Until Next Time

 Well, that seems to wrap it all up! Here it is, my creative critical reflection :)

CLICK HERE: CCR

   I hope the adventure was as enjoyable for you as it was for me! This is my farewell to you and I can't wait to see what the future holds.

The Wait is Over

   Drumroll please..... It is finally time for me to share our film opening. The long awaited day is finally here and I hope you guys enjoy!

CLICK HERE: Film Opening :D

   I can't believe it is almost over! My CCR will soon be up for you guys to see.

Final Project Reflection

   I can't believe it has already been around 8 weeks since we started this project. This adventure has surely been a special one so I am going to give you guys a brief reflection on my experience. 

   When we first started, it was not smooth sailing. Everyone in our group is extremely creative and loved the freedom we have with this project so there was several ideas being thrown left and right. It took several meetings, drawing, and talking through to finally pin point one idea. And until we found an idea, there were several disputes and back and forth talking. It was almost like you could see the creativity swirling around everyone but some of our ideas were just not possible with the supplies we had. Despite this, we still wanted to do something creative. That's where the idea for the post-apocalyptic genre came into place. It allowed us to broaden our ideas as far as we could possibly wish. We put all our different ideas aside and came up with the idea we have now for our film opening. Even after having our idea, it was no where near easy. There were still several bumps along the road. One big factor was, the pandemic. Of course, we had the issues of communication, different ideas for certain parts, etc but the pandemic just made things much more complicated. Instead of planning on paper and meeting up with each other whenever necessary, everything was done online. We primarily used Discord, WhatsApp, and even Teams (with school) to plan through everything. And when we were not talking, we were using different and new websites to plan and draw out our ideas. It was definitely a hassle to find out with website were allowed and which we could all use, and so on. 

   After we pushed through the planning stage, we got to the filming and editing one. Unfortunately, I was out of town and could not help with this process like I listed in previous blogs. The lack of communication seemed to be a struggle but we quickly adapted with any issues in our way. It was interesting to see what they could come up with on the spot to fix up an issue that occurred. Luckily for us, filming only took one day. Our planning came in handing and we were all good to start editing with lots of time left. After managing through filming, the editing came. This part was stressful and it showed us were our issues as a group needed to be fixed. We were lacking big time in communication. There were several things behind schedule or not getting done since we never really sat down and discussed them. By around the middle of the editing, we realized we needed to be more organized and sit down with each other. Of course this meant joining a call online, but we jumped on a call with one another and assigned all the missing pieces to each person. After this, everyone quickly jumped to their part and we completed the last pieces to the final puzzle, our film opening. 

   Throughout the project, I realized that learning how to communicate more effectively to one another was a huge improvement among us. By the end, we easily were able to state our issues and fix it in record time. The film opening also allowed me to open up to new ideas and listen to others so that we could combine everything to make the best product possible. Not only this, but it gave me the opportunity to explore the film world more in depth. I have now learned of several new websites to help me with future songs, titles, sound effects, storyboarding, and more. This project gave me my first sight into a long, collaborative project and I can't wait until the next one! I hope you guys enjoy our film opening!

Taking a Step into CCR Research

   Today is the last day of spring break :(. To wrap up this break, my group and I started diving into the research for our CCR. We have not gotten much research done yet but there are a few points we can knock off the list. 

QUESTIONS 

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

2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

4. How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?

   Let's begin. To begin, our genre analysis and target audience basic research has already been thought through and expressed in another of my blog post. Our film opening is a post-apocalyptic one and our genre is more inclined for male audience but our main character is a female. We wanted to serve the purpose of using a strong protagonist that was a female which is something that is now being used in media as it was not as common before. Our target audience is most likely teenagers and young adults.

   For the distribution part, we would likely use Youtube and/or Tik Tok as they are convenient and popular among our target audience. Youtube and Tik Tok is something I am extremely familiar with as I run the social medias for our television production club at our school. These sites are also a great way to promote out films and would be best for our distribution methods. If we wanted to go even farther with our distribution, we could also submit to ShortCuts. Beacon TV created ShortCuts to allow film students in Florida to submit their videos to showcase short videos and films. This would be another excellent way to distribute our film opening.

   In terms of production skills, I would discuss on how I learned that communication is key and how important planning is. The phrase communication is key is so overused that people forget just how important it actually is. I would definitely be mention it in my CCR as communication was a struggle for my group and we learned to communicate better with time. Throughout the process of the film opening, I also learned about several new websites what are useful for fonts, music, etc and I learned several new effects and aspects of editing that I did not know of before.

   For how we integrated technology, I would highlight all the different websites we used to storyboard, find music, and more. Throughout the whole process of the film opening, we found several new platforms to plan, write, draw, find sounds, and more. Not only would I discuss this, but I would also mention the equipment the team used and I would go over the issues that went with the filming process.

   In my next few blog posts, you will see the final CCR and the film opening!

Weekend Meeting

   After a very busy week, my group and I met up to finish the last touches and see what was missing. We tried to arrange a meeting earlier this week but spring break made everyone a little occupied with either traveling or work. We also ended up using this meeting to check on how everyone was doing. By this I mean, how Sabrina was doing with editing the film opening, how Logan and I were doing with finding sounds, and how Isa was doing with the volumetric lighting effect. 

   To start off with the meeting, Sabrina updated us on how the editing for the film opening was going and she showed us what it looked like for now. She was pretty much done with editing and was just missing a few last tweaks. One of the few things she added this week were the opening credits and a flickering effect to them. She also added a zoom on one of the security camera shots and it matched with the camera sound playing with the clip. She also made all the transitions look extremely natural even when cutting from different locations. This was one of the first times I saw the (almost) completely edited opening and I love it. I am so excited to share it with you guys soon. 

   Continuing along with the meeting, Isa described how she was struggled with the volumetric lighting effect. There was a lot of masking that needed to be used and this whole process was taking too long. We decided in the end not to use the effect even though it would add a cool aspect to the film opening. None of us ever used this effect before and it was just taking too much time to figure out as the project deadline is coming up in a week or so and we still need to do our CCR research and video.

   After coming up with this conclusion for the effect, we followed onto the topic of the foley sounds. This process was the same as the fonts and it was a hassle. I looked through many different websites and ended up finding the ones we needed on both Youtube Audio Library and just Youtube itself. Basically, we were looking for any foley sounds that we needed for our film opening. This included doors opening and closing, footsteps, and anything else. 

Sounds I found:

• For the shot of Sabrina walking inside
• Walking on tile series - Youtube Audio Library
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFOUHkCXnMQ
• Either one of these could work. They would just need to be slowed down and the pitch would need to be changed.
• For the shot of Sabrina walking outside at the beginning and end
• Walking on concrete series - Youtube Audio Library      
• For the shot of the door opening and closing
• Door opening closing (0:19) - Audio Youtube Library  

   These were the foley sounds I had found and Logan said they would work so we finished off with this. If anymore sounds needed to be found, we would go back and look for more but I believe these would work. That basically wraps up the meeting we had, in my next blog post, our CCR research journey will begin!

Fonts

   Since my last blog post, I stated that I was on the search for fonts for our film opening. Being out of town made it difficult to help with the production process so I jumped in with the post production as much as possible. 

   The search for fonts began by first researching other post-apocalyptic films. As stated in my last post, I looked through several different film openings and posters to see what kind of style the genre had fonts. After figuring out a general look for the font, I needed to starting looking for fonts that would best match the opening credits and title screen. I searched through several different websites like Google Fonts, DaFont, Font.com, and more. I was first following the reference of the film Mad Max which has a bold and action type look. I suggest a few ideas with this style, but Logan pointed out that our film opening is more slow-paced. I scraped all the fonts I had in mind and started looking for more a dramatic look. After searching a bit more, I found two fonts that I felt would fit perfectly. My suggestions were for the title, Black Ops One by James Grieshaber, and for the opening credits, Unica One by Eduardo Tunni. I found both of these on Google Fonts. This site was so incredibly easy to use as it has different categories, all different styles of fonts, and it allows you to preview what your specific text would look like. I'm going to give you guys a sneak peak to the font, don't let any of my group mates know!

SHH Secret Reveal

The coloring is just so my team could see the 
fonts better. I put both into Photoshop so everyone could get a good
look at it.

   The adventure I had looking for fonts was definitely a unique one. My group will be meeting up later this week so I will update you guys soon! Until then, I am going to enjoy the rest of my spring break!

The Search is On

   I have to say, spring break has been so relaxing. Not only am I watching several films I have been wanting to see but I am also taking time for myself and just.. chilling. With all this extra time, we have also been able to start our hunt for fonts that we want for our title and music for the film opening. 

Researching for Fonts

   After pretty much being done with line editing, we started looking for fonts and how we wanted out title to be. I have not dove deep into the search for fonts but I looked at several post-apocalyptic movie posters and openings to see what style they follow. The majority is a bold, elegant yet faded look. A few examples would be:

   Once we continue the search for fonts next week, I will takes all these films into consideration to fit our post-apocalyptic genre.

   After searching for fonts and what we wanted, we moved into music and sound effects. Like I mentioned in another blog, Youtube's Audio Library is extremely useful so we looked through a few of those but it was getting difficult to figure out exactly what everyone wanted. I recommended a few on like Wide boys by Underbelly and Ty Mayer but Logan found one that fits what we want but the problem was we need it to be copyright free. What Logan found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsJwQjWS48o. After searching for a while, a few tracks we thought would fit our scenes. The first is a dramatic ambience music on Epidemicsound titled "Murmur." The track is titled "Spring Day Forest," on Youtube Audio Library for around the final shots of our film opening. Also, we used Epidemicsound to get sound effects for the passing train, the flashlight, camera noises, and for transitions. 

   That's all I have to say for this blog! I can't wait for you guys to see the final product and next week I will start researching for the CCR. I am off to enjoy the next week of spring break, see you guys later!