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Showing posts from March, 2023

Production Blog: Final Touches

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 Hello, hello, hello! As you are reading here with me today, the group has officially completed the editing of the final project! Today was the day for all touch-ups and small finishing details. My wonderful editor Jordyn was able to take into account all of the critiques received yesterday and fix them or work them into the film. To begin, the group started with the audio aspects. The first critique encountered was the suggestion that the police voice should be muffled. In order to do this, Jordyn quotes that she had to " alter the equalization and as such alter how muffled an inputted audio sounds." Simply put, she says that she had to lower the frequency of the audio in order to make it sound more distant and create that "muffled" sound effect. The next sound aspect of the film was the music, correlating with the suggestion that the volume of the music should be lower. Instead of simply decreasing the volume level, Jordyn suggested splitting the clip into three s

Production Blog: Time for Critiques!

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 Hello again! Today's blog is quite an interesting one! Now that the film is complete, the group thinks it to be valuable to have other people's opinions on the work. In particular, I interviewed my father as well as my sister and her best friend (pictured below). Although my father is not necessarily a film connoisseur, my sister and her best friend have taken this course before. I was hoping with this experience they could offer me some valuable tips and critiques. As expected, my father did not have any negative commentary. Being as supportive as he is, he could only give compliments and say he would not change anything from the film. As much as I appreciate hearing this, especially after all of the group's hard work, I was hoping my sister would offer me some more unbiased and bluntly honest feedback. Thankfully, she did provide me with some considerable criticism. She suggested first that the group should go back and touch up some of the transitions in between scenes.

Production Blog: End of Editing

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 Greetings! I am so excited to be with you today as I near the end of the production series! To kick off today's editing, the group began discussing the title sequence. The main issue regarding the title sequence was the font. Jordyn browsed the fonts available on the DaVinci Resolve software, but none of them really appealed to the group. I really wanted to have a font that looks like the number on the alarm clock; a sort of techy font to centralize or work in the idea of the clock, but this was not easy to find. Jordyn ended up finding one just like it on an outside website and was able to download it for free, so I was ecstatic. Jordyn also suggested the idea of having the titles fade in and out to represent the character's unsteady memory, which I liked as well. After deciding on these aspects, the group moved on. The next step in editing was adding the clips that the group filmed yesterday. For the date scene, Jordyn cut the clips to scale and into individual scenes, then

Production Blog: Filming in the Rain

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 Hello again, it's been a while! I am here to report back to you for the final day of filming, finally! Today was quick, and the group finished up by filming the 3 scenes remaining. The first scene was the date which involved Ashley and me. The group had envisioned this scene being filmed in Ashley's patio area on a small table and chairs, which was a bit of an issue because it was raining. The group decided that once the rain slowed down, it was not noticeable in the videos, and therefore, continued filming. To begin, Ashley curated her drink: a mixture of lime juice, water, and sprite, while I stuck with water. To begin, Jordyn filmed only Ashley's scenes, ensuring that her position matched that of the previous scene. She took one sip of her drink at a time, four times total, then finally drank the rest in one large sip and slammed her glass down on the table. Next, it was my turn. Jordyn positioned me at the same angle and spacing as Ashley was in the camera, and then I

Production Blog: Editing!

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Hello again! After such a long weekend of filming, the group has now taken on the task of editing. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, Jordyn is the main lead in editing in the group, as she has the most experience and is the most tech-savvy, so she again took the lead here. The main application used was iMovie. This was used to combine the raw takes together, ensuring that the scenes line up, and the transitions are correct, as well as adding a few subtle transitions and hues. This application made it exceptionally easier for the group to see how to line up the shots during filming. After I shot a scene, Jordyn would mash them up together on her phone and make sure the transitions between scenes were as seamless as possible. If these clips were not to the group's liking, the application also allowed for the individual scenes to be cropped, zoomed, pinched out, and moved up or down.  After this rough-draft stage of editing, Jordyn uploaded the clips onto a software called DaVinc

Production Blog: Filming Yet Again!

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 Hello, hello! Now that the weekend is over, the only glimpse of hope I have is recalling back upon it, and upon my filming during it. After the exciting fun of Saturday, I was beaming with joy on Sunday during filming! Similarly to Saturday, the group met at Ashley's house between 12:00-1:00 PM. The filming began again by pre-recording the needed audio clips for the day ahead.  In yesterday's blog, you may recall that I mentioned how the office scene ends with Ashley smiling into the distance to provide a transition to the next day's filming. This picks up again in Ashley's bedroom, for the second  morning scene. If you were curious, she was left off smiling because she was on a phone call with her new girlfriend. This carries over to the following day as she listens to her recorded voicemail, mentioning her date with said girlfriend, which would take place that night. To get her into the same position to allow for this seamless(ish) transition, I again had to use a re

Production Blog: Filming Over the Weekend

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 I am so excited to see you again and to jump right into my second day of filming. The group had planned to film over the weekend to catch up after not filming for so long due to scheduling issues. A convenient weekend was selected by all members, and I was ecstatic to film again! On Saturday, the group met at Ashley's house at around 1 P.M. and began filming. Before the video filming had induced, Jordyn and Ashley worked together to record the audio on the voice recorder which was necessary for one of the scenes being filmed.  The main focus was on filming the opening scene of the character waking up in the morning. This scene included her awakening, grabbing her glasses, and listening to her tape recording/reading her sheet of paper. The group decided to film in chronological order and began with the awakening scene. This was quite simple as it did not require much effort, and a favorable result was produced in just two takes. I filmed atop a small 3-step ladder to achieve an ove

Production Blog: Editing Time!

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Hello, great to see you here again! After finally being able to film, the group was so excited to begin the editing process. As outlined in my filming blog, the group was only able to complete one scene due to time constraints, so this first part of the editing process was rather brief. When assigning tasks to the group members, it was agreed upon that Jordyn was the most tech-savvy and would therefore be the leader of the editing aspect of the film, in the same way that I handle the marketing and videography, and Ashley handles the musical aspect. Jordyn began editing shortly after filming ended, and for this brief scene, she primarily used the application iMovie on IOS. Upon asking, Jordyn told me that this was very convenient for the short duration of the bathroom scene. As I have again outlined in a previous blog, the group used various technologies and tools for filming, one of which being a phone stabilizer, which, as the name entails, holds the cell phone steady while filming, a

Production Blog: First Day of Filming!

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     Welcome back again! Today I am going to share the adventures of my first day of filming, and I am so, so incredibly excited! To begin the day of filming, the group gathered in the parking lot after school. Jordyn decided to ride with me, and Ashley drove by herself. With a quick pit stop, I made my way to Ashley's dad's house with Jordyn as my passenger. Upon arrival at Ashley's house, the group began some minor setup. Jordyn and I began to move some things around Ashley's bedroom, such as books and clothes. After, the group began to discuss minor technical details of the filming process and took a look at the equipment that a group member had brought. This equipment included a digital clock, voice recorder, and various tripods and phone stands. After this, the group was to begin the actual filming and looked at the script as a guideline. While quickly reviewing it, I realized that there were many missing details/specific props which, although minor, are essential

Production Blog: Marketing!!

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 Hello again and thanks for tuning in! Tomorrow, the group will finally begin filming! I am anxiously awaiting until then, but for now, the group's focus is the marketing aspect of the film. The group has decided to create various social media pages in order to boost the release of the film and as the main form of marketing, including Instagram, Twitter, FaceBook, and YouTube. The group would use YouTube to make fun content such as bloopers. Jordyn suggested creating compilations or collections of these videos, which I thought was very fun! The Instagram account could be for more intimate details about the characters and the actors. The group thought recording content like Q&A's or fun "get to know me" videos. The Twitter account could be used to reiterate ideas from our other social media to reach a bigger audience. Many people use Twitter, so the group wanted to use this platform as well. Jordyn also suggested creating a website to give viewers more information