Creative Critical Reflection

 This is my reflection! I had fun making it with my family and friends, thanks to them I was able to complete this. It was a good run.

FINAL BLOG: OUR MOVIE SEQUENCE!

Without further ado, here's the long awaited movie sequence that my group and I have worked so hard on! Beyond proud of this and beyond proud of us. I'm especially thanking Jordyn for the immensely impressive work she has done for this and just about every production so far. We did it!

Editing: Confused, But I Have The Spirit?

 Good day to you, friends. This is just about one of the last days working on this project, so lately it's just a bit of editing a day. Not saying we're stretching this so we have something to do these days, but I promise It's because I want this to be perfect !! I had spent most of class time scouring the internet in class for a new program to use with my teammates. We currently use a mixture of many different programs because there's always some 

Film Review: Changes upon Changes, Like

What’s up! It’s time to get back up to speed on our progress, so without a doubt, let’s dive in. The way we edit is we have our lovely teammate who’s editing show us a clip, we decide together how it should appear in the video and how much should be cut, then we repeat this operation. Our first cut was something that was agreed on rather quickly because our 40 seconds overtime was insane. My group and I cut out our establishing shot, with the way things in this film were progressing, it just made sense to do! This shot wasn’t relevant in the storyline like our many other shots, so we were all good to go. One thing I struggled a lot on was deciding how to help on cutting time, so I had to play a game of seeking. Watching the full thing throughout multiple times was more than necessary for this purpose! Another scene we took a couple seconds off of was where our actor first walks into our setting at the countertop with the computer. This aided us in easily getting some seconds trimmed. Moving on, I made a quick change on the audio of the apple after it was tossed in the trashcan, I suggested lowering it a bit when one of my peers that helped with this review claimed that it was a whole jump scare. Also regarding the apple, people mentioned it was far too quick. My teammate was able to fix this flawlessly, Essentially, she stretched the clip ever so slightly, jus enough that it still looked natural. We were now able to read the bill that you couldn't previously see and it helped a bit to now lengthen our film! About that lengthening bit.....here's where I explain this little problem. So, I at first needed less time, as we were many seconds over the 2 minutes this assignment is supposed to be. Looking through everything after making all of these cuts though, We found we were almost 15 seconds under. To try and compensate, someone suggested adding back the seconds when our actor walked in, and so that was immediately fixed! Our time is now closest we can get to the 2 minutes needed ight now, so we're right in the ballpark. Something different we had a problem with was the programs used, it gave my teammate trouble when trying to figure out how we'll layer audios in later edits. An example of a later edit is the news report audio that a teammate and I were going to speak in and overlay. The purpose of this news report was to provide a few facts about global warming and increasing electricity costs as Americans struggle to keep cool in the ever-increasing heat, to help explain why the bill in the trash can was so outrageous. My groupmate had to do a lot of convincing for me and my other teammates, but I and others quickly understood the problem and agreed it's for the better to cut that completely. From decreasing the volume of the stairs clip so you can hear the music better, to making the actor's voice louder, many valuable edits were done. In fact, my group's editor, Jordyn, has made all of these smooth and stunning fixes. I'm so thankful for her and what she does, and I know she's as proud as ever of this film. I'm proud too, of this entire production and all the work that was put in. I'm happy we are good on time and edits in the film, and that we're fully ready for this to be uploaded soon. Watch out, the greatest film ever is about to hit you!

A Break: Getting My Beauty Rest

Hello! Today was a rather chill day, I didn't do much heavy-lifting throughout it. It was a PSD day today, which is like an early release day to an extent, so we got out a couple of hours early, and i definitely used this to my advantage. After all these filming days and scheduled times to work with my teammates have passed, we had a little break from it all. After school I spent my time doing a lil chemistry and any other homework I had. If you ask me what im doing, 8/10 times i'll say chemistry homework. Even if I study hard, I don't think I will be able to tackle chemistry. That class will be my downfall. I wonder why it's even required! Back to our movie, I did take a couple peeks at our video and shot some messages to my group and about it. We discussed possible little tweaks here and there, as well as the timing for our video, just the usual. I count today as a mental health day of sorts, actually.  I've been working on countless things all week, meaning i've been inside far too often. I took a really nice walk with my mom around 6pm to get my fresh air for the day. Walking at sunset is my favorite pastime, the sky is so striking and the weather is perfect; it is truly a perfect time. I love where I live so much, I just know if I lived anywhere else i'd feel homesickness often. We took a stop by the park because I live closeby to the neighbourhood one. I was playing animal crossing pocket camp on my phone when my mom began walking fast along the sidewalk surrounding the playground. I tried to catch up with her, but it was getting dark so we made our way home,. We talked about dinner on our way back, all I knew was we were going to eat out and get take-in to celebrate my academic performance (I got a 100 on a test, that NEVER happens). The restaurant I chose to eat at is a Cuban joint my family frequents and, to your surprise, I'm still not sure what it's called. After eating and watching kung fu panda with my brother, I was prepared to wind down and truly get some quality shut-eye. I read a couple pages of Stephen King's "cell" before bed.  Honestly I was so tired I could barely make out what was written, but I kept reading so it was quite the somthing! I'm spending the rest of this day on sleep, sleep, and MORE S L E E P (well deserved).

^This is the type of sleep I’m trying to get !! Look how comfy he is!

Film Review: Long Days Ahead

 Peer One:

    Good day! Welcome back to my group's journey with this project. The general project has been clipped together so far, complete with transitions and some eerie music! My personal peer review for our product so far was conducted with a couple peers from my study hall, and I asked them to be critical, as I didn't want my peers being lenient because they know me. To start off, she thought that the beginning scene felt unnecessarily long as an introduction. She understood that the beginning scene provided background information about the character, like establishing that he does have a mother, but it didn't provide to the story like the rest of the scenes may. Other than edits we could make, she critiqued the clips as themselves as well. As for the cross-cut action between Ronnie and the mother, she said she found the camera switches awkward, and the line delivery itself to feel awkward, though it was implementing varied visual perspectives. Her suggestion on what we could have changed when filming itself, was to keep the camera focused on the main character while his mother continues to speak in the background. The camera could have focused on the main actor’s face to highlight his frustration and inclination to not pay as much attention to his frustration. I explained to her what we were trying to achieve with our shots when I mentioned cross-cut action. The examples I gave my classmate from Google showed we had the right general idea, and she got why we did what we did. It did not change her viewpoint at all, it's not like I expected it would anyways though!
     

     Next, I received a couple of suggestions regarding Ronnie's infamous trash can scene, in which he complains about eating an apple being gross and then discards it in a trash can. She advises, "The apple provided a lovely shot, but the idea of this apple having a strange taste, a “wrongness” to it, was something that could’ve been expanded upon to provide another layer to the main character’s dimensional travel. It was just there, wasn’t really used for anything, I think it could do with being cut. That sucks though, because that trash can shot was really nice." Her suggestion, editing-wise, is to try putting the apple-scene after Ronnie's conversation with his mom.

     Lastly, from this peer, a problem they had with my project was discontinuity near the end. She said, " While it was established that the closet is a portal, the consistencies of this form of travel aren’t solidly established. The lights flicker five times when the closet’s portal is first activated, yet flickers only three times when the closet is used a few moments later. I did enjoy the visual cues of the film that indicated dimensional travel, with the character’s name change being a fun addition." She expressed to me that some shots felt like they were drawn out too long, while others could have been possibly too short. She also added thatThe dramatic pauses implemented should be more finely placed in order to set a suspenseful pace fitting of a horror short film, rather than just dragging on in a continuous slowness as a form of suspense. Some of her views were more finetuned since she assumed it was horror rather than a thriller, which is why the long pauses might have been confusing to her. I appreciated her feedback and I will utilize it well.

Peer Two:

     I caught my second peer review on a whim with a person visiting my study hall that I've never seen before. He couldn't talk for long as he had to visit another teacher, but he made very similar suggestions for editing as the first classmate I spoke to. He added, "“If you cut out the whole first scene in the beginning where he’s biting on the apple and throwing the apple away, and just start it at the computer with his mother telling him to go see the uncle, I think a lot of time could be saved.. Because he’s sitting at the computer and goes to get his jacket anyways regardless if the apple was there or not, so the apple being bad doesn't directly relate to the story, you get what I mean?” After hearing we were 7 seconds over time, Eric laughed and wished me luck.

Conclusion:

     The consesnus is, people would like us to cut out our apple scene to save time. It's also suggested we fix some speeds and timing of some of our clips. This is going to be quite a process, but I see last base from here, and we're almost home baby!!

Filming: We Pulled Through

Saturday: 3/26/22

     I had an early start this day and discussed with my group what items we'd need for this filming session. Jordyn mentioned it was vital that new apples and the bedroom signs were brought by anyone who could bring em', so I noted that the apples were now top of my list for things  to get. I got going for Jordyn's place (our filming location) at about 10 a.m. because we were set on meeting at 11a.m. and got to her city 30 minutes before I had to be at the final location, but what was especially perfect was she lives not even 2 minutes from a grocery store. I went in and had trouble finding where things were located because the setup of this Publix was pretty different from my neighborhood one, but my method of walking up and down each isle until I saw something useful worked pretty well. I grabbed three types of apple, Ambrosia's my favorite for this project because they're big and blotchy. I needed something real big for the scene where the apple is tossed in the trash and the electricity bill is shown so it could cover the camera and give us the black screen transition to our next scene. It was also good to have more than one apple for sure, just in case we had to re-do any scenes or had Anyways, I grabbed my apples and some mini muffins for my team, as well as an Iced tea for my sister as a thank you for driving me 30 minutes away, and went to a quick checkout where I was overcharged for my big ol' apples. I didn't sweat going to customer service, I wanted to stay on time, and I'm not crazy picky. After this I made my way over and found I was the first one there, Yaneli came later as the time we were to come was pushed back because our actor was 3 hours away from home and now coming at 1 pm. While we waited for our actor to come over, Jordyn and I worked on filming the trashcan scene. I positioned the paper and taped up the bill to be shown in camera and helped crumple up papers to make sure it's known we're in the trashcan. I put Jordyn's phone like the picture below and I did multiple shots doing an underhand throw of the apple into the can. We eventually got a perfect shot, I'm super happy with the way it turned out. Eventually, Yaneli arrived and we all ate lunch together and did shots we didn't need our actor for, like the door shots and bedroom panning. Our actor came along not much later, and we got right to work. I filmed the shots where our actor had dialogue with mom. After this, I helped align the camera for multiple shots and checked the camera for Jordyn as she did tracking shots. Our actor was a great sport, and I did any extra little tasks to make sure he was positioned correctly and not looking at the camera, and I know our product will be phenomenal with him. I left at around 5pm after our last shot in the hallway, the part where our actor sees something really shocking and his eyes widen, the climax!