Film Opening

 Below is the link for my full Opening scene for my portfolio project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxSj9tnsE-s

Creative Critical Reflection

 Today is the last day I have on this project. I finished editing both of my CCR's today, and below are the links to watch them. One of them is a director commentary, and the other is a reference to a popular YouTube channel called WIRED that does interviews with celebrities.

CCR #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onn1L_rS_k4

CCR #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-jN-7GNeZI

2nd CCR Creation

          Today is almost the final day of my project. It's the final day of filming at least. So, today, I finally finished filming everything including my 2nd CCR. 

Prep:

          I knew beforehand that this CCR would take a long time to prepare, so I woke up early to prepare. Yesterday, Saturday, I began to write the script for my second CCR, and this morning I finished it. It didn't take me too long to finish though, because I already had what I wanted to do in mind and the questions weren't too hard to answer.

          In my script, I also decided to add the questions that I was going to add to the cardboard for "Google's Most Asked Questions". After finishing my script, I had to design the paper that was going to be attached to the cardboard.

          I thought maybe I could write it in sharpie on the cardboard, but that idea was scratched off fast after I thought of how stupid that would look.

          After a while of thinking, I decided to just print a piece of paper with the questions and everything on it, tape it to the cardboard, then use small strips of the sticky part of post-its as the paper covering half of the questions.

Prop Making:

          Before that though, I had to make the actual piece of paper and make sure the questions were relevant enough and were asking exactly what I needed to answer. 

          I started by getting a template off google of a google search bar. I then went into the photo editor and whited out all of the previous text. After that, I added my own questions and messed around with the fonts and sizes of the words. This took me a while because it kept on glitching and I wanted it to look as close as possible to a realistic Google search.

          Once I had finished making the pictures, I printed them on blank paper in color. Thankfully, I had some extra cardboard from a project I did at the very beginning of the year, and I thought that it would work perfectly for exactly what I was imagining.

          I went into the garage and cut it carefully with a knife since my scissors weren't sharp enough to cut straight through smoothly. I then carefully used a small amount of tape around all of the corners of the poster and stuck the paper on perfectly. Lastly, I got some yellow post-its I had in my supply closet and I cut them into thin slices so they could fit perfectly over each line and every set of words.

Filming:

          By this point, I had finally finished the actual poster, and all I had to do was record.  it. The main problem was that both of my parents were extremely busy, so I had to film everything myself. I didn't want the camera to face me, because it lowers the quality by a lot. So, instead, I decided to wing it and record it facing backward.

          After recording for around 10 minutes, I decided to check the footage before moving on to the rest of my filming. I'm glad I checked, because the whole time, half of my head wasn't even on screen, so all that hard work went to waste. Thankfully though, I caught myself on the earlier side and I didn't have to redo the WHOLE thing.

          So before starting to record again, I asked my parents quickly if they could check to see if my whole upper body was in the frame and centered, and it was. So, my second attempt went well.

Editing:

          Once I was done and took a short break, I thought it would be best to hop right on to begin editing my second CCR. I hadn't fully finished editing my first CCR yet, but I thought if I started the second one it would be easier to continue it later on rather than starting it later. So, after editing for a while, currently, I have almost finished editing my 1st and 2nd CCR and I will finish them both tomorrow right after I get home from school so as to not make my last-minute touches too late.

        -Dana

1st CCR Creation

This is going to be a kind of short blog. This blog will be about the full creation of my first CCR. Surprisingly, the CCR wasn't too hard to film or edit so that's why this blog may be a little on the shorter side.

This past Wednesday, I decided to begin to write my script in class for my first CCR. Before starting it however, I had to choose what I wanted it to answer, I thought it would be best to start with the first two questions pertaining to the genre, audience, and distribution of my movie. I also had to figure out what CCR idea would go with this script which I ended up deciding would be the one located in the same forest I filmed some of the beginning of my opening scene.

I ended up finishing the script by Wednesday night and although I knew it wasn't exactly what I was going to say during filming, I knew it would be good to semi-memorize my points with this script and then go off on my own during filming. This script could also help me get back on track while recording if I get too far off the main point I am trying to give.

           I was really nervous I was going to be tight on time too since I couldn't go out to film until Saturday, meaning I would only have the rest of the weekend to edit and finish this CCR and my other CCR before Monday. So, I prepared and thought of exactly what I wanted to do. By today, Saturday, I had tweaked a couple things in the script like changing it from a Q&A to a director commentary.

           Anyway, so today I went back out to the famous park where I filmed the beginning half of my opening scene: Markham Park. It was a Saturday afternoon, so I knew that the park would be busy and have a lot of visitors. So, before going out to film, I finalized my thoughts and last-minute changes I wanted to make to minimize my time trying to record in the forest.

           It took me a while to feel comfortable in front of the camera and make the footage seem more natural, however, after some time, I was feeling great and ready to film. I started filming exactly where I filmed part of the forest chase scene for my actual project because I thought it would match the vibe, and I thought it would be cool to include saying in my CCR that I filmed a scene right where I was standing.

           After a while, however, people came down the path where I was and I didn't want to confront them or look weird talking to a camera about a serial killer horror movie. So, I thought it would be best to move locations, that's why randomly in my CCR, I change locations and scenery. Sadly, I didn't finish my footage from that location, so I had to film it again in another place. It was a little funny though because I actually moved to a place very very close to another location I filmed. However, I thought it would be interesting to include parts of both locations to make it feel more varied.

           I went back home and got right on my computer to start editing. I wasn't planning on making it an excellent editing job. All I really needed was to cut out the awkward silence, cut together the pieces from different recordings, and maybe add in a couple pictures to change it up a bit.

I did encounter a couple complications while editing though. One was that my favorite start of the CCR had a very loud plane in the background. I searched and searched for a YouTube video that could help me mute it out, and I did the best I could, but I thought risking the plane noise would be better than choosing a bad introduction to my CCR,

                -Dana

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25ZFA1xfMfU