Creative Critical Reflection 

     The final part of my project is finally complete: my CCR.  This whole journey has been an interesting learning experience.  Although the film industry may not be my chosen career path, I still enjoyed creating this project and documenting all of it in my blog.  

Final Project Finale

     I have finally finished the actual project portion of the Media Studies final.  The editing process was much easier than I thought it would be.  After watching a few quick tutorials on YouTube, it was relatively simple to do what I wanted.  Most of the editing just consisted of rearranging still shots and adding captions to the opening credits.  The more difficult tasks, changing the coloring of some portion of the video and reversing a video of the hour glass reversing, was still not too difficult.

     Although the quality of the overall product was not as great as I would have liked, I am satisfied with the overall content and final product.  It is possible that I could have improved much of the video with better control of lighting and such, but what I produced is very acceptable.  The feel of what I wanted  was confusion and mystery, and even though the video was a lot more abstract then I thought it would, I would say I accomplished my goal

Fixing the Filming 

     Vicente and I have finally finished our second try of filming our project, and we simplified the project so much from the last time. Instead of my horrible acting constantly appearing, we decided to film a lot more static shots and things representing our overall theme of life and death. These things consisted of an hourglass running out (which I have some ideas for in post), a clock ticking which I plan on making it look like it froze to make it seem odd, and just me appearing to be ill in bed. 

    Some of the shots aren’t perfect but I hope to be able to fix most of it in the editing process. The one thing I am almost positive I will have to reshoot is the clock part. I wasn’t sure how to make it appear like it stopped without freezing the shot in editing, but I think it will appear too still. It may be a good shot seeing how it’s supposed to show time stopping, but if it looks bad, I will be more than happy to reshoot that simple part. 

Another Group Meeting and a ton of changes

     The other day in class we had another group meeting scheduled.  I was originally nervous since I had nothing new to show with all my footage corrupt.  In my mind, I thought I would be wasting my and everyone else's time.  Thankfully, the meeting actually turned out to be very productive.

     When it got to me and I had to present what I had to the group,  I decided to explain my problem, show my storyboard with the revised ideas, and asked if they had any suggestions, and my group had some great advice.  They agreed with me that I should cut out the whole section in the forest since it reveals too much of the plot for my ominous tone I am going for.  The group suggested that I use more still shots that represent the theme of life and death that I am going for.  Although I'm not exactly sure how I will do this, it is definitely something to think about.

The Filming Fiasco

     After looking at the footage from both our days of filming, I have found a major problem.  It seems as if everything we have filmed has been corrupted and is unusable.  This is very upsetting, especially since we have found out so late in the process. What we will have to do is re film this weekend the best we can.

     I asked my television production friends what could have happened in case I make the same mistake again.  After a very educational conversation, we came to a specific reason to why this happened to my footage.  The very professional camera that I used to film captured in 60 frames per second, a very large amount of frames.  The SD card I used for the project was a 4 speed so it was not fast enough to record the footage correctly.  For the next time I film, I will have to buy a 10 speed SD card or film in 30 fps.  

     Although this is a major issue, it is very fixable.  The only other issues I can foresee is getting people to come and help last minute and on a Sunday.  I am trying to keep a positive outlook in that I can redo some shots or try to act a little better.  Although it is hard when I think of how little time I have left, I will just have to wait and plan the best I can.

 

     

Day Two Troubles

     For the second day of filming, Me, Vicente, and our friend that was acting as the cameraman went to Markham Park.  As I have said before, this part of the filming process was planned to be extra in case the part we had planned was too short.  Looking back at the footage from the other day of filming, its starting to seem like we'll need it.  

     The first part of the process was choosing an exact location to film in.  Although we could have done this a little earlier, it wasn't hard to choose a location once we got there.  There was one forest that stretched a very large difference, and despite a recent hurricane knocking over a few of the trees, we found a location perfect to film on.

     The biggest problem that we ran into was my acting ability.  I have no idea why, but on the day we were supposed to film, I had a large amount of trouble portraying the emotions that I was supposed to.  I kept trying for about 30 minutes but I couldn't seem to get it.  Eventually we all agreed that it would benefit us all to just keep it simple since it wasn't working out.  We did one shot where it didn't show my face to end it, and it ended up looking pretty goods so we ended filming.  As a bonus, both the sets were easy to get to, so if we need to re shoot anything after we see a problem in editing, we can.

     

First Day Filming

     Vicente and I have finally started the filming process. As previously mentioned, the first day will consist of filming in my house and tomorrow we will go to Markham Park to film extra in case what we have planned is too short. The filming process consisted of two parts: the photos and then acting in the bedroom. 

     The photo part was very easy; all it consisted of was doing a steady pan over a few of my baby photos. The lighting was almost perfect already since it was late afternoon when we filmed. We just used two phone flashlights to create the perfect shot we wanted.  My TV friends were suggesting to me to only use four pans of the photos or else it may get boring.  This may lead to a shorter time than I thought for the film opening, so I'm glad that we're filming some extra stuff tomorrow.  

     For the actual acting portion, the filming went relatively well.  The three of my friends that were used as extras did a very good job acting.  I was actually very surprised at how good one of them was at acting.  My other friend who was acting as the cameraman did a very good job.  After every shot I would look at what he filmed and would approve it, fulfilling my duties as director.  For my acting ability ,however, I was not so great.  I knew going into this I'm not the best actor, so I went in with low expectations for myself.  With that mindset, I did not do too terrible so we were able to get all of the required shots.  Hopefully all will be just as well tomorrow.