CCR

Here is the link to my CCR!!!

http://youtu.be/B5Pw0KCV-do?hd=1

I am so happy to of done a project like this and mostly to be done. This project was a lot more work then i thought it was going to be but it was so much fun. I learned so much from this project like how to stabilize shots and I also learned how to edit really well on iMovie. With the help of my partners we got to make our vision come to life and even though we came across a ton of issues we got past them and our final result was something we are all happy with.

Our video

Here is our final project.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec_rflhTBOs&feature=youtu.be

We are so happy with our outcome of this project and how hard we worked on it for the last 4 weeks. I can't thank my partners, Sam and Camila, enough for their handwork and dedication to this project. Despite our many many ups and downs we worked through them and created something amazing.

Weakness/ struggles

Here is my last post before the project and CCR, so I wanted to dedicate it to all of the struggles and problems that we found when doing this project.

1. The genre. When picking a genre things can get very rough especially when i don't even have an idea. For us it was easier to pick a genre we liked and thought we can create the best and did so. So after going through tons and tons of websites about genre characteristic and finally chose a dram com or a comedic drama. One site that helped the most was http://www.allmovie.com/genres its so simple and for us it was very helpful.

2. The idea. Once we finally did come up with a basis for our idea we were so stuck on if we should make the successful guy our actual main character but in the past or future, or if he should just be another guy for comedic effect. This was a debate for us for several days until we cam up with a plan. We told our idea to over 20 people and asked them which they preferred and we got 16 out of the 20 people to say that they liked him just being a random guy. Now this might have been the wrong decision to make put we listened to the people and we created what they preferred and I think we did a good job portraying it.

3. The office scene. This scene was just all-around a rough time because not only did we have to overcome the marble/ carpet issue which I talked about in an earlier post but we also had to go back and refilm some opening parts of our successful guy getting out of his car and walking towards the building. We had lighting problems and not to mention how the car is reflective so we were shown filming in parts of it. It really was a mess but after going back and refilming 3 times we did get what we wanted. Sometimes perfect takes a long to get but lots of patience which our actors and perseverance we got it done.

4. The opening sequence. We did have a ton of trouble just coming up with an idea for this part of our opening. We though about doing young kids, careers, and finally our desk scene which we chose. Not only was coming up with a practical idea that had to fit in with our movie hard, but the lightning was also a problem. We did overcome this with the lamp which I talked about in an earlier post. Also another problem we had with this scene was how to match up our actions with the beats of our song that we chose for this scene. We did have to speed up one shot of this scene which would not of preferred doing but it did look really cool with the music so we had to sacrifice.

5. Long shot. Yes this was another problem we had with our office scene. We did have a long hallway shot that looked really cool because we wrapped our tripod around a rolling chair with our tripods twisty legs. However, upon going back and looking at our footage we saw hat the shot was actually unsteady and we did not have the opportunity to go back and fix it. Thankfully, doing our discussions with other groups in the class, one of our classmates suggested that we use a stabilizer app and we did that and the shot looks perfect now! We didn't even have to go back and refilm that scene and it made everything so much easier.

Those were our most prominent problems that arose while we were doing this project. Just thankful that everything turned out great and also very happy its all over... :)

"All Movies Genres." Allmovies. N.p., n.d. Web.

Voiceover!!

Today we recorded the voiceover. It was a lot harder than we thought for multiple reasons. One reason was that timing it was very hard because if we needed to talk for 4 seconds then we had to talk for 4 second, no more, no less, or it wouldn't work. We had to rewrite and rewrite the script over and over again to make sure that it worked.

Aside from that problem we also had a problem with the voiceover and the music in the background because if the music was too loud then we couldn't hear the voiceover and if the voiceover was too loud it sounded weird and you couldn't hear the music! We did fix this problem with a feature on iMovie called audio enhancer and it worked great. 

Our last issue with the voiceover was the background noise. We then went back to the video I talked about in an earlier post and followed some of their tips. We put up large heavy black sheets in Camila's room and shut every door in the house and our voiceover came out great. There was so little background noise and with the enhancer it was really good.

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Also a little update, we finally picked our music for all of our scenes. We used both purpleplanetmusic and we also used bensound.com. Both are websites that have free music that u can use on your projects and videos. We chose a more upbeat sound for our opening and office scene and then transferred into the darker more mysterious sound for our introduce the character scene at the park. 

"P U R P L E  p L a N E T." Purple Planet Royalty Free Music. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2017.

"ROYALTY FREE MUSIC by BENSOUND." Bensound. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Apr. 2017.

Filming introduce the character scene

We finally filmed the introduce the character scene with our main character Sean Rivers, played by our friend Juan. We wanted our main character to look very dirty and almost out of place in his environment which can symbolize how out of place he feels in life and almost how he is stumbling through it. We chose for him to be wearing jeans and shirt, no shoes, and his hair down. Our actor, Juan, actually has long hair which looked absolutely perfect for the part.

Now for the important news, we asked our teacher today if we can curse and she said that we can if it helps establish our character. Lucky for us our deadbeat of a character would curse so we are cursing!!!! To clarify, our voiceover will be cursing no our actor but metaphorically Sean Rivers will be cursing. 

Location wise for this scene we at first though about finding an alley way or a beaten down street but then we had an idea. Since we wanted Sean to be almost out of place in society we chose to film at a very nice park we know called Peacemound park. Here is a picture of the park. 

We filmed Sean right in front of a playground there at the park because it added a really cool contrast. Our actor is basically the most amazing actor in the world and perfect for our part so it took only 2 shots to get this scene. We haven't picked the music yet but we were hoping for a very cool rock vibe that has a ting of suspense in it. Anyway we are so happy with this scene it is by far the best we have shot so far and it ends our opening which is a solid 10/10. 

"Peace Mound Park, Weston, Florida." Calvin, Giordano & Associates, Inc. N.p., 24 Sept. 2015. Web. 4 Apr. 2017.

Opening sequence

We did a lot today. We filmed our opening sequence and we edited our office scene. Now all we have left is our introduce the character scene and our voice over and then we can edit it all and move on to our ccr.

Filming the opening sequence went really well. We decided to go with plan b for our opening sequence idea. We filmed it at my house and set up my dinning room table to look like a desk. Then we arranged a ton a folders and such to all come together and wrote the poor deadbeat topics on them and inside was all of the names we wanted in our opening credits. Here is an example of the inside and an outside of some of our props.

Our main problem with this was lighting because either it was too dark or too light so from this site we drew inspiration and we took my large 5 foot tall lamp and wrapped foil around it and tilted it so i was in our direction right behind the camera and it came out so well! very very happy with how all of this turned out.
Here is an updated schedule

Monday april 3- finish filming

tuesday april 4- finish filming

wednesday april 5- edit

thursday april 5- edit

Friday april 6- VOICE OVER and edit

saturday april 7- ccr and any last minute refilming

WikiHow. "How to Make Homemade Photography Lighting." WikiHow. WikiHow, 11 Apr. 2017. Web. 11 Apr. 2017.

Filming that complaining mother...

Today we filmed our second false story shot with a complaining mother. We took many many shots of this scene. We first started off with Camila sweeping while on the phone while slowing zooming out. Then we also shot her at a bar in my house drinking wine from a wine glass (apple juice) and on the phone. Then we also shot her cooking while complaining on the phone. These were all actions of a typical house mother which we really wanted to portray.

However we did have lots of issues with this scene because we really wanted it to transition well from the office scene to this scene. At the end of our office scene we created a still frame where we stopped our successful guy at his face so that the voiceover can say "unfortunately this is not my story". So we wanted our complaining mother scene to start the way the office scene ended. It took us a while to get Camila positioned exactly like the office scene ended, same side of face, same camera distance, etc..