First Draft and Reflecting: Finishing up Our Movie!

We've completed our first draft of our short film! This process has been so much fun and working with these teammates has been amazing. Collaborating with them has been a breeze from agreeing on our screenplay to making storyboards together. I would definitely say that this was the most fun I've had creating media for this class. Now that we have finished our first draft, all we have to do is go back and fix details that we may have missed the first time. I believe we are also going to trade films with another group to critique one another. At the beginning of this project, there was so much uncertainty when it came to how much time we had to create this film. However,  being able to share ideas and work fluidly has been a huge advantage. Communication was everything when it came to creating this. As for our first draft, we still aren't quite sure about our music choices. We've been testing different scores out to see which best fit our theme, however none have been perfect yet. We will continue to work on this over the next week and hopefully we'll be able to figure it out. As of right now, our titles are white. We are not sure if they will stay this way because of some of the background colors. We have also been experimenting with different fonts and ways for the titles to appear. Overall, we still have a lot of work to do for our editing. We also need to post on our social medias. We weren't sure how much to post, so we recorded a few videos in between filming, editing, etc. I'm hoping that our audience will enjoy funny outtakes along with these behind the scenes clips. I can't wait till we are officially finished!

Editing Blog: Adding Music and Titles

We have continued to edit through the holiday break. It took a couple days to get the clips blended, but we finally got through it all. After watching the movie all the way through, we moved on to titles and music. Both of these details are crucial when trying to show the audience emotion. Since we hadn't done any research on titles for this movie, we decided to visit resources from last year. The two websites we used were watchthetitles.com and artofthetitle.com. We also used our knowledge of movies we've seen and/or analyzed in the past. The genre of our movie is drama, so we knew we wouldn't be using any crazy titles. For example, a red title with dripping blood wouldn't be considered for our movie. Since our movie is more of an emotional or sad movie, we thought about having a title that was appealing, but may be ominous. Examples of these types of movies include Seven Pounds and Terms of Endearment. Next, we moved onto the music. We previously decided that we wanted dramatic, instrumental music to play in the background of the movie. This would contribute to the building suspense of the film. We explained that there would be two pauses in music. One would be during an action match in the middle and at the end when two of the characters are trying to get the other on the floor. For right now, we found some royalty free music that fits our theme. One of the songs we found was "Pinhole" by Lance Conrad. This one was light and it built, however it may be too light-hearted for this melancholy film. We are still working on music, but are finished for now!

Editing Blog: Blending the Clips as One

My group decided that it was time to begin editing. In the previous blog, we imported our videos into iMovie. We then organized them in chronological order. Instead of keeping them in the small import section, we dragged them to where the clips are merged. At the end of this process, we had all of our uncut clips lined up next to one another. We watched through it once before continuing. When we were sure that the shots were in place, we each went through and cropped each video to make sure that the movie wouldn't be choppy. We took turns actually editing, but all pitched in. For example, while Savanna was editing, Sophia and I were making sure we followed what was written down in the storyboard. Our job was to communicate as a team to complete this together. After Savanna, I edited. My main goal for this year was to try and make the shots have smoother transitions. My teammates were really helpful with this and we were able to learn from one another. Instead of editing our own scenes, we decided it would be better to do others. This way we could give feedback and learn from our mistakes as the director behind the camera. For example, I edited some of Savanna's scenes and some of Sophia's scenes. Working as a team to edit was definitely a change. Last year, I did most of the editing which was really difficult. I didn't know how the software worked and had to constantly edit random things in my free time. However, due to the extra collaboration and awareness of the program, I feel more confident with the editing process. 

Editing Blog: Importing and Organizing

 After finishing up with the filming process, we moved on to editing. Since we recorded on one device, we decided to share the videos with one another. This is because we wanted to each be able to individually go through the videos, as well as together. We thought about sending the messages through text or email, however there were too many to do so. The easiest option would be to create an iCloud photo album or store it in Google Drive. We decided to use iCloud because we would be editing on iMovie. At first the album wasn't working because of the quantity of videos, however after adjusting settings on our devices, we managed to share the videos between the three of us. Each of us individually went through the videos to make sure we had all of the footage. We also made sure to go through them to avoid mistakes that wouldn't be seen until we began filming. We wanted to keep our filming days to a minimum to avoid too much contact during the current pandemic. Thankfully, we were able to get good shots of all of our scenes. Afterward, it was time to import the videos to iMovie. Before doing this, we had to create folders on each of our computers to move the videos out of the iCloud album. This way, the videos could be imported with the press of a button. When we went to iMovie and imported the videos, they downloaded in the order we filmed them. Since we filmed by character, we had to reorganize the videos. The outdoor videos also had to be fit at the beginning and end. The majority of the scenes were in order though because the camera is supposed to follow one girl at a time. We had to find where we wanted action matches and put those videos next to one another. This took some time but made editing so much easier!

Filming Blog: Salem's Scenes

The last scenes we needed to film were for Salem. Salem is played by my group mate Sophia. The character struggles with an unplanned teen pregnancy in the short film. This time, it would be Savanna and I collaborating on the directing and filming. I believe Salem had the least amount of individual scenes in comparison to me or Savanna. As a result, we shot these scenes fairly quick. We started with filming Sophia walk into the house. Just like when we filmed the scenes for the character Grace, we made sure to film at another angle so that it didn't look like we were entering the same house. A series of tracking shots and wide shots were used to show Salem (Sophia) enter her home. We began filming her scenes in the bedroom after getting inside. After filming, we realized that we were missing a prop for her scenes. We ended up having to go out to a local store to buy a pregnancy test for her scenes. However, this took longer than expected. When we arrived at the store, there was only one cashier and a long line. We decided it would be best to find another store instead of waiting 20 minutes. We didn't waste time and quickly arrived at the next store and bought the pregnancy test. As soon as we arrived back at the house, we began filming in the bedroom again. We used a series of wide shots, over the shoulder, and POV shots to film in the room before changing locations. We also made sure to film the bird's eye shot like the other two characters. In the bathroom, we used over the shoulder shots and close-ups to convey her emotions when learning the results of the pregnancy.

Filming Blog: Grace's Scenes

 After filming Chloe's scenes, we proceeded to film Grace's scenes. Grace is played by my teammate Savanna, so Sophia and I had to collaborate on the directing and videography. Savanna focused on her part in the screenplay and made sure to take direction, as well as chime in. We all had a hand in directing and acting and will collaborate on editing as well. Grace struggles with arguing parents so we didn't film too many scenes outside of her bedroom. Before we got there, we filmed her walking into the house. We made sure to film this at a separate angle than the ones for me so that it would seem like we were in different houses. Savanna entered through a side door instead of the garage door like me. We then filmed the quick seconds that she's in the hallways of her house. The objective was to make it look like she was sneaking around her parents to avoid their bickering. We used tracking shots and medium close-ups to show her sneaking through the living room before going to her room. We then see a long shot of Grace in her room, closing the door, and sitting on the floor. While in the bedroom, we continued to follow Grace though her journey trying to tune out her parents. We used close-ups and medium close-ups to show the expression on her face as she goes through the motions. In the scene, she closes the door and falls to the ground crying, the shot is filmed from somewhat of a high angle. Another scene shows her in a similar position, but on her bed (close-up). Then, we used the bird's eye shot to mimic the one Chloe did. Along with this, we showed her grabbing the headphones and placing them in her ears. Instead of having bathroom scenes like Chloe, Grace turns to another way of coping. We filmed a wide shot of her getting into bed and falling asleep.

Filming Blog: Chloe's Scenes

Our next step in filming was to film the scenes for each individual girl. Since the film follows the girls home after their outing at the park, we continued to film outdoors, but this time we were outside of my teammate's house. We decided to start with my scenes first (I play the role of Chloe). We started by filming me walking into the house. This portion was filled with tracking shots and medium close-ups to show my facial expressions and body language. It was also to show the atmosphere around me so that the audience knew where I was in the house. Savanna and Sophia (my group) collaborated on directing and setting the scene while I prepared props and went over the screenplay. Our movie is mostly silent, so I don't have any lines once I get to the house. However, I had to remember where I was going and what I was doing in each scene. After walking inside, we filmed scenes of me in the kitchen. My character struggles with body image issues and goes to eat in the kitchen. We filmed my close-ups of me taking food out of the fridge and placing it in the microwave. The last scene is a medium close-up of me looking at the food before getting up and walking away. The next scenes were filmed in a bedroom. We used tracking shots, medium close-ups, and a bird's eye view angle to give the audience an idea of the setting as the story continues. We also used a long shot to show Chloe looking into the mirror, examining her body.  Included in the bedroom scenes, were scenes in the bathroom. Here, extreme close-ups, low angles, point of view shots, and close-ups were used. The bathroom is the most intense setting in Chloe's scenes. The addition of extreme close-ups was for the audience to realize what was going on in Chloe's head. 

Filming Blog: At the Park

 Yesterday, my teammates and I met up for our first day of filming. Before seeing each other, we made sure to bring masks and go over CDC guidelines in regards to the pandemic. We met at Sophia's home and then decided to a nearby park to film the first half of out outdoor scenes. Before arriving at the park, we made sure to pack towels to sit on and went to a nearby restaurant to get food so it looked like we were there for a picnic. While filming, there was a children's baseball game going on, which made the parking lot fairly crowded. However, when arriving to our location in the park, there wasn't as many people as it seemed. We did have to pause a few times to allow people to walk by or cheer for the kids, but it wasn't a problem. We started by filming scenes of us having fun for extra footage and to start the movie off at a high note. Then we filmed the characters saying goodbye to each other, followed by their tracking shots going in different directions. We then cleaned up and headed to our next location. Our movie begins and ends outdoors. Our next location was a smaller park in Sophia's neighborhood. My teammates had to change clothes for this shot because some time would have passed in the movie. Then, I filmed them individually walking towards each other (medium close-up). We tried filming a conversation between the two characters, but there was some noise going on in the back from animals outside. We ended up having to film these scenes a few times and even took a break to film a video for our film social media. Finally, we were able to get the scenes done before heading back to the house. Then, we went through the footage to make sure we were done for the day. Today in class, we created a photo album to share the videos between on another. In doing this, we all have the videos available to edit together.