CCR

This may be the last time that I write on here, but it has been a long journey and I am more than excited to have completed it. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog and enjoyed my film opening. Below is my Creative Critical Reflection for my film opening Now you will finally get to hear what my voice sounds like... I'm not used to being in front of the camera. If I am no longer on this blog; so long!

https://youtu.be/5giHAat5klY

At Last!

Here It Is!!!

My Film opening is completed and uploaded to YouTube, you can access it at the link below. 

I hope you enjoy it!

https://youtu.be/VnS9NndZcoU

Editing Pt.3

I have finally finished editing! We finally made it and I will be uploading it to here in the next few days. I had to make a few last minute changes, such as making the color of the font for the title of the movie the same color as the clay on the baseball field. I also had to re-record a few shots to get proper the sound effects which ultimately came out great. 

It was just as easy as replacing the old clips with the new ones. I also added a rising tension sound effect, leading up to when the bat meets the baseball, symbolizing a drastic moment; when the ball symbolically stikes Neil and injuring him. 

Editing Pt.2

     I am nearing the end of editing so I am still on track with my schedule. I have also, however, like yesterday, ran into issues that could have been avoided. Through the second half of the film opening, the baseball sequence, I am interspersing clips of the mother character preparing food, from earlier in the first sequence. The audio however for those clips are useless so tomorrow right after school, I will have to recreate the sound effects, or the whole shots if aligning the audio seamlessly is too difficult. 

     I have gone through and edited what I could of the film opening without those sound effects, and I am concerned about going over the 2 minute time limit a little. I am currently standing at 2 minutes and 18 seconds. I am not sure what I am able to get rid of in order to lose the storyline. I will try to have some friends or family watch it to get their feedback.

     This is what the timeline of my 95% complete looks like- aside from some audio tracks-

Editing

     This week has been my spring break so I have been keeping it relaxing. I have still been slowly editing the film opening throughout the week. It is a pretty long process, and I have realized some issues I wish I had foreseen earlier. I really wish to I had given the characters more strong dialogue in the second half of my film opening, to really establish who Tomas is, as the main character's best friend. I also wish I had more shots of the playful interactions with the main character and other extras and other smaller characters.

     I do like how the first shot and scene came out, with a single conversation that travels from one area to another and gives clues to the type of person and character Neil is. While editing, I noticed that not all of the clips were as bright as the others. So through the editing software that I am using; Adobe Premiere Pro, I am able to adjust the look of the clips in many different ways. This is a screen recording of how I am correcting the exposure and brightness as well as contrast of the clips:

Second Day of Filming

     My second day of filming took place on Saturday in my home. The only actors needed to be the main character Neil, and my real mother who is playing his mother in the film opening. There is a pretty continuous stream of dialogue between the two characters which only took a little time to nail down after rehearsing with the characters. In order to capture this audio as the camera travels through the house, I had set up two cell phones and used the microphone of the headphones taped to the character's chest to record the audio from both of the characters directly and I had both of the characters clap on camera to sync all of the tracks.

     It also took a couple of days to bring the props over to my house and arrange them throughout my room and the bookshelf in the family room. The longest part was cleaning my room and hiding my stuff to make enough space to clearly see the props. 
     I am downloading the footage to my computer and going over it, to find the clips I can work with. I hopefully have all the shots and clips I need. I do need to capture good sound bites of the mother chopping up vegetables and sounds of the bats and gloves as well as when the ball hits the bat. 

Reflection on the First Day of FIlming.

     The first day of filming was fun, exciting, a little nerve racking, and warm. We thankfully didn't experience any serious issues when filming. Finding an open field was very easy, but one situation did present itself within just hours of filming time. Extra after extra who said they could participate started dropping like flies. However, when it came time to filming, I only had 4 extras other than the main character, and I had someone just take a few pictures of me filming too. 

     When it came time to filming, I was able to use my good friend Tomas' DJI Ronin which is a very fancy stabilizer for a DSLR camera. It is a little heavy but totally worth it for the smooth quality of the shots.  

     Filming took about an hour an a half long, after getting everyone settled from wanting to throw around the baseballs for fun. I also went through everyone's role which I can now just sort of understanding the pressure of a director or choreographer when putting together a full-scale production. 

     In tomorrow's posting, I will discuss the experience when filming the first long scene of my film opening which took place in my house.