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Film Opening

CCR #1

CCR #2

Project Reflection 😁

 Hello blog!

 The time has finally come! I am FINALLYYY ACTUALLY done! 

With that being said, I’d like to reflect on these last eight weeks. When I first heard about this project, I was shaken and hesitant that I would be able to complete it, even with all the time provided for us, but now looking at everything, I realize that I was just doubting myself. Every week I was able to grow by challenging myself and tackling a new concept of production, really diving into the different elements. I feel like I have learned a lot, and I am very happy that although this was a learning experience, it was also very fun. We not only had the liberty to do whatever we desired, but we were also showered with knowledge, and I will forever be grateful for that. This project also forced me in the best way, to get creative and expand my horizons, because if I’m being honest, I did not want to be creative. I just wanted to have a concept provided for me and work off of that. Now, however, I realize that that was just a very dumb approach from my part, and my creativity is a tool, so I should definitely use it more often. 

Although I faced a lot of challenges, I never gave up and persevered through, which is a great lesson for any daily problem that I may face. And though I worked by myself, I learned a very important lesson about teamwork and that if you ask for help, it is important to consider the other person’s needs as well because they are giving up the time to satisfy your needs before theirs. Overall, I’m just very grateful for this experience and even more grateful that I am done with it.

CCR Post-production

 Hello blog!

Post-production was super tedious. The first video I edited was the baking one and I am glad that I edited that first because I got the hardest out of the way. When I put all of my raw footage together, I realized that I was way over the time limit, and I needed to cut down my video by a lot, especially if I wanted to have some time to answer CCR questions 3 and 4 for my second video. Thankfully, I was able to cut my video from 12 minutes to 8, and although it may not seem like a lot, it was progress. 8 was not good enough, though. I needed to cut at least another minute. I decided to leave the video like that until I edited my second video to see how much leverage I had. Aside from timing, my only other obstacle was the smoothness of the overall video. In my CCR production post, I explained that I constantly cut the camera in order to get my footage just right, but the results would be unrewarding in the end. I do wish that I had thought of the jump cuts before I had started filming. It wasn’t until I watched all of the clips together that I realized I had made a really big mistake about not fixing the jump cut when I had the chance. There wasn’t anything I could really do about it other than adding clips in an attempt to hide them. I would have created some transitions, like placing an ingredient in front of the camera and then cutting to me getting another ingredient and placing it in front of the camera as well, but since that didn't occur to me until later, I had to work with what I had. It wasn’t until I watched all of the clips together that I realized I had made a really big mistake about not fixing the jump cut when I had the chance. There wasn’t anything I could really do about it other than adding clips in an attempt to hide them, but there were just too many that in my opinion, the video would’ve just looked a lot worse than originally.

When editing my second CCR, I did originally have a lot of jump cuts, but I realize that I could avoid them by including footage of questions which I would write on a whiteboard. I thought that this was a very clever way of saving time while also highlighting the question that I was about to answer without wasting any time by saying them I explained in the production post that I had some additional footage and unfortunately, I was not able to include in the final clip because I wanted the time to be just right. I didn’t want to cut anything for my baking video because I wanted to include the necessary stuff for baking as well and therefore decided to make some changes in my second video. The editing process went a lot more smoothly than from my first video and I was able to achieve what I wanted so I was very happy with both the editing in the footage. 

CCR Production

 Hello blog! 

After all of that research for my CCR’s, I am finally recording. I’ve spoken on a previous post that I wanted to answer my questions while baking, but I didn’t exactly know how I wanted to incorporate my questions into my video overall however, after some thinking, I decided that I would be writing my questions on flashcards and sticking them to a specific ingredient that I would need for baking. However, there are a lot of ingredients when it comes to baking, and I was not going to be able to answer a a lot of questions due to timing, so I just stuck the flashcards randomly to whatever ingredient I wanted to. I also wanted to make sure that my video was not only about answering questions and also provided a good explanation on how to bake chocolate chip cookies because the whole point of the reflection was to include something original and not be boring, so I’m hoping I did a good job on that. One of my biggest problems was remembering what I had to say because I didn’t want it to look like I was looking anywhere other than the camera. I wanted the video to feel human and like I was just giving an honest explanation to the questions being provided. The fact that I wasn’t able to read off of what I had written down did force me to make a lot of cuts during my filming meaning there were a lot of jump cuts. I didn’t think that this would be such a big problem due to the critical reflection being anything that you want, with some limits, of course. Therefore, I didn’t really go out of my way to hide the jump cuts. This video took me a couple of hours, although baking normally doesn’t, which was honestly a frustrating reminder, but I am just glad that I was able to finish it within the timeframe that I wished and in the best way that I knew how. 

My second CCR was a lot of fun because I got to draw. At first, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when answering this question, but I did know that I didn’t want neither of the videos in which I answered my CCR questions to be boring. Eventually I thought that visuals are actually a great way to understand a specific topic and that is where my idea fully came to life. Unfortunately, my visuals were not very good since I am not a very skilled drawer, but I tried my best and that is what matters. I had originally fabricated four questions to answer, and due to my limit on time, I had to cut one of the ones that I actually showed better drawing skills, which was very upsetting for me. This video also took a long time to film because either I didn’t like how I drew something, or I didn’t like how I answered a specific question. I had a script written for what I wanted to say, but I wasn’t able to look at it due to my eyes being focused on the drawing, so I had to remember everything, but this was a lot easier to remember since the questions were simpler, and I was very set on what I wanted to say.

Group Meeting #2 Reflection

 Hello blog! 

On Monday, we had our second group meeting, and they were a lot of help. Overall, I just love group meetings because it’s so many different ideas everywhere and people just help each other out which is just a great use of time. The people in my group were Rehan, Alexis, Candelaria, Sofia, and me. At first, we were all just kind of shy, but thankfully Candelaria spoke up and kind of just carried conversation for the group. She started off by explaining her whole process of filming and how it went, and then she went on to show us her project. Everybody liked it, and no one had any observation to point out aside from maybe making the fonts a little bit more noticeable since they tend to fade with the background. I really admired the fact that she had a visual to show us and she was brave for sharing it because I would not have wanted to show mine, especially since it wasn’t even done. She also discussed her CCR ideas with us. The first one she spoke about was some sort of reenactment to the Yellow brick Road in the Wizard of Oz. To further illustrate, it’s a specific scene when Dorothy is making her way through this large yellow brick road full of obstacles and each obstacle has a specific character that helps her get through the yellow brick road or has a specific quality. She wanted to implement this as each encounter of a character would include answering a question, or something similar to that. That was just my understanding of it, and I thought that this idea was so cool, so hopefully she'll be able to do it! For her other video, she was still unsure of what to do, and some people provided some ideas, and she ended up leaning closer towards an interview.

Rehan told us about his productions next. He explained that he was in the editing process of his production, and therefore, he did not have a finished product to show us, which is totally fine because everybody was doing everything at their own time. He did, however, have some cool makeup to show us. It was sort of bloody, the whole bruise kind of thing. I loved it. I have done that myself, and it is soo fun to do. He told us that his partner's mom did it and further explained his genre and film idea, which was escaping. I think it was really interesting to start off a film like that, since it's not normally shown, so props to him and his partner for thinking of it. As for CCR ideas, since he was focused on editing, he hadn’t given it much thought, but then again everything at its own time.

After him went Sofia. She told us she was doing a detective video, which I also thought was really cool. She showed us a piece of what she was working on, and it was really nice. She also had a really creative font for her title, so I praised her on that. The CCR part was one of my favorite parts because we helped her shape an idea that I thought really interesting. She discussed that she was thinking about doing something based on her character, which I hadn’t given that outlook to the CCR, but the more she explained, the more it made sense. She describes that the CCR could be anything really, meaning the character that the whole film opening was based on could also potentially be in the CCR. This is such a cool connection that I was also considering of implying into one of my CCRs because it’s just cool. As she was telling us her whole idea of implementing her films character into her CCRs. I suggested maybe using a magnifying glass that could read out a question or something like that and I am not sure if she really picked up on the idea.

As for Alexis and I, we were pretty similar on the fact that we were just still filming or focused on filming unfortunately since I had to refilm everything, and Alexis was still stuck on filming because she's been having some difficulties which I do not remember very well, therefore won't be speaking on.  I really do hope that she can get on track with everything that she needs on time. There weren’t too many ideas suggested for either of us, but that's okay. I guess none of us were really feeling it that day, since it was Monday and Monday suck. Thankfully, later on in the week, I was able to come up with one of the first CCR production ideas and I am very proud of it. Anyway, here is a picture of our group. Shout out to Ms. Stoklosa for taking it!

CCR #4 (research)

 Hello blog!

 It is FINALLY time to answer the fourth and final question of the CCR! 

The question is: How did you integrate tech technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?

 Let me just start off by saying I know technologies are really important, but some can be soo annoying (*cough cough* editing). Editing I would probably say is my least favorite and was my least favorite part of production. Moreover, I’m not a big fan of any additional technologies, including software and hardware, but I did use a bunch, so let's get into it! Considering that I had to film three times due to my footage deleting, I'm only going to discuss a bit of my learning process from my first time filming and then follow up with the technologies I used during my third time filming. The first time that I filmed, I filmed all by myself and borrowed a tripod that my sister had available. While tripods are very steady, it was still a hassle to readjust and reposition every time I wanted to get a new shot or angle. I guess it’s just the struggle of filming by yourself in general, but at least I learned not to do that again! From the very beginning, it was straight chaos, so fortunately I didn't get very far on the editing. 

The second time I filmed, I knew things had to go differently because if I wanted my luck to change, I would need to change something about what I was doing. I started off by asking my mom to help me out. She was such a queen and got all the different angles and shots, and even though we filmed for a while she stayed patient and dedicated, which I really appreciate so shout out to her. The online technologies that I used were Google, Pinterest, Canva, and Premiere Pro. Also, I have not come up with an idea for my second video, so time to think on my trip!! Sorry for not providing a script as well😑.

 

CCR #3 (research)

Hi blog!

Today I will be discussing question #3 for my CCR questions and possible ideas for my second video.  

Today's question is: How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

To be honest, I had no experience of filming whatsoever before coming into Aice Media Studies and I certainly do not think it is my strong suit, but it doesn't need to be, and I’ve come to terms with it. I do, however, need to show some sort of knowledge for everything that I’ve been learning this past year and that is something that I believe came through as I was filming my video. Not only while I was filming, but in preparation as well. In addition to my previous understanding of production, the research I did helped me out in unimaginable ways. Every week, my blogs focused on a specific production element that I would need to incorporate. Although some were suggested, I could choose some of my own that I wished to expand my knowledge on. It just opened up my understanding so much more than I thought was possible because I thought I was fine with knowing the basics. But why stop there? I was able to really comprehend how each element works: How lighting can impact the whole mood of a story, how the mise-en-scene can describe a character with no words, how props impact a character or plot. Also, not only the key elements of the physical, but also of the filming and how every shot and angle can impact a story. Speaking of shots, I overshot like crazy using various shots and angles. Different shots and angles can make add uniqueness to a piece, and it's fun. I also learned that working by yourself should probably never be done because it's so distasteful. It is extremely difficult, and you are putting up with so much stress that could be avoided in the first place. 

Unfortunately, I do not have my script because I am just in a rut with ideas right. It’s just been so much thinking, and frankly, my brain needs a break. I do have good news though! If I do not come up with something by this Saturday, I will have lots of time to come up with an idea for my second video since I am going on a trip. 2 1/2 hours to be exact. I am planning on spending my time wisely through all the time I am making my mission to come up with an idea and possibly start writing up my script.

CCR #2 (research & idea)

 Hello blog! 

Today I will be diving into question number two of my CCR questions!

This question is: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? 

This is probably my favorite question because I feel like my product really has that factor of getting to a specific type of audiences, due to it being coming of age and all. Coming of age is all about representing people at a young age. This genre tends to highlight people's thoughts and struggles on experiences that so many people can relate to. I did explain how my product represented social groups in my recent CCR and this is a little similar to that, so I am trying to switch up a little bit how I would be answering this, but honestly, I think it really creates a connection with teenagers because as much as it sucks, it’s true that everybody has struggles with accepting who they are. While growing up, everybody is struggling to find a specific group that they can fit into or something that makes them feel like they belong, and it’s not a simple as it sounds. Within your teenage years, you’re still trying to find yourself while dealing with so many other situations that it is so hard to take a second to just figure out who you are as a person. It is just such a mess of so many factors that are hard to process, but I really wanted to go into a really big one that everybody can relate to witches being social in other words, social anxiety, or introvert toy. I also like to think that I am person to portray this since it is shown through the eyes of somebody that gets it.

 The second part of the question asks how my products would be distributed as a real media text. Now, considering that this is just a school project, I obviously would not get very far with distributing to audiences. However, I do think that it could be spread through a smaller community. May I say a film festival or a specific contest? I would also say YouTube is a wider option that I could possibly share my product to, but that is the farthest I'd go, since as of right now, I am not a professional and I am not planning on distributing my product whatsoever, aside from submitting it to Cambridge.

 For my script, I have not been yet able to form one, which is a bummer and might get me a few points deducted, but I just want the very best and to fully put thought into it. I did come up with what I should do when answering my two questions, though. I decided that I am going to be baking because it is a hobby of mine and it’s always very fun. Also, at least I could get something delicious out of this assignment. My idea is that I would be putting ingredients into a bowl, and with each different ingredient, I would be answering a different question. For example, let’s say I am putting in flour into the bowl. As I do so, I will be answering a simpler question formatted from one of my first two CCR questions. Each ingredient will be the answer to a different question, and the final product I'd like to think is key factors to making my film opening. I'm not sure if I explained this whole concept very too well but I am very excited to bring my vision to life and think it's a pretty cool concept!!

.

MORE PROBLEMS 😵‍💫

Hi blog! 

It’s been a while, so let me tell you what’s been going on lately. Unfortunately, this project has hit me with more obstacles than I could’ve ever imagined. Let me explain… A couple of days after I had wrapped up filming, or so I believed my phone completely crashed due to an unexpectable amount of water damage which I admit is my fault. I was forced to take it to the phone store to get it fixed, and all of my previous data deleted, including my footage. I received it back on Thursday night, just a day that I was planning on starting my editing process. Now this was actually so devastating for me because it would mean that I would have to make up all of the lost footage meaning I needed to film all over again. This took me some time, because filming is time-consuming. And not only that, but I was also filming on the days that I was supposed to be editing. Meaning, I fell behind on schedule by a lot. My filming process took up two days, since thankfully, I already knew everything that I wanted to do, so the process went pretty smoothly. By the time I actually wrapped up all of my filming, it was Saturday, meaning I had only two days to get as far as I could on editing, therefore, I will not be providing any post-production blogs, which I understand is disappointing. As a last-minute decision, I also decided to change my music because I wasn’t very content with the music that I had originally chosen. The song I selected is "Bring the Energy Up" by Soundroll.

If all of that wasn’t already enough, I had already taken down my wall of props and throw it away. This was the only indication that my character’s timeline took place in the 2000s, so I would have to scratch that idea altogether. It was very hard to settle on this decision because after all of that time that I spent researching props, I would not be using my research to that extent. Although I did earn a lot of knowledge from that area, which I guess would be the upside to it. I also decided that, although my character would not be showing her personality through props a very big part that I would not have to focus on would be riving since that shapes the storyline mainly. I chose to give her a simpler costume that just indicates she spends most of her time at home. The rest of my research was necessary, however, and I did incorporate into my opening. 

CCR question #1 (research)

Hello blog!

 It's that time to discuss CCR ‘s. First, let me explain what that is. During the time that my teacher was giving the explanation as to what they are and how to do them I was writing an essay, so I was not able to pay attention during the time, meaning that I needed to borrow notes from somebody else in order to understand the concept of CCR’s. after doing so, I discovered that a CCR stands for creative, critical reflection, and it is exactly what it sounds like. Students are to create some sort of media form that expresses your creativity, so some sort of unique idea, well answering a couple questions. To my understanding, we are to make two individual videos that together time up to at most 11 minutes that answer 2 main questions per video, the overall number of questions being 4. I will provide the questions below: 

• How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
• How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

The question that I am supposed to answer today is: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

 I believe that this question is all about representation theory, so how little things create bigger ideas in a specific group of people or specific issues. For example, my story represents a teenage girl that struggles with being social, which I personally believe is a really big problem for the social group of teenagers. The main character in my story represents that big issue that many teenagers unfortunately have to go through. In regard to how my product challenges conventions is that I believe that it is different when people normally see because for a long time it’s been frowned upon to show people struggles since it is a very intimate side. People may struggle with feeling exposed to that vulnerability and therefore it is not shown as often on TV. I intend for my piece to show that it is part of being human and not only show how disempowering you can feel, but also how good you can feel when you overcome that. Unfortunately, I have not been able to come up with a script, but that is just the main idea as to how I will be answering that question.

Filming day 2 🫠

Hello bloggg!!

Today was my final day of filming and may I just say I am so glad that that’s over with. Don’t get me wrong, it was so much fun but at the same time so stressful and SO much work that I have just been so overwhelmed this past week. My journey with day 2 began with which day I would choose to film. I needed to pick one of my free days to work on, since my prior schedule clearly did not work out.  I decided to work on Saturday to just get everything out of the way and complete this blog on Sunday, which is today. 

This was such a long process because I had so much footage to capture and make up for the day that I wasn't able to get as much, I filmed a bunch of shots and tried various things simply due to the fact that I wanted everything to look clean and perfect. Although this day allowed me to use my time however I wanted to and to my capacity, I would not stop getting overwhelmed and it became a greater thing than it had to since I kept stopping for breaks whenever I got too frustrated. This was really helpful but not at the same time because I came back with a different outlook and clearer mindset, but also my process kept getting delayed, so I just got tired of taking breaks and wanted to get it over with. Luckily, I've gathered all my necessary footage and more. I've never been more happy to say that's a wrap! Stay tuned for the final project.