this is my critical reflection ;)))))
hope you enjoy it!!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12QgboSGU7EvKNVPEIcO8fqHoSskgrZ2g/view?usp=sharing
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
Film Opening
Here is my film opening Anxious Melodies.
I am proud of how it came out and I enjoyed this learning experience. I am glad I get to put this out to the world so teens can relate and understand more about mental health.
( https://youtu.be/sO33L0W86PY )
CCR reality show
CCR 2 is about this reality TV show house where I am getting interviewed as one of the contestants. I'll be answering questions 1 and 2 in this.
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?
My film opening titled Anxious Melodies challenges conventions of the coming of age films. Coming-of-age movies that focus on teenagers focus a lot of teens finding love, climbing the social hierarchy but my film focuses on a part of a teen's life that doesn't get shown. From what we learned this year lots of shows and films tend to steer away from mental health topics, especially with teenagers. Mental health in teenagers gets labeled as a sensitive topic that most films think is too deep to talk about. Although in my film the main character Olivia does find her best friend which some coming-of-age movies also do it's more than her finding a friend, it's about her getting into a better place mentally. It's all about the deep relationships you can form over a similar interest, it's about how being around the right people helps you become who you really want to be. I think it represents a lot of teenagers who struggle with anxiety, depression, and just any life problems, being surrounded by movies about finding the perfect boyfriend or getting popular doesn't accurately represent current teens. The reason I wanted to stay away from the cringy stereotypical coming of age is because I relate to the story, the film is loosely based on my life and what I struggle with. I've seen movies about mental health but they aren't popular and not made enough, showing people what it feels like to be a real teenager has a bigger effect than the typical teen movie. By representing this group of people it shows teens that it's ok to struggle with mental health and that it happens to a lot of people, it even helps other people understand the situations some people are in.
On the other hand, the film does follow the conventions of most psychological fiction movies where we get to connect to the characters and understand what they feel. I think the psychological fiction genre does a great job of depicting mental health issues and that is why I wanted to make one. By understanding the character you form a connection and you almost feel the way they feel and I wanted to do that to make people understand mental health better.
How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
My film's target audience is teenagers, with the combination of a coming-of-age film and a physiological fiction the film would interest teens and young adults. Since the film revolves around the life of a teenage girl and her issues the target audio will most likely be teenage girls but it's not restricted to that. People who would watch this film opening are most likely aware of mental health problems and may even struggle with it, when watching they can relate and find comfort that things can get better. When beginning to work on the film opening I thought of what I watched and why I appealed to psychological fiction coming-of-age movies. It was because of the connections, I loved how the character connected deeply with one person who helped them with what they struggled with and that's what I did in my story because I wanted the audience to see how people can change you. When it comes to distributing my film I thought about it a lot. Since this is my first ever film I would distribute it on platforms that are easily accessible by lots of people for me to reach as many people as possible which will help me grow as a filmmaker. I would use platforms like YouTube and websites made for other amateur filmmakers; I would also submit it to competitions and film festivals for it to get recognized and gain more viewers.
Let's get to writing
So everyone in this house is insane, we've been here for 8 weeks and everyone hates each other the only thing that everyone likes at this point is blogger.com
producer- so do you think yours is better than everyone else i don't want to start drama in the house again but I personally think my film opening was better than most
producer- and why is that
come on please my film opening challenged the conventions of coming-of-age movies which no one would expect from a teenage girl. And the film itself is about a deep topic that doesn't get talked about enough which is mental health
producers- why do you think that is?
well, coming-of-age movies are all about being popular and finding love they don't actually have deeper meanings to them because they are afraid to talk about pressing teenage issues which as mental health. In my film, i combined a genre that usually never gets into mental health issues with one that does very often, which is psychological fiction. psychological fictions get a look into what the character is thinking and makes mental health an easier topic to bring up
producer- why did you make your film about this
i wanted to tell the untold story of many teens in a way where they could see that things get better and that mental health is someone a lot of people struggle with. After being in this house I see that people don't think it's a big issue with teenagers but in reality, it is, and since people don't think it's an issue they don't address it.
i basically made my film to show people that they aren't alone
producers- is that who the film is for teenagers
yes but also no, the target audience is obviously teens because it is a movie about a teenage girl but it can honestly be for anyone
producer-how is that
well to educate them to show that teens are struggling too but in general when I made the film I made it with other teens in mind, this story is very close to my heart and I think a lot of other teens would connect with it.
producers-do you think you did a good job at appealing to teens
I sure did, since I kept them in mind while making the film I made sure to add elements that teens have in their day-to-day lives like music
producers- do you like music
I love music which is why it's a big part of the film, being in this house full of other teens I've seen how much people feel from music and that's why music was a way to connect with teens in my film.
after the show here is what you plan to do with the film you made while being on Top List island
Since Top List Island was my first time ever doing something like this film opening I want to post it on YouTube and social media, which hopefully all the show watchers will follow. I'm also thinking of submitting to competitions and film festivals and you never know maybe come back for top list island season 2.
CCR phone call
My first CCR is a phone call between myself and I where I am going to be talking about the last two questions of the CCR.
so change of plans I'm going to be making this into a cringy YouTube tutorial where i give advice while aesthetic music loops in the back. so I'm going to paraphrase what I wrote in these paragraphs
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
My skills have developed through the year in general. Throughout the year we have been learning
all types of different camera movements, editing techniques, mise-en-scene, and audio elements that I have never known of, I have learned through the project to develop meaning in what I do. The whole project itself is about what I learned, how meaning has to be deeper than just because it looks pretty and that is exactly why I chose this genre. By doing a story with deep meaning I was able to dive deep into my filming choices and the music especially. Since the film focuses a lot on how music makes one feel I got to understand the power of audio through my film, when editing I realized that I couldn't just add any song over this dramatic scene, it needed to relate and have a connection. Throughout the film opening, I learned to be open to new ideas, to try new things I had never thought of, and to understand why I am doing this and how other people will feel when watching my film.
How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?
Throughout the project integrating technologies was one of the biggest parts of it, without all these tools I wouldn't have been able to do the film at all. The biggest software I used was Premiere Pro where I edited the entire film opening, I'm familiar with the way it works and I even learned new things while making my opening. Some other software I used was Celtx which is where I wrote my script, I really used every tool this website had to offer and it was a great tool to have now forever, i have never written a script, and finding this website made the whole writing process a lot easier. Overall the biggest software I used is the one and only Blogger.com this place has been a dream and a nightmare combined, I've experienced every high and low of my project here and I am so glad I have. I think blogging the process of making this has helped me look back and see what I first imagined come to life. Hardware was provided by cbtv thanks to them I was able to use a T7i camera that made the process super easy since I am familiar with it, i also used phone lavs when recording all audio. To make my shots stable I made sure to also have a tripod. Online tools were super useful when looking for music, i used Spotify to search for an artist and actually download the songs I needed. I also used YouTube when searching for sound effects even though I only used one throughout the film.
Now it is time to film see you later.
CCR what??
So a huge part of the project is our CCR which is a creative critical reflection and I am worried about it. We basically need to create two creative ways to reflect on our project. In those two ways, we have to answer these questions
- 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?
So I've been listening to what other people are doing and they all sound really good, like someone is reading it like a bedtime story, someone is doing it like an interview. So I think for one of them I'm gonna do a phone call, where I split the screen and have me talking to myself. For this idea, I think im going to answer the last two questions.
For my other one where it answers the question, I am going to do it like an interview from a reality TV show. The idea is that I'm surrounded by people who are competing against my film opening and we have lots of drama. I think I could make this really fun because I am a huge fan of reality competition shows.
before I actually script the questions and answers I'm going to just answer them as a question and not add any "creative" aspect to it which will hopefully make both CCR's easier since I know what my answers are to each question.
How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?My film opening titled Anxious Melodies challenges conventions of the coming of age films. Coming-of-age movies that focus on teenagers focus a lot of teens finding love, climbing the social hierarchy but my film focuses on a part of a teen's life that doesn't get shown. From what we learned this year lots of shows and films tend to steer away from mental health topics, especially with teenagers. Mental health in teenagers gets labeled as a sensitive topic that most films think is too deep to talk about. Although in my film the main character Olivia does find her best friend which some coming-of-age movies also do it's more than her finding a friend, it's about her getting into a better place mentally. It's all about the deep relationships you can form over a similar interest, it's about how being around the right people helps you become who you really want to be. I think it represents a lot of teenagers who struggle with anxiety, depression, and just any life problems, being surrounded by movies about finding the perfect boyfriend or getting popular doesn't accurately represent current teens. The reason I wanted to stay away from the cringy stereotypical coming of age is because I relate to the story, the film is loosely based on my life and what I struggle with. I've seen movies about mental health but they aren't popular and not made enough, showing people what it feels like to be a real teenager has a bigger effect than the typical teen movie. By representing this group of people it shows teens that it's ok to struggle with mental health and that it happens to a lot of people, it even helps other people understand the situations some people are in.
On the other hand, the film does follow the conventions of most psychological fiction movies where we get to connect to the characters and understand what they feel. I think the psychological fiction genre does a great job of depicting mental health issues and that is why I wanted to make one. By understanding the character you form a connection and you almost feel the way they feel and I wanted to do that to make people understand mental health better.
How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
My film's target audience is teenagers, with the combination of a coming-of-age film and a physiological fiction the film would interest teens and young adults. Since the film revolves around the life of a teenage girl and her issues the target audio will most likely be teenage girls but it's not restricted to that. People who would watch this film opening are most likely aware of mental health problems and may even struggle with it, when watching they can relate and find comfort that things can get better. When beginning to work on the film opening I thought of what I watched and why I appealed to psychological fiction coming-of-age movies. It was because of the connections, I loved how the character connected deeply with one person who helped them with what they struggled with and that's what I did in my story because I wanted the audience to see how people can change you. When it comes to distributing my film I thought about it a lot. Since this is my first ever film I would distribute it on platforms that are easily accessible by lots of people for me to reach as many people as possible which will help me grow as a filmmaker. I would use platforms like YouTube and websites made for other amateur filmmakers; I would also submit it to competitions and film festivals for it to get recognized and gain more viewers.
How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
My skills have developed through the year in general. Throughout the year we have been learning
all types of different camera movements, editing techniques, mise-en-scene, and audio elements that I have never known of, I have learned through the project to develop meaning in what I do. The whole project itself is about what I learned, how meaning has to be deeper than just because it looks pretty and that is exactly why I chose this genre. By doing a story with deep meaning I was able to dive deep into my filming choices and the music especially. Since the film focuses a lot on how music makes one feel I got to understand the power of audio through my film, when editing I realized that I couldn't just add any song over this dramatic scene, it needed to relate and have a connection. Throughout the film opening, I learned to be open to new ideas, to try new things I had never thought of, and to understand why I am doing this and how other people will feel when watching my film.
How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?
Throughout the project integrating technologies was one of the biggest parts of it, without all these tools I wouldn't have been able to do the film at all. The biggest software I used was Premiere Pro where I edited the entire film opening, I'm familiar with the way it works and I even learned new things while making my opening. Some other software I used was Celtx which is where I wrote my script, I really used every tool this website had to offer and it was a great tool to have now forever, i have never written a script, and finding this website made the whole writing process a lot easier. Overall the biggest software I used is the one and only Blogger.com this place has been a dream and a nightmare combined, I've experienced every high and low of my project here and I am so glad I have. I think blogging the process of making this has helped me look back and see what I first imagined come to life. Hardware was provided by cbtv thanks to them I was able to use a T7i camera that made the process super easy since I am familiar with it, i also used phone lavs when recording all audio. To make my shots stable I made sure to also have a tripod. Online tools were super useful when looking for music, i used Spotify to search for an artist and actually download the songs I needed. I also used YouTube when searching for sound effects even thought I only used one throughout the film.
After answering all the questions I am now going to use that to help me while scripting my CCR's.
Graphics
I am not a big graphics person, I usually ask other people who actually know what they are doing to do it for me but this time I'm gonna do it all by myself. Instead of doing it in Photoshop which will definitely be harder but better I'm going to be using Canva only because I know how to work it better than Photoshop.
The first graphic I'm gonna make is the title graphic so I need to pick a font which is gonna be so hard. I really want a font that looks handwritten to match the diary she writes in so here are a couple options I like
After much thought I think the best-looking one is Schoolbell i think it's cute and matches perfectly with the theme. After choosing the graphic I started with the title of the film, and this was honestly so hard. The making of the graphic wasn't hard, I just made a heading on Canva chose the font, and added a green background to it like this
the problem came later when I added this graphic to the timeline, for some reason every time I added it it kept giving me a black frame when I would play it.
After this, I added them to the timeline and this went great, I wasn't sure where to place them but I kept most of them on the top or bottom of the screen.
Monday, April 1, 2024
editing
Hi so after shooting I'm starting to edit. I honestly am not a big fan of editing, I personally like shooting more but I've surprisingly found editing this really relaxing. I really love seeing things come together and bringing my visions to life.
So I use Premiere Pro to edit, I use Premiere all the time because of TV production so this is not new to me. The first thing is that I am doing a line edit, where I basically just put all the best clips together to form the first cut of the film. Line editing for me is hard because I am very nitpicky but for now, I'm just putting the clips together, and then later I'll deep dive into each frame and make them perfect. I started the line diting with the panic attack scene because that was an easy sequence shot that I had to put together.
The main thing I am worried about when editing is time, I know when shooting I definitely overshot just in case but now as I edit I think everything might be too long. I just did the line edit for just the panic attack scene and it's 40 seconds and the entire thing has to be 2 min so fingers crossed everything works out. When I finished the line edit the video was 2 minutes and 9 seconds which I am so happy about because I was scared of going over.
After doing my main line edit I went into the nitpicking mode, trimming all my clips to exactly what I wanted and making sure to fix audio mistakes, like someone saying go or to start. After this, I went in and added the sound effects I needed and my music.
So when it came to the music I looked up on YouTube how to make muffled sounds on premiere because I want the music to sound like it's coming out of her headphones. I found this quick video here that explained it in literally a minute or so and it made my audio just what I wanted. The tutorial helped me a lot and it was super easy, I messed with it until I got just the sound I wanted.
After all the audio and nitpicky editing it was time to color the project. So the way I usually color my videos is by adding an adjustment layer on top of the line editing and changing the settings until I get the colors I want. Of course, this does bring some problems because some clips are darker than other so after adding the adjustment layer I went in and corrected the ones that were too dark or too light. The overall adjustment layer had pretty simple setting, I turned up the vibrance and turned down the exposure to get that gloomy film look but also having lots of colors.
After all this, the only thing my video is missing is the voiceover from the parents and the teacher which I'll be getting later today, I'll check in with you after.
Music Choices
A huge struggle during my project was music.
A big part of the story itself is music, and how it can help someone with their problems... the problem is I can't find music. I've been searching up down, sideways, and upside down for music that is non-copywritten. I found lots of non-copyright music but it all sucked, most were background music, with no lyrics, or if it did have lyrics the artist wasn't someone I could easily reference in the film. So after searching for a while and only coming up with songs like this I took a break to work on the shot list.
After I finished everything and even shooting I desperately needed an artist to use for the opening. Then I remembered my friend Ava has a friend that makes music. Which I thought It would be perfect because she even talks about mental health in her music. Her name is Mckensy and her music name is Tired in Pink. She is not a huge artist but she makes great music, she has 16 monthly listeners and has 16 songs on Spotify. After I listened to a couple songs and heard how good it would go in my film opening and decided to DM asking her for permission, obviously it wasn't a super professional text but here it is.
The reason I chose those specific songs is because they had similar vibes, chill, and soothing music that could help Olivia thought her hard times. I specifically chose Best friends as the last song she would listen to as she is having her panic attack to foreshadow that the girl she meets will become her best friend.
Audio problems and solutions
Since there weren't many people to help me during the actual filming process I needed people to do a voiceover for certain clips.
I needed to do a voice-over of Olivia reading her diary, this was pretty easy since I did it by myself. I checked out a phone lav from my TV production class, and I recorded it on voice memos on my phone inside my closet so I could get the best quality audio that had no background noise. I just read the script I had previously written.
After doing my part things got a little harder because I had to rely on other people. I needed a man and a woman to play Olivia's parents and I also needed someone to play the teacher. So for the parents, I texted my classmate Gabi because I know her parents, so I gave them a set of lines to do. And they said YES!!
When they sent it back it was perfect and just what I needed. So I added it to the timeline. Since I wanted to make it sound like it was coming from the room next to Olivia I added the same effect I added to the music.
When adding these audio clips I made sure to make the sound quiet when she put her headphones back on.
After doing the parents scene I had to do the teacher scene. I had first asked my friend Zain to ask her mom to do it. She had said yes and Zain said she would send it.
After waiting a day... she didn't send it to me. I then asked my friend who also helped me film Mateo. I asked him to do a deeper voice to sound older.
Although it's not exactly who I wanted to do it I think he did a good job of sounding older and like a teacher. For his audio when I added it to the timeline I did not make it sound like it was coming from a different room since you could see Olivia and the teacher's shoulder.
I think the hardest part of the project was relying on other people. The technicals is not hard because its something I enjoy doing, but when it comes to getting other people's help something always goes wrong, i think everything is a learning experience and makes me want to do another project like this.
shooting
So I shot Anxious Melodies, and it did not go horribly.
So since I told you guys I did play the main character, SO when shooting it was me and my friend Mateo because no one else was able to help. This was a big struggle since it was just the two of us and honestly really annoying because I am always able to help everyone when they need but when I need help no one is available to help me. That's why I love Mateo so much because he is always able to help me and I appreciate him very much. I am grateful that Mateo was able to help me and I think it turned out great. I would have liked it better if I wasn't in it and instead behind the camera but I have to do what I got to do to get this project done.
Ok so to the actual shooting part, I wanted to shoot in 3 different locations. The first location is at school, Here we shot in a classroom, the hallway, and the bathroom. Then we shot in my house where we shot in my room and dining room. And lastly, we shot in my street, on the road, on the sidewalk.
We did not shoot in chronological order because since we were already at school, we shot first in the classroom. Here we shot the scene where Olivia gets confronted by the teacher, since this was after school there was no one there to play the actual teacher so we positioned the shot behind a chair to make it over the shoulder, so it looks like there is a person there and I am speaking to them; here is one of the shots that require a voice-over which I'm going to ask one of my friend's dads, or mom to do it for me. The next shot we shot was Olivia walking out the door of the classroom after talking to the teacher, here we see her start to have a panic attack and drop her notebook. After she walked out of the classroom, We got a shot of her dropping her notebook and walking fast to the bathroom, so for most of the shots we decided to go handheld and the reason is because it adds to the stress she is having, it makes the viewer feel the panic attack and feel how Olivia feel, we did this for the majority of shots except ones where we wanted to show some stability. In this shot, we made sure to get the front and back of the same action of her walking so we see both the notebook fall and her facial expressions. After this, we started to shoot the scene which I think is the most important scene which is the one of Olivia having a panic attack. We first got a shot of Olivia walking and I thought we could be creative I took some inspiration from a shot we saw in an excerpt in class the other day from the show killing eve where the camera is positioned through a mirror where we see the main character, so in my shot, we positioned the camera where it points to the mirrors and we see Olivia walking into the bathroom, we also got a shot of Olivia back walking into the bathroom stall, and we see her slam the door.
The second location we shot at was at my house we first started in my room, where we shot the shot of Oliva writing in her diary, this is one of the shots I wanted to add to the opening because I thought it would look cool. The shot is a bit shaky in a bad way cause it required Mateo to walk around the bed but I think it turned out good. Afterward, we went to my living room where we shot Olivia doing her homework as her parents fought, we got multiple angles just in case; for these shots, we used a tripod because we thought it would be too shaky otherwise.
Lastly, we filmed the beginning of the film which is outside on the street. We had a lot of fun with these shots because we got to use my bike and run around my neighborhood. Here we just got every shot we could imagine, I rode the bike up and down the hills, we went on the sidewalk, the street, the grass. I made sure to tell Mateo to get a variety of shots, like one of my feet, and one on ground level. We spent the most time here to get the shots perfect because it is the first scene of the film so I wanted it to look good.
After this the next day I did have to make up one shot that I was missing, which was the shot of Olivia writing the name of the artist she loves on her notebook, this was a quick shot that took about 5 minutes to do, it was handheld and it had people talking in the back for the classroom effect.
Overall the shooting process was very stressful but I think I got everything I needed to edit a great film opening. I know I'm going to struggle to edit and look for clips, so I made sure to mark the clips I liked after filming to make things easier when I started to edit
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