Final Products!!!

Hey there, blog! It's time to finally show you all my completed film openings and CCRs. :) I utilized many of the things I talked about during these blog posts, and I know you've been anticipating this. I hope you guys like what you're going to see! 

CCR 1 and 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BPY113Tyfb_zlGhNoR3EX2NkJpfl7PRB/view?usp=sharing

CCR 3 and 4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIzJ89et3uB7GJYiJy3YM9a_u-7lFxHb/view?usp=drivesdk

Film Opening

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ojg73ZnBt0GNop1dkZd3qf_ncsrjeh05/view?usp=drive_link

Reflection

 Hey there blog! My time with you guys for this project is coming to an end sadly... I had a lot of fun working on my film opening and CCRs, sharing my process has been really therapeutic and a way for me to grow and learn. 

My film opening was fun to do and I got to work with a really close friend which helped! It was a wild ride from scheduling issues to finding costumes, and our whole project deleting temporarily... But, I grew a lot from it. I'm very proud of our end result and I never thought I could create something like this. It felt good to create something and have freedom, even if it was for a class! Overall, I believe our film opening exceeded my expectations in many ways, from how we went about it to our actual product. 

Both my videos for my CCRs were also well made. For the video where I drew my project, I spent a lot of time on it. I think I have over 50 videos in my camera roll of me retaking each take of me drawing something, I really wanted to get it right! Editing it also wasn't that bad, it was just a matter of timing. The raw footage looked questionable, but once edited with the voiceover and speeding up the clips, wow! If I could, I'd post it on YouTube lol! 

For my podcast, I definitely liked it but I did think there was something I could improve. The sound effects! I think I could have found better ones or made them blend in well with my voice or what I was saying more, making them less random. Nevertheless, I loved my podcast. Especially the advertisement! (Thanks Mom!) 

Go check out my completed film opening and CCRs in the next post! 

CCR Editing :)

 Hey there blog! I started editing, huzzah! It was really refreshing to finally finish everything related to CCRs and see my final results. I'm very proud of myself for being able to complete everything and still have done really well in editing!

Podcast

As I mentioned in my last post, I used Podcastle to record my voice for the podcast. Well, guess what? I used it to edit other sounds too! I found some non-copyrighted sound effects on Freesound and inputed it with my already recorded voice. 

I added sound effects so it was at least a little engaging and fun instead of just my voice being heard the whole time. I pretty much just trimmed clips and did fade-ins/outs as there were no visuals. 

Draw my Project

You'll never believe this... what did I use to edit my video? Podcastle! They not only have an audio version, but a video version also! Although not having Adobe is a pain, this website isn't so bad and is a basic alternative. 

I sped up the clips of me drawing or else the video would have been like 20 minutes long, and I did a voice-over on those clips. I timed the speed of the clips to my voice so the clips wouldn't go by too fast or too slow, and overall I really liked how this turned out! It's not bad at all!! 

On top of that, I wanted it to seem like a true YouTube video so I made a YouTube intro. I made the intro on Canva for aesthetic purposes and exported it. Then, I found non-copyrighted sound and put both the intro video and sound together on Podcastle. 

Even though this was the most time-consuming part of my CCR, editing these projects was still fun :)

CCR Production!

 Hey there blog! I started filming for both of my CCR videos! I already finished the scripts and realized it was about time to start filming. 

Podcast

For my podcast CCR, I tried using Adobe Premiere Pro... But, like I mentioned before, my computer SUCKS and said it didn't have enough storage to even open Adobe (bruh) So, I did some googling and found a website called Podcastle. It's a website that lets you input audio and edit it, and most people use it to make podcasts anyway! 

I filmed myself speaking on the website itself, I still need to add some sound effects and shorten/lengthen clips to edit. But for now, I'm off to a good start!

I even used my mom's voice as an advertisement in my podcast! Fun!!

Draw my Project

The set up for filming me drawing on a whiteboard at an overhead angle was tricky. I used my tripod and angled it downwards until I got the perfect angle. I had to take into consideration so many factors such as moving the whiteboard, timing myself, shadows, etc. It was definitely time-consuming to film but I eventually did it! 

The said setup…

My drawings arent the best but at least it's informative! 

Overall, I'm so happy I finished filming because spring break is about to start! And I don't want to stress over this, soon ill start editing!

CCR #4

 Hey there blog! This is my last CCR post (honestly easing my anxiety lol) For this final blog post I decided to start working on my script for CCR 4, obviously, I'll do the other ones eventually but here's this one! 

As I mentioned in my blog post about CCR #3, I plan on doing a storytelling video with drawings and a voice-over answering questions 3 and 4. But what will I even talk about for CCR 4? CCR 4 requires us to talk about what software and physical/online technologies we utilized throughout the duration of our project. I'll mention multiple things like our use of Adobe Premier Pro, lighting, microphones, and a camera (my phone..) 

I'll also talk about issues we may have run into, why we chose to use certain technologies and the outcomes. For example, a technology that I believe especially helped was the lighting Mrs. Stoklosa let us borrow! It added to our film in various aspects. 

Here's the script for CCR #4: 

Editing (Continued..)

 Hey there blog! Today was our LAST DAY OF EDITING! Marissa and I went to Starbucks to wrap everything up :) She did some editing on her own time throughout the week, and it was a rollercoaster, but we did have a lot of fun today!

Marissa told me she compiled some more clips together and added audio. She told me to make some foley sounds like walking on grass, a lighter being ignited, and a thud. She timed those with some clips. 

But then... she told me our project got DELETED. She couldn't find it anywhere. But then after restarting her computer and reopening Adobe Premier Pro it suddenly came back. 

I genuinely felt so bad for her when she sent me this photo... 

I used Canva to make the title slide, and I incorporated some blood splatter and fangs to add to our horror element. I sent this to Marissa and then she added a sting to the clip! 

Onto today! Marissa had some issues with using keyframes to make text fade in and out or enlarge photos gradually. So, I helped out with some of that using my experience! We also realized our film opening wasn't long enough, so we added some companies at the beginning of our film! 

I designed the company names and logos through Canva and added it to the film opening. 

Here's us rewatching our film a billion times to make sure we finally have everything right

That concludes our film opening! After lots of planning, filming, and editing, we're finally done! Marissa and I had a lot of fun and we definitely learned a lot from making this film opening. We're really proud of our work and I cant wait to share it with you guys :) 

Another Group Meeting!!

 Hey there blog! We had a group meeting today with some classmates to discuss our ideas for CCR and share some of the footage we had of our film. 

We started by sharing our footage as we went around in a circle. 

Two people in my group filmed on an actual camera! (tryhards.. lol jk!!) Their footage looked really well done, the camera had a grainy aspect to it that they said was on purpose, I loved that. One thing I will say is that the footage they showed wasn't compiled so it was a little hard to follow, but I assume they'll edit it soon! Looking good!

Two other people in our group said they didn't have any footage because it was with another group member. That's understandable, so instead they talked about what they had but didn't exactly show it. One of them was a coming-of-age film while the other was a suspense film! We gave them some ideas for editing like using coloring to change the mood, which they seemed to be receptive to, overall they also seem to be doing well. 

Finally, I shared my footage and a lot of people complimented our lighting! They really loved the blue which I was happy about since I took a lot of time to come up with it. My group also liked the overall idea of our project and thought it was unique :) (hooray!)

I started by mentioning my ideas for the CCR since I already planned it out before! I talked about the idea for a podcast and a "Draw my Life" style for filming it! No one really had any notes to say they just thought it was a pretty good idea! 

Other people in my group had one idea in common, an interview-based CCR. Everyone thought it was a good idea and so did I, but I did ask some questions about how they would make it unique since a lot of people are doing it. They said they still had to think about that which is fine, hopefully, they came up with something! 

We all discussed ideas for CCR 3 and 4 because most people had 1 and 2 figured out, everyone had some pretty cool ideas! My friend Angelique didn't know what to do so I told her to try a "behind the scenes" thing, where she pretends to be filming her project again and someone interrupts her to ask her questions! 

Overall, I think everyone in my group has a good foundation. We all promised to share our CCR's eventually, I'm excited!

Editing!

 Hey there blog! We finally started editing our project after gathering all the footage we need for our film. To be honest, this is my favorite part (I LOVE editing!) Marissa and I wrapped up our first day of editing today and I think it went smoothly. Here's how it went: 

I was going to edit using Adobe Premiere Pro on my computer... but I couldn't. Apparently I have NO storage in my computer :( not even enough to open Adobe. So, we had to use Marissa's computer instead. 

We first made sure we compiled all the clips we were going to use in the film, to make sure we didn't include any bloopers. Then, we transferred the clips to Marissa's computer by emailing them to an email she can access on her computer. I remember a lot of things from Adobe as I used the software in middle school during my film class, so I was pretty comfortable. Marissa on the other hand has some trouble using Adobe, so I taught her how to do many things like muting clips, changing coloring, and transferring clips to Adobe. 

Since I knew she would edit in her own time as it was on her computer, I used today to do the editing. I put half of our clips in and cropped them! I also muted some clips that needed to be muted and changing their coloring. But, we later scrapped the coloring as we thought it was unnecessary and tacky. 

(I was stressed out trying to do as much as possible because I felt bad for Marissa lol)

Anyways, that was our first day of editing! It was very relaxed and we both felt we left off in a good place by the end of the day. We're glad we were able to complete most things today! But we still have many things to do.

Shooting Process!

Hey there blog! Today we finally wrapped up shooting all our scenes for our film opening! (Yayyy) It was honestly really fun and enjoyable. Surprisingly, Jordan’s a really good actor. I think we all enjoyed filming and even though we went through some problems, I liked our result :)

Day one

The first problem we ran into was the mics. I clipped them onto Jordan and Marissa’s back but they kept sounding muffled for some odd reason. So we spent 45 minutes trying to figure it out… Eventually, we fixed the problem, or I guess the problem fixed itself because the mic’s started working pretty well! I don’t know what made them start working but it was definitely a relief.

Anyways, we filmed all of our daylight scenes on Saturday, all the way up until Jordan fell down. Everyone brought the props, wore the right clothes, and I didn’t forget the filming equipment so things went really smoothly! During some tracking shots I had some trouble keeping up with their walking pace. I genuinely felt like I was going to fall over any second. But, I powered through!! We got some pretty good shots:

 

Day two

Today, we filmed at night time! (When Benji wakes up from hitting his head) And it was super fun. If you disregard the mosquitoes..

Marissa did her SFX makeup and it looked awesome! She also has fangs on to pull the vampire act off.

One of my favorite parts about shooting this day was the lighting. We wanted to add a cool blue aspect to show the shift from a vibrant and warm aspect (joyful) to a seemingly unforgiving and mysterious aspect. We put a filter on our light and it made a really nice effect. We did have some issues when trying to get the lighting right because we didn’t want it to be too blue, so we took pretty long on a lot of shots.

This is my favourite one with the blue :)

Overall, filming was an excellent experience! Our issues were minor and were so glad we didn’t run into any major problems. Marissa and I were really proud of our end product and even Jordan liked it! Tomorrow, I start editing and making the magic happen

CCR #3

 Hey there blog! Another CCR post, yes I know.. But we're almost done! I finished talking about the first half of my CCR but now for the other half. My general idea is based on those "Draw My Life" videos famous YouTubers do. I would record a voiceover on top of me doing drawings on a whiteboard explaining what I'm saying. 

Here is one of those "Draw My Life" videos for reference: 

Question 3 of the CCR's makes us describe our production process and how our skills developed. 

I would start by talking about the planning of our project (referencing all the planning posts I already did). Like casting, mise en scene, audio, lighting, equipment, etc. I'd talk about the process and how we made decisions on these topics and the eventual outcome. 

I'd also mention our production schedule and issues along the way, but of course, I'd talk about how I adapted to it.  An issue I could talk about is our actor canceling right before we were supposed to film... Or, our entire project being deleted! 

To pinpoint how my skills developed, I'd reference my thoughts at the beginning vs. the end of the project and how my mindset and perception changed. How in the beginning I honestly thought this was busy work and it wouldn't take long. And how in the end, boy was I wrong! It was difficult and really made me think. 

My perception of filmmaking as an easy and fun thing to do changed to me thinking that filmmaking is actually hard. And there are a lot of technicalities behind it that have to be thought through. 

I can't believe we're getting close to the end of this project.. I definitely learned a lot and can't wait to talk about it in my CCR!

CCR #2

 Hey there blog! I'm gonna keep doing individual blog posts for each question of my CCR in order to keep on track of my progress and share my ideas :)

Like I mentioned in my blog post about CCR #1, for the first two CCR's I'll be incorporating the questions and answers into an audio podcast! Once again, I'll be doing a podcast to showcase these ideas, and I might have changed my mind lol... You know how I said I was thinking of doing an audio based podcast? I feel like doing a visual one would be really cool too!! So I'm still thinking about my options!

For CCR #2 I must talk about my target audience, production choices to engage my audience, and focusing on different distribution strategies. 

I already did research for this CCR in the past regarding target audience (see my research here) But ill include some of the graphs of my research again: 

I'll mention these statistics in my podcast to define my overall target audience. Including other aspects such as vampire age groups. 

Some common production choices in horror movies are mainly used to evoke fear in the audience. Dark lighting, shots of characters alone, quick cuts, sound effects, etc. are very common aspects. In my film, we utilized all of these, including an extra addition of cool lighting for an unsettling effect. I'll make sure to also speak of these topics in my podcast. I might compare my film to common horror films to show just how much I utilized important production choices. 

For an upcoming film, I have to be realistic. It probably wont be distributed in a movie theater... I can distribute this film in film festivals, like common ones that I can enter such as the UF film festival, or the Broward film festival. This can gain attention from critics and perhaps allow our film to be distributed in even more aspects, while also getting recognition for our work. Uploading the film to YouTube can gain us an even greater audience. All of this can be done with little to no payments, and easy access for beginner film makers. 

This blog post was basically an outline of what I researched and what I plan on talking about in my podcast. This was a really helpful blueprint, and I cant wait to see the final product!

https://roundourworld.com/2024/10/23/understanding-production-choices-in-horror-films/video/

CCR #1

 Hey there blog! I have to start working on my creative critical reflections now! I plan on splitting CCR 1 and 2 into one video and 3 and 4 into another. I want to create a podcast that takes a creative approach and answers questions excitingly. Originally, I wanted to make a video podcast, but since I also have to focus on finalizing my film opening, I believe a sole audio podcast would allow me to spend time focusing on other things too. 

The first question of the CCR I will do will include topics about genre characteristics, common conventions that were challenged/embraced, and ensuring our audience views the film in the direction we want (probably should utilize a media theory) 

Using the original research I did on common genre conventions in film openings (check my other blog posts! Here's one about film openings.), I already know some of the genre characteristics I'll talk about. I'll talk about darker lighting, mise en scene, monster/scary choice, color theory like the color red in horror, and reference other horror films. 

I mostly embraced these aspects in the film, and will make sure to reference how I personally used these in my own film opening. 

We want our film to be viewed as scary. Not exactly terrifying, but we incorporated a plot twist to leave the audience on edge. We utilized the enigma theory as you can only see a quick shot of the vampire pouncing, but you can't see the outcome. 

The "questions" will be viewers of the podcast sending them in. I'll read them out loud and answer them, I want my podcast to be informative and slightly comedic, so I'll try to include some of those elements too! 

To be even more realistic, I want to include some fake advertisements in the middle of the podcast :)

Here's a rough draft of how my podcast will open and the general gist of how things will go:

(Intro music plays)

"Hi there! I'm Juliana, and welcome to Snapshot (audio of a camera shooting), where we talk about film techniques and all things film related!" 

"If you've been watching me for a while, you know that recently I made a short film opening. I've talked about it the past few weeks and I can't believe I'm finally done."

"I'm always the one doing the talking, so I wanted to give you guys a chance to ask me some questions. You guys had some pretty good questions on Twitter (tweet sound plays) and I can't wait to answer them!"

"First question, from @dai34perm, "You mentioned your film used horror characteristics, what even are horror characteristics?" (etc)

I'll add many sound effects to make up for the visual experience, and I hope it's as enjoyable as I think it'll be! (By the way, I take heavy inspiration from Brittany Broski, she's hilarious) 

Issues...

 Hey there blog! Okay, so we ran into a MAJOR issue. I literally almost cried. Marissa has connections with the drama club, as she has many friends in it. So, we agreed she would ask around for any male part to be in our film, as Veronica is going out on a date with a guy. She found someone last week, yay! (Or so I thought..) He agreed to film, and perfectly aligned with our schedule of filming the upcoming weekend on both Saturday and Sunday, literally perfect!!

Today, as I was writing my blog on foley sounds, I got a text from Marissa. She tells me the guy she found from drama CANCELLED. He said he unfortunately couldn't film on those dates and he's been really busy with school so he has to focus on his schoolwork. I mean, I get that, but I freaked.

Our unfortunate evidence: 

Now we have to find a new actor, when we have to film in less than a week! I don't know where were going to find someone, because they actually need to be good at acting. I'd ask my friends and people I know, but they definitely wouldn't deliver (no offense.) Guys keep me in your prayers and thoughts because we desperately need an actor...

Foley sounds

Hey there blog! We're really excited to incorporate foley sounds. Foley sounds are sound effects created off screen to match what's happening on screen. For example, when recording a fireplace, to exaggerate the sound of fire burning, you can crinkle a plastic garbage bag and record the sound. Overall, I think its a really fun thing to do, I've done it before for a film class in middle school! You can be creative and still come out with a really good outcome :)

Benji jogging in the forest

When Veronica runs off into the forest, teasing Benji to run after her, Benji follows. The camera follows him running in the forest at night, when he suddenly trips and falls, hitting his head in the process. We wanted to exaggerate the sounds in this scene to truly get the fact that he's running and hitting his head. The actual audio of our actor running might not be loud enough to hear. 

So, how do we plan on creating this audio? For the footsteps of Benji running after Veronica I planned on getting some shoes and stomping them on concrete against leaves. I need to get the pace right so I'm going to do multiple takes of different speeds of the footsteps to see what matches. The leaves add to the forest effect, making it seem like that audio also matches with the scenery. 

Veronica essentially mauling Benji

Veronica is seen lunging at Benji, as both characters go off screen. When the characters are offscreen, we can see shadows cast of Veronica on top of Benji, biting him and feasting on his blood. But, gruesome audio can also be heard to expand the element of horror. 

For the sound of biting and gnawing (our base sound) I would use chicken breast. I would sink my nails in it and move it around and lightly tear it apart. Then, I would layer it peeling of an orange to really sell the effect of skin being ripped off. Maybe another layer of celery snapping to mimic bone crunching. And finally for some of the mouth sounds, I would record chewing gum. 

All of this layering, although disturbing, is going to be my favorite part! It's complex and the end result can turn out really gross, just what we were looking for!

I cant wait to show you guys my foley sounds eventually!!!