand for it. Schools are going to be interested on showing their students our movie so they can prevent something similar to ever happening at their school.

3. How do your products engage with the audience?

This short film is all about audience and who is watching it. The objective of our short film is to mainly raise awareness on this big issue that we have that is bullying specially with kids with disabilities like autism. We are hoping that after the audience watches our film, they can realize how wrong it is to do something like that to a kid or even an adult. We hope that after watching our film people will start helping each other instead making fun of each other due to their differences. We want to connect with the audience in a way that after watching the film they want to do better and be better people. We want them to realize that there are many people around them that are suffering at home or at school and that a simple gesture like a compliment can change their whole day or decisions that they would take that could be harmful for anyone. We want to catch the attention of the audience from the first minute to the last so they don’t any little information that they can get. We want to have them at the edge of their seats and for them to feel upset because the film is already over.

4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

We made a lot of research about tis topic since it is a very delicate topic to talk about and we didn’t want to do something wrong and be disrespectful in any way shape or form. We made sure we had made as much research as possible, so we didn’t challenge any conventions. In past work we did challenge conventions for a couple of reasons but this year we felt that this topic was special and by challenging conventions we could mess up and be able convey the message we want to convey in the first place. We didn’t want to add anything that was too out of context because that would take away the whole focus of our movie. We want to focus on the kid and the struggles he has been going through. We didn’t have much dialogue specially from the main character because we don’t want to take the attention from the audience of what is currently happening. Because of the research we made we were able to not challenge conventions and the movie turned out exactly the way we wanted it to be.

 

 

Short Film Package

 

My Short Film Package 

Relieve

Link to short film:

https://youtu.be/LLHFGregesk

Embeded film:

 

 Website Link:

https://relievethefilm.wixsite.com/movie

Website Pic:

Post cards front and back:

Music Rights

 Today my partner and I got a response from the studio that owns the rights of the background song that we want to use for our short film.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to use that song. We are very upset. Luckily for us we had backup songs to use. The studio that owns the best song we had as a backup was one of the first ones that emailed us back giving us permission to use their song. All we need now is to fill out a form explaining with more detail our project and we should be fine. I am really glad we were prepared be cause that could've been a really big problem. The final due date for our project is January 12. If we didn't email the studio responsible for the rights of the movie before, we probably wouldn't have gotten a response before our project is due. Now we have to move on. I'm glad we were able to fix this issues but there are a couple more things to be done before the deadline. We are re-filming a couple of scenes this weekend to see if we can get them to look better. I already like how they look but since me and my partner are getting together this week to work on our movie poster we will also use that time to film. As I mentioned before this weekend we will also start working on our posters. We already have some kind of idea of what they will look like but many things can change when we actually start working. This shouldn't take long but it is something really fun to do. Our deadline is approaching very fast. I believe that we are on track and should finish everything completely a couple of days before it. I can't wait to finally submit everything and hear feedback from our teachers. Hopefully everyone will like our short film and share it with even more people.

Re-filming some scenes.

 Last week me and my partner finished our movie and got feedback from it. The person that reviewed our movie really liked it and pointed out some shooting mistakes we made. After receiving the feedback  me and my partner decided to reshoot some scenes that needed fixing. We decided to film last weekend. 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 this weekend since we will both be free. When we film this weekend  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 drinking. 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 weekend and we will be able to film. I am really excited to finish our movie and see what the final product will turn out to be.

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.