Wrapping up the movie and a recap

 Hi blog. Today we have finally finished up our short film. Our journey was not an easy one but we pulled through. With our background from last year, we had an easier time with the basics in this project. However, it was also a lot harder in some aspects. With it being 5 minutes long, and being an actual short film, with a beginning, middle, and end. We had a lot to do. Thinking of a plot for the movie was one of the hardest parts. We basically at the deadline though of a quick idea, and ran with it. It was bad in the beginning, but we kept modeling it like a piece of clay, until it turned into the art piece we have now. Creating a story board was in my opinion the hardest part of the journey. Fleshing out the basic plot we had then, into a 10 page story board, was a very difficult challenge compared to last year. It was more than double the work, but like everything in this project we persevered. With this detailed story board, we were able to easily put it on film. This was probably the easiest part of the project. We just had to film the shots, and we were able to do other fun stuff after we were done. The next part was the editing. The editing part was easy this time, because we didn't have to use the school computers, but the huge problems that we had to solve were the only hard parts. The Wi-Fi problems, time constraints, and the many bugs were big problems, but at the end of the day, we got through. All and all we did the best we could with the recourses and time we had. We are both proud of what we did for this project, but there are still some things we could improve.

-Here's one of my favorite screen shots of the movie 

Editing blog: Finishing it all up

 Hi blog. Today was our finally day of editing. After yesterdays disaster of editing, we had to do it all today. We first started on getting back what we lost yesterday. We organized all the shots in order, exactly what's on the story board. When we were doing this, we discovered that we were missing one shot. A major problem you might say, but it actually didn't affect us at all. The shot was when my groupmate was walking up the stair case. Its in the story board, but we didn't need it. when we put all the film organized in the editing software, it was around 7 minutes long. 2 minutes longer than what it was supposed too. So we had to cut out some non important shots, which we would of cut out that missing one in the process. While shortening the film, we had another problem. The screen sharing on discord (the communication software that we have been using on our computers) stopped working. We then decided to use our backup software, facetime that is on our phones. After that bump in the road, me and my groupmate were able to basically finish up the editing. We cut basically every shot, to make them shorter so the time would be a short as possible. Its still a bit to long, but its the best that we can do. All in all, we had a really good day of editing. I'm proud of what we did, and so is my groupmate.

-This is me helping on Ft, when discord was not working (look how dumb I look)

Editing blog: Running through some problems

  Hi blog. Today me and my partner did/tried to edit today. We didn't actually get that much editing in though. When we started to edit, it was pretty smooth for the first 10 . After that, it started to go down hill. on the main computer that we were editing, Elijah's computer started to get some bugs. The pixels on screen started to bug. it got to the point where we couldn't see parts of the screen. After that the screen decided to freeze. We waited for a couple minutes for it to unfreeze, then another thing happened. My partners Wi-Fi  went out and we were no longer on a call. I had to face time my partner because that could use Cellular. When i called him, he informed me that his whole computer had to be restarted. This meant that we could of lost all of our editing that we did from these past weeks. We both got super frustrated. When we restarted the computer, it had saved what we were doing, but not todays work. We decided to end the editing of today then because we were already frustrated with us not being able to do work, and the computer needed time to breathe. What ever bad could happen today, happened. we got totally screwed from a day of editing. However, we persevered and got it all back.

-here's a picture when it first started to bug. 

Editing Blog: editing on Christmas eve (organizing, and transgering)

 Hi blog. Yesterday, me and my partner did some editing on Christmas eve. We didn't have that much time to edit on Christmas eve, but we got some work in. The first thing that we did was working on organizing our Film. When we filmed we did many retakes, and I mean many. We had done our filming in the highest quality of resolution, and which that it took up a lot of storage. We also took a lot of retakes As well. This lead to our film taking up my groupmates storage completely. With that, we had to convert the film to a lower quality so it didn't take a long time to transfer using an app on our phone. With the lower quality we could now transfer the film. We used google drive to transfer our film between the phone and our computers. However, we had to organize it first. This took us a while to do. We had a bunch of retakes that were equally good, but we both kept arguing about. We argued on and on, but we had to soon compromise because we were waiting time. After that we found the best shots for the film. With those shots, we Transferred film, but it took a while. Even though we changed the quality of the film to be a smaller storage, it still took some time. By the time we had it all transferred on to each of our computers, it was time for Christmas eve stuff. Even though we didn't do the largest amount of work, We still did progress for our project. 

-Here's a screenshot of our film in google drive on my groupmates phone 

Editing Blog: solving problems

Hi blog. Today me and my partner picked up our progress, first time this winter break. We had some problems to solve though. Since its winter break, and Christmas is around the corner, Both of our families are quarantining for this break because there has been a large break out here in our country's. This had lead to our plans of editing to be squashed. We were planning for my groupmate just to come over to my house and we would just edit on my computer together. very short and simple. So, with this problem of us not being to edit together, we found our solution. We found a communication software that we could download on each of our computers named "Discord". With this software me and my groupmate are able to talk and communicate on our computers while we both edit. This allowed us to both edit, better than just having one of us edit at my house. That isn't even the best part too. On the software we can share our screens so we can visible help each other edit our film. Its really helpful, Its just like if we are sitting right next to each other at school a year ago. With this we started to begin to edit. The editing software that we use is "HitFilm". Me and my groupmate both already had this software downloaded on each of our computers from when we both used to make YouTube videos in elementary and early middle school. However, I'm not that proficient in HitFilm, but my partner is still. He had to reteach me a couple of things, but I am remembering things from middle school. All in all, today we solved our major problem with tools of our own. \

-This is a picture of us editing together on discord.

Filming blog: Day 3

 This weekend, me and my groupmate finished filming in 2 days. This blog is about the 2nd day we filmed this weekend, which is the 3rd day we filmed in total. With having Friday being all rainy, Sunday was our day to film outside. We were very lucky with it being fully sunshine, and no clouds. First we did that day was do the missing shots we had to do. We first had to do a bunch of dialogue that we some how forgot to do. We had to retake many times because we kept laughing in the filming. In total that was around 3 or 4 shots we had to do. We also had to redo the filming of the opening of the box scene. We had to redo it because it turned out it had really bad background noise. After filming inside, it was time for the outside. The first shot we did was the riding the bike outside the house scene. That was easy enough, but my huge tortoise kept getting in the way so we had to wait for it to move. We ended up keeping the shot of where its in the filming because we thought it was pretty cool. The next scene we did was the tree scene. This one was easy, and i decided to do a low/medium angle shot too, to add some flavor to the filming.  The next shot was the last major shot, the lake scenes. Like the other shots it was fairly easy, but people kept walking by so we had to momentarily pause from filming. With that we were done with filming! Now its time for us to start editing our film.

Filming blog: Day 2

This weekend me and my partner finished filming. We took 2 days this weekend to film because we had some mishaps on the first day. On Friday my partner came to my house to film, but there was a problem. When got at my house it was raining very bad so we try to wait. We waited for a while and nothing changed. It kept poring and poring and there was no end in sight. We decided since that we were stuck inside that we would work on planning out the next time we were going to film. After arguing over and over, we figured out what day we would film. We decided Sunday would be the best choice, and i would just have to move the plans i had that day to Saturday. After that scuffle, we moved on the the other task. Me and my partner did the 2 shots we forgot to do inside the house last Saturday that we were supposed to do. We first did the walking down stairs and the walking down the hallway shot. That was easy enough to do, but we just had to match the lighting. The next shot we did was the opening box scene which we forgot to do. That was very simple, and what wrapped up our filming for Friday. Since we had time left before my groupmate would get picked up, We planed out the next time we would film. The first thing we did was circle the shots that we needed to do outside on our screen play, and we started the dialogue too. When we did that however, we found out we had to do like 2 more shots inside that we forgot to do. By that time though Elijah my groupmate had to leave, so we couldn't film. even though that day we couldn't film outside, we were productive and used our time manageably.

     

Filming blog: Day 1

Hi blog. This weekend, me and my partner started filming. We had prepared the props days before too. We filmed at my house this weekend. So my partner had to ride his bike over to my house, and leave before sundown, so we had around 3 hours to film. With that in mind, we decided to film in 2 different days. We decided this because we could barely fit the whole filming in 3 hours, but basically all the scenes would be rushed and that's not how we want our film to go. We decided to film for the second time on probably this upcoming Friday, the 11th, or the weekend after it. We picked those days because we have midterms this next week, and we need to get this filming done with this weekend. To get back on track, Filming wasn't that hard. We decided to first film in chronological order. The first couple of scenes were fairly easy to film. We then decided to make a game plan because after those scenes we realized that we needed to split the filming into 2 days. We decided that this weekend we would do all the shots that are with my dad, and inside/around my house this weekend. The next weekend would be all of the neighborhood scenes. So when we filmed this weekend, we basically got 2/3rds of the movie done. The only hard part that we had with filming, was with my dad. We just had to wait for him to stop doing yard work to film with him. Other than that it was a breeze. Me and my group mate might even get the foundation of our editing done too this week with the film we have so far. 

Preperation

This thanksgiving break, me and my group mate started on the preparations for filming. This upcoming weekend me and my group mate are going to film. We are probably going to film on saturday, the 5th of december. But in the mean time my partner and I did our preparations. The first thing i did was the props. I first got an old book. then i found some aged paper, and some sticky notes. I also got the rest of the miscellaneous stuff to put in the box. The next thing I had to do was find the actual box i needed to put those objects. After searching around for a little around my house i came down to 2 options. There's this really old box in my garage that i can use but it is on the verge of breaking. If i put anything in it it will break. My other box is this shoe box, which is styled vintage because the shoe was too, so it can kind of fit the part of being a old box. I could, and probably am going to ruff it up and put some wear and tear on it. So i'm probably picking the second option. The next prop is going to be the shoes, and they are right in my moms closet. The last prop i had to check was my bike. It is in perfect condition so im fine. The next thing i had to do was to make sure all of the locations were fine to film. I went on my bike and went to all the locations that are in my neighborhood. Nothing changed and there was no contractions so that was good as well. After all of that, all of the conditions were met, and were ready to film next weekend.

The box we are going to use looks like this:

The Making of Our Website

This thanksgiving weekend, me and my partner worked on our Website. Before this, we finished All four of the social media accounts. To start on the website we created A new gmail account for the account. the account was for Wix. With wix we were able to create our website with ease. We first picked out a template for out website. We picked out a moder dark theme, so the detail would be very outlandish and outstanding, so the main point of the website will just be our writing and pictures. We then added the first part of our website the title. Then we added The Title, very easy. The next thing we did was the synopsis. From like a month ago, we made the Synopsis of our film. So we just added it by just a simple copy and paste. The next thing we did was Creating an area for reviews. The next thing we did was plugging in our Social media accounts. We put icons for Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Then we added some credit pictures. So far we have me, my group mate, and my dad credited, however that can change. We also added pictures for the credits, but we are going to replace those because there from our last year's yearbook photos. Next thing we did was putting in a stand in for where to watch our movie because we haven't decided it. This website is mostly done, but i think me and my groupmate and tinker on it a little bit more, to make it the best it can be.

The Creation of social media accounts

Hi blog. Me and my partner this thanksgiving break made our website and social media. To start, we made our social media accounts. We couldn't use are personal accounts for this. We had to make brand new accounts just for the movie. We had to make 4 accounts. We made a Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, and lastly a Twitter. It was relatively simple to do this too. We had to make an email before that first so we could create the accounts. For the accounts we had to do 2 things. We had to make a Profile picture, and a short bio. The profile pic was kind of a problem for us. We decided after thinking about it, to just put a stand in picture. The final profile picture would be a screenshot of the movie. I created the stand in picture by using microsoft 3d paint. It was just a simple design i made, but i like it. The next thing we did was the Bio. It was just a very simple sentence with just saying what the social media account was for. all in all it was pretty simple for us to do. However it is a crucial part of our movie creation process.

Storyboard for short film

 Hello blog! This past weekend, me and my groupmate have been working and finishing out storyboard. This was a hard process, but we manage to get it done. We started making the story boards, by going over our screenplay. Last year, for each time we had to make storyboards for the films we made, we had no screenplay to base any of the pictures off. However, last year we only had to make like 5 storyboards for the films. This years 10-15 is a lot, but it isn't to big of a problem. Basing the story boards off the screenplay was a real boost to our productivity. It made it alot easier to make storyboards than last year. It still took me like 45 minutes to do a single paper. This is probably from me procrastinating, and going on my phone, and just "drifting out into outer space". Before we began this and the previous blog, me and my group mate divide the work so he would do the planing (the previous blog), and i would do the story boards. This was all good in concept, but it turned out to be unbalanced. Ten story boards take me a very long time to do, and i mean a very long time. The planing only took my groupmate under an hour to do, so we had to balance it. After i finished 8 story boards, which took me all day to make, i sent him the pictures of the story board, and made him do the rest. It was only like 3 story boards he had to do. It was not even half the amount that i did, but whatever. he will just do more editing than me when it comes to that. Overall, it was pretty hard to do, but we manage.

Planning for short film

 

In this blog, I will explain all the plans for our short film!

Schedule: For the scheduling, we are unsure at the moment but we are planning to do it on Saturday the 21st. Location: The location where the short film will be filmed is in South Lake and Roscoe's house. Participants: The participants will be Roscoe, His Dad, and I. Health and Safety: Health and safety is a big thing during these times. Before each filming date, each person will get a COVID-19 test to be safe. When filming, in case anything bad happens Roscoe's dad will be there to supervise. Props: The props will be a beat-up shoebox, A polaroid photo, beat up running shoes, a bike, sticky notes, and a buddha statue. Costumes: The costumes used will be day to day clothes.

Short Film vs. Feature Length Film

 Hi blog. Yesterday i watched the short film "9" and its counter part, the full length movie also called "9", that was based of the short film. To start with, these two different films, are pretty similar, but also very different. The short film has some aspects that are far better than the actual movie. The pacing in the short film is very good. You have time to breath in between crucial parts of the story, and everything doesn't feel rushed. The actual feature length film is worse in that aspect. It has really bad pacing. Many plot points were one after another , without having room to breath. The short film was also more of a smooth experience to watch, there was not one point were my eyes didn't go off the screen. I was engaged on every sentence of the fim. The other one however, many parts i drifted off because i lost interest, but i think that reason was that it was a hour and a half movie, compared to a 10 minute short film. On the other side, the feature length film has a lot on the short film too. In the feature length film, it fleshes all of the ideas out, and adds world building to the setting of the film. The ideas that were introduced were very interesting and were one of my favorite parts of the movie. The characters are also a lot more diverse, difriential, and there's a lot more of them. You can tell now the difference of the characters by not just the number on their back, but their mannerisms, what type of material they are made of, the "clothes" that they wear, and their body shapes. The graphics are also a lot better too, since they have a larger budget. I don't really know which one i like better. There both enjoyable in my eyes, and have different aspects. I think i like the movie one a little bit more, just because of the concepts and ideas that were introduced in the movie.

Research 9, the feature film

 After i watched the short film called 9, it was time for the full thing. I had watched the movie , along time ago , when i was around like 7. When i thought about it before i rewatched it , it's just a faint lucid memory. having said this, when i rewatched it over the like 8 year gap i last watched it, it was a nostalgia trip. To get back into the critique, I have mixed feeling about the film. My impressions that this movie felt rushed. The animation was pretty good for the time. it didn't have that good resolution though, some of the close ups looked like it was from a video game. That was the only parts that didn't feel rushed, I feel like the creator had to many ideas that he wanted to implement, but not enough time and budget. The pacing was very fast. Story beats happen one after another, after another with out a moment of rest. It felt like there was like 5 different mini climaxes, back to back to back during the later half of the film. To continue on, the plot was okay. I really liked the concept and the hidden backstory revealed in the end, and what all the green stuff was. The end is where i really believed it got bad. That's where the plot felt rushed, and where they had to fulfil a time quotah. The characters were probably one of the best parts of the movie. I liked how they were all different, and there personalities were unique. They really did not  develop though. Characters died before they could really change besides like 3 of the main numbers. Some of the characters didn't need to die too. It was like ten minutes ago were we got introduced to them, and then they died. We had no time to get invested into there actual motivations and who they really were. The special effects were cool too, nothing that really stand out. Lasty, the directorial style was just ehh. It felt like it was his first real movie, which it was, but it is good for his first time. In the end, I do like the movie, but it did have a lot of problems.

Research 9, the short

Hi blog. Today i watched a short filmed called 9, made by Shane Acker. I had know about the full length movie from my childhood, but i had no idea that it was based of a short film. My first impressions of the short film, was that it was old. It turns out that the movie is from 2005, a little bit younger than me. The movie had a small resolution, where it was hard to see detail in the movie. It also had horrible texturing. However, these problems are passable, because Shane acker directed, and co-animated the short film over a 4 years, while being a student in college. I liked the plot in the short film, It was bare bones, but in a good way, the perfect amount of plot for a short film. It was new and fresh compared to all of the animated films that i have ever watched. It brought terror, and uneasiness, to a bare bones plot, i really liked it. The characters were also interesting. They didn't talk at all, it was all just body movements, and facial expressions to understand their feelings and ideas. I also really liked it. They did the expression of the characters perfectly, It was cleen cut and simple. You can easily tell what they are trying to convey. There's not much character development, but it's fine enough. The special effects were fine enough i guess. The directorial style is great too, The director directed it very well, it was also clean cut and simple. Overall, it was a very good, i enjoyed the short film.

Genre Choice For Film

 To conclude our search for our movie genre, my partner and I finally made our decision. We have decided to pick the mystery genre. The reason why we chose mystery out of the other two is that it fits our movie the best. Since our film is about finding treasure, at first we were thinking about doing an adventure film. We originally wanted to chose it, but, we didn't want our movie to be generic, like most adventure films. The reason why we didn't pick a thriller was that it just didn't fit our pitch that well. We didn't want an action-heavy movie or a gloomy tone, and there was no way to complete the film without those aspects. With all that said, the mystery genre is the best fit for our film. Some reasons why the mystery genre is the best fit includes the aspects, the pacing, and the suspense. To fit our pitch, we need those features to make our film the best it can be. The aspects of a mystery genre for our movie we want is the way of solving conflict, the stakes, the atmosphere, and the red-herrings. Those aspects allow us to shape our film and fits the theme of finding clues to solve a mystery. The reason why we like the pacing of mystery movies is that it allows us to build suspense. The quick pacing gives the conflict less time to be solved, builds tension, and keeps the flow of mystery throughout the film. The reason why we like the suspense of mystery films is because it holds the whole movie together. Suspense holds the movie together in hand with the pacing and the tension leaving the watcher on its seat. For example, a film that does all of that is Enola Holmes. It connects to all those aspects perfectly and shows that it works. Our group doesn't need to change our pitch because it fits just right with the genre. We are happy with what we chose and we believe that this genre allows our movie to be the best it can.

Genre research Mystery

 The aspects of the Mystery genre include:

• Common cams:

- Shot/reverse shots, mid-shots, close-ups, wide shots, close shots, extreme close-ups, high-angles, low-angles, pan shots, tilt shots.

  • Common Sound:

-Non-digetic sound, diegetic sound, dialogue, and ambient sounds.

  • Common Mis-En-Scene

-Clothing specifically varies to match the era/location in which the film was set in. Usually has dark lighting, has makeup that varies to match the era/location in which the film was set in, props depending on the movie(letters, clues, etc.), Setting depends on the movie.

  • Common editing 

-Mostly cuts and fades to show the passage of time.

  • Example of films 

- Zootopia, Enola Holmes, Knives Out 

  • Elements of the genre I like

- The pacing, the suspense, and that most mystery movies leave me satisfied with a good ending.

  • Elements of the genre I don't like

- Corny conflicts or plots.

Genre research Adventrure

the aspects of adventure movies include:

  • Common cams:

- Long shot, Mid shot, close-ups, point of view shots, over the shoulder shots, mid-angles, low-angles, high-angles, birds-eye view, pans, and tracking shots.

  • Common Sound:

- Diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, dialogue, and ambient sounds.

  • Common Mis-En-Scene

- Varies in costumes, (usually jungle wear), usually bright lighting, regular makeup just to brighten faces, props vary depending on the movies (boulders, artifacts, etc.), setting varies on the location (usually in a jungle, temple, city, or space)

  • Common editing 

- Cuts, dissolve and fades.

  • Example of films 

- The Goonies, Jumanji

  • Elements of the genre

- Action, excitement, Grand journeys, Courageous  Protagonist, Evil adversaries

  • Elements of the genre I don't like

- Sometimes are riddled with trophies and overdone ideas, also many films revolve around a miguffan.

 • Elements of the genre I do like

- Very fun and interesting quests, Feels like you're on the adventure with the characters. An overall solid genre.

Genre Research Thriller

These are the aspects of the Thriller genre:

  • Common cams:

- Birds eye view, dutch angles, Low angle, Close ups, shot reverse shot, Extreme close up, zooms, and tracking shots

  • Common Sound:

-Diegetic, and sometimes intense background music

  • Common Mis-En-Scene

-Basic costumes, just normal civilian clothes, dark lighting, any shape or sized actor, pupular, or unknown, basic makeup, props can range from a pencil to something like a gun, settings can be anything nonfictional and fictional

  • Common editing 

- Fast and slow paced editing, using a lot of quick cuts and drawn out scenes

  • Example of films 

- Fight club and A quite place 

  • Elements of the genre

- I love the excitement, thrills and terror that the films bring, it is very engaging 

  • Elements of the genre I don't like

- Some times the suspense is too long of a wait, and it doesnt follow up with a compatible amount of thrill.

Genres I Would Like to Research

To continue on with our project, we needed to add on to our idea. we need to find the genre for our project. We brainstormed some ideas about the project, and found three genres that could fit with our pitch. The first Idea genre that we thought of is the genre of Mystery. The genre of mystery is about the solving of a death or a crime by a detective of some sorts. However it Our pitch does not deal with murder, or a well known detective. It but will be based on the core idea of solving a mystery with clues that the protagonist has to follow. The protagonist will act, and mock the stereotypical actions of popular fiction detectives like sherlock holmes. This is probably my second favorite genre for the project. I had this genre in my mind when we were creating the pitch. The Second genre that we brainstormed is the Thriller. The thriller genre consist of using the themes of suspense, excitement, emancipation, and anxiety. Even thought The pitch we created didn't have the idea of it being a thriller in mind, it does have the themes of it. It could be easily turned into a thriller if we just use darker ideas, and have a different tone. The last idea that we though of is the Adventure genre. The adventure genre consist of a journey or a quest that the protagonist has to travel through, where he learns lessons on the way, leading to his end goal. This genre fits even more with the pitch than the original genre we thought of. We would probably make the short film reminiscent of "The Goonies". having wonder and exinment riddle in the film. This is my favorite genre of film, and i wanted to make a film using this genre last year, but at the time, i didn't have a good idea. These are 3 really good ideas, but we need to pick one.

Pitch Blog

Before a kid goes to exchange school his dad gives him a list of clues leading to treasure about his deceased mother.

Group blog

 Today we finalized our group, and it it decided. Last year my group was four people that i knew all from elementary and middle school. we had good connections, and being group members was fun last year. This year though, things changed. 2 out of the four people in our original group picked different classes this year. so there was only 2 of us left. Our group was down to only two of us, so we thought of getting more members. it turned out that there wasn't that many people taking A level that we knew. so we just stuck to are 2 man group. Thinking back on it now, we are totally set with a two man crew. Me and my teammate are fully capable of doing this project. We have devised a plan too for the project based on our skills. My skills are based on the more creative side of thinking, art music and design. My groupmate however is a lot different. he is a rigid thinker, who is good on writing and editing, but also has some free form ideas for imput. we don't need the others for this project. me and my group mate have this one handle. we have it planned out already on whos going to do what. We have a good group, and we will succeed on this project. we are also going to enjoy it too.

A level introduction

 

    Hi and hello ,This is my first blog for second year of media studies. this is my sophomore year and if all things go correctly, it's going to be the last year i need to take an Aice class. I took 3 aice classes last year (including media studies as level) and im taking 4 aice classes this year. I decided to take it to the next level because i did enjoy this class last year and picked decided to pick it again because of that. This year im expecting to have harder work, but still be easier. i think this because i know know the fundamentals and know how to film a 5 minute long movie.Last year, the hardest part was just learning how to make the movie but we have that under control so it alot better now. Another problem last year was the editing because that was really hard, but were at home so i can use a powerful editing software so i'm good. Being back is refreshing, i haven't had a real class in a while, since corona started in march. The only downside of this year is my group. Last year, i had a group of four good friends that i worked well with, even though we had our ups and downs. it was fun working with them but not all of them wanted to do 2 years of this class. Only me and one other of the group mates wanted to do this class again so now it is just a duo. That is kind of a problem because were not going to have as much actors. We won't have as much ideas and inputs on problems we have, but we will make do on what we have. My group member is pretty reliable too, i've know him for a long time and i have a lot of trust in him. He was the group member that worked the best last year with me so i'm glad i have him. This year tho we only have one major project to do so we will have a lot of time to make something that is really good and that can blow the rest out of the water. I am excited to work on this upcoming project and have some good ideas for what we are going to do. i have hope in this year, and i believe that me and my group mate are going to do great

Audience and Institution Practice Essay.

Question: Asses the importance of marketing in the media you have studied .

Example of media: Film  

For films, one of the most crucial parts of the process before releasing a movie, is its marketing. Marketing is one of the most crucial parts of a movies production, as important as the movie for making profit.  Marketing brings the attention to the upcoming movie, so people are interested in the product and are ready to spend their money to go watch it. 

Marketing for a movie has many different variations that van get to a viewer. Most, or not if all of movies release a trailer before their release, so the viewers can know what type of movie will be instore for them. Posters, merchandising, franchising, commercials, and more are also used to market a movie. An example is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 which did all of these marketing techniques. This led to the movie getting a lifetime off a worldwide income of around 860 million dollars. This shows why marketing is so valuable.  

However, marketing can’t always lead to a blockbuster, it has to be done right. Movie trailers, posters, and other marketing techniques have to clearly show what the movie’s, genre and what its feel is. If it doesn’t, it will leave the viewer confused on the movie on what it is about and will probably not buy the tickets to go see it. An example of this is the movie ugly dolls, which in all of its trailers, and commercials, had none of the plot revealed. This led to the movie being a fanatical flop, not making back the money they spent making it. However, a good example is Fantastic beast and where to find them, which did the complete opposite of ugly dolls and had its plot directly shown in the trailers, showing what the audience is going to expect. This led to the movie making a profit, not like the ugly dolls however. 

Another important part of a movies marketing that I already stated before is merchandising. A lot of Film studios look over this aspect, but it can completely carry some films profit wise. One example is the Lego Movie part 2. The Lego movie part 2 was close to a flop with this sequel but not with the merchandise. Like the first, movie, the Lego merchandise made strides in the profits that they made form the attention the movie was getting. 

With this being said, the statement from the beginning still stands. Marketing is a crucial part if a movie makes a profit or not. This leads to marketing having a great importance in the area of film.

Practice T.E.A. essay

This is a practice T.E.A. essay on a game of thrones clip:

   In this extract, there is an underlying theme. The theme in my opinion us rightfulness and seriousness. In the extract, we follow 2 characters that have come to prove one of the twos rightfulness to the crown. They had to argue with a council and show their worth. This is why I think that rightfulness is the main theme because that is the main subject matter.

   To prove this, I will be showing it in each of the scenes. The first one is the smallest scene out of the two, which is the boat ride. This scene is only about 45 seconds, the smaller of the two but still brings its ideas to the table. One of the first aspect you can see in this scene is the lighting. In this scene the lighting is gloomy, and a little dull.  The lighting is like this because with this gloomy lighting, it gives a not happy, or sad tone, but a serious tone, which will be in full affect in the next scene. The next aspect of this scene is the Music. The music has again a serious tone same with the feel of the lighting. This again show the seriousness and importance of this scene and the next. To continue on, the camera angle that is used is a Mid and Arial shot. The mid shot is used to show the two main characters of this scenes emotions about this upcoming moment, and their anticipation. The Arial shot however has its own importance. The Arial shot is used to show how small the boat is compared to the grand city ahead and the giant statue. This camera angle doesn’t really have an importance of the underlying theme but is used as the exposition shot, so the viewer can know where the two characters are heading. Lastly, the final aspect of this shot is the actors. The actors in this scene are the main driving force of the ideas. From only this scene the viewer can not tell what the theme is, but the characters give a tone of seriousness which is the whole tone of this scene by their facial expressions.

   For the next scene, this is were the theme comes in to play. This scene is the larger of the two being around 5 minutes and 5 seconds long and carrying most of the story. This scene is very long because it is just an argument between a council and the two characters we were following before. To begin with, on of the main aspects of this scene is the dialogue. All of the characters in this scene talk so elegant and formal, continuing on the seriousness of this event. The two group of people argue about their different views about the next king of that kingdom. The man with the missing fingers gives a small speech about the importance of who is rightful to the throne and this is probably the most important part of the extract. With this being said this is the main reason why I pick rightfulness as one of the two themes of this extract. The next aspect of the themes is the acting. The acting in this scene is great, showing the actual importance of this event. The facial expressions shown by each character dhow their opinion about the subject even though they say otherwise. This once again shows the seriousness.

   With all of this being taken together, I still believe in my previous idea about the writer’s view on this extract. All of the aspects of this scene lead to that idea. In my opinion the theme of this extract is the ideas of Seriousness and Rightfulness

The journeys Epilogue (The final C.C.R)

For this epilogue, It is a continuation of the final project, the movie trailer. For each of the last projects we had to Make a Critical Creative Reflection  (C.C.R.) which was just answering 4 questions. For this time however it was a little different. we had to make a documentary, that said our answers to our questions out loud. Like the other C.C.R.s we had to do this by ourselves. This meant that i had to edit this whole documentary by myself which is the skill is struggled with the most during this course. I however learned a new editing software that i could download of free and got to work. I did end up finishing it with a documentary that is based to sound like a podcast to stand out from the rest. With the C.C.R the main journey is done for this class. but there is still stuff to do.

 

The Journey's End ( Movie trailer)

  This is the  final official project of the class, which is the movie trailer. For this project, it was not as hard as the last project. This is because our original group finally got back together form the first project. The only hard parts to this project was that it had to be like 2:15 which made filming and pacing hard. I had to write the whole movie, which was my job, and i thought that part was the hardest thing i had to do during the whole course. I got it over with, but it did cost me some late nights. I also had an actual role as an actor in this movie, appearing in more than 1 scene, but i am as bad as ever at acting. I learned even more on editing also.  Since i wrote the movie i also got to co-direct the movie as well, whitch was new for me. Lastly i had to write all of the storyboard, which was a pain

Middle of the Journey ( Music Video )

    To continue on with, The music video is the middle of the journey. In my opinion, the music video was probably the hardest project we had in the class. This is not the fault of the project its self, it was for another reason. The reason was that the work load had doubled. Our group from before split in two making the groups only tow people. that lead me and my group mate to  have extra work compared to before. with that being said, the rest of the project was kind of similar too. before, i improved on the previous skills i learned before but i gained some new ones. With this project we did some camera angles what we never had done before. we did some low, high angles and some pana shots as well for this project. This taught me how to prop the camera correctly for these shots as well. All in all for this part of the journey it taught me some camera skills that i'm glad i learned even though we had to do some extra work.

Beginning of the journey (Commercial)

   During this class , i have learned a lot about the process of making a film, and what is needed to make one. To start off with, the first project we had in this course was our Commercial. We got to do our Commercial on nike. I learned a lot during this project because it was our first on in the class. It was my first time in a long time using a hand held camera besides my phone which made me learn how to use one again. I learned how to use a tripod, and how to angle one too. I learned how to edit export and edit film. I also learned how to edit as well. For that first project i basically learned the basics I really didn't know what i was going to learn when starting that first project, but the stuff i learned, was something not to forget.

Editing blog: COVID-19's consequences and music/title editing

   This week we had some mishaps that will slow down our project. All public schools in our county were closed because of COVID-19. Many public places like the beach and restaurants have closed too. We will not be going back to school until april 15th. However we will have online school starting the 30th of march. Lucky we had all of our film saved to Paige's computer, not on the school one, so we can work on it during the break. Since we just got film from redoing the shots, we started to edit again. We had done around 5 out of the 6-7 shots on the redo day, but that's not what we worked on adding this week. We mostly worked on just making the stuff we already had in the movie. The stuff we mainly worked on was the music and titles again.
   We decided to just work on the music and titles for this group session. We decided to work on this and not replacing the old footage with the redos for two reasons. One of the reasons was that we had basically fresh eyes when we viewed it because it has been like more than a week since we last edited them, and we had some new ideas that we wanted to implement. The second reason was that we decided that we could just add the redo shots when we are done with the other two shots. we didn't really change that much for the music but one thing. we finally decided keep the ambience that we added a while back. However we dialed the volume of it down, so it didn't drown out the other music we added. For the titles we just had to fix a couple bugs were they would disappear when you would view them, which took under 5 minutes. WIth all of our editing done for the day, the only thing left to do for the project is just the two shots and adding them in to the film. We might have a problem on this matter though, because we might get quarantined were we have to stay inside, so we are hoping that we can do those shots tomorrow on friday.

Refilming: Fixing our mistakes in the alley.

   Yesterday was the day that we finally redid our shots. We all got back together at paige's house to start filming. We had 6 shots that we needed to redo. The shots include Tying/paige coming in to the room, Black room phone call, text from mom, bat clench, walking up behind zeke before the swing, and the last one was when the truck is turning into the alley. On the day that we filmed we had a little amount of time to film with zeke's dad's truck. We had around 30 minutes from the time we started to film and when he had to leave. The first shot we attempted to do was the bat clench. In this shot we changed it a little from the last time. We put  both of the scenes into one were it would of shown the different sides of the bat, and it went smoothly. For the next shot, we did the walking up behind Zeke before the swing. We didn't change that much for this scene because the main problem we had with the first shot was that Elijah and I acting was very bad. For the redo we just had act better, which we did.
   To continue on with, the last shot we did with the truck was the Truck turning tino the alley. We had to redo this one because it was to short. We solved this problem with just making the car slow down a little. With that shot done, we finished all of the truck scenes, and zeke's dad left. The next shot we did was the Phone call in the dark room. In this shot Paige just had to say her line clearer and have a better shot of her face. This redo was also a very easy shot to do, and we were on to the last shot we did that day, and it was the text from mom one. The first shot we got when filming this was bad because you couldn't see the text at all, and Zeke reacted like he got the text before the ding went off. We then redid this shot, concluding the refilming session.

Editing Blog: more music, titles, and technical difficulties

    This week we continued editing on our movie, working towards our goal of making a perfect movie. This week we worked on our titles, continuing with our editing on music and technical difficulties. On Tuesday we worked on continuing finding the music and some technical difficulties. Continuing on from last time, we still were working on what music to put in. We had changed our minds on the song if found from last week. It really didn't fit in to what we were trying to add to the scenes that it was in so we scraped it. We had another group mate find a piece of music, and they did. When we tried to add the song it messed up parts of our movie. Some scenes just started going black and wouldn't show anything on  them. This mishap costed us around like 50 minutes of time because nothing would solve this problem. We tried every idea on fixing this situation, we almost decided to restart on the whole editing procedure. Then we decided to try searching this problem on the internet. There were some forums that said to just restart the computer, we did that and it work and our movie was finally bug free.

   For thursday, luck was on our side and there was no bugs at all. We mainly worked on the titles but we worked on some of the music too. On the music side we discussed if we should keep one of the music tracks we had on the movie. it was just for ambiance, but we didn't realize that you could hear  some bird chirps, which didn't fit our movie. We decided that we could just add this back, but cut the bird part, but we decided to scrap it for now. Continuing on to the title side, which was probably the easiest part of the week. We already had the titles planned out and what titles were given to each person. We then just simply added them to each scene were they fit, and in order. All of the titles were in Black to contrast off the environment, but two were in white because the shots that they were placed on were very dark. I also got to pick out a font. The font was very bold (which i very like) and modern, which is better than the other very bad preset fonts on imovie. After that we were pretty much done for editing for that week. Me made progress this week, which we were really proud of, and next week we will improve more on our film.

Editing Blog: Adding Music

   This past week we edited our film a lot. We moved all of our film from Paige’s phone to her computer. We had to do this because when trying to edit it on a phone. it doesn’t allow us to add music and titles, which we mostly needed to work on that week. It also didn’t allow us to transfer the stuff we had already worked on (transitions and cutting footage). This lead to us having to scrap all of the edits we had on paige’s phone and just use the raw footage. This left us with having to start from scratch again. Continuing from scratch we started to add music. we had in the past had Elijah find music, but this didn't work out. The 2 music that Elijah found was just youtube videos, and one of them didn't fit the theme while the other did .
   Elijah and I ended up switching jobs were i was in charge of finding the music. This part was actually kind of difficult because of the criteria. The objectives i had to accomplish where to find 2 different songs for the movie that were not copyrighted. One of the songs was Elijah's that i decided was fit enough to use. this song had an eerie theme, whitch fit for one of our scene. The other song i had to find myself. I had to find a upbeat song that was not copyrighted that would be fit for the scene were Zeke is putting his headphones in. I finally found a song which fit the criteria on youtube. Elijah and I put the Video in a Youtube to Mp3 player website to convert the music into an audio file. We added the music in and we were done for the day. All in all the music we found and what we added to our film will end up making our film a lot better.

Peer Review Blog: no peer reviewer

  This week, our class finally got to start to do peer reviews. My group and I had all of our shots together and edited in i movie. We had to redo it though so we could put it on a Mac, but  that was not that hard of us. for the peer review, we only needed to have all of our shots together and make a cohesive video. it was supposed to be a rough draft, but we added music, titles and some transitions as well.The music we have so far is not the best, but will work for now. the transitions and titles are a little bland, but we will work on them too. Some of the cuts are a little jagged but are fine for now. all in all our film was ready for a peer review.

  When we got to class, we had a sub, but our teacher left instructions for us. On the board their was a paper with the group and their number with the group that they will be reviewing. My group was at all the way at the bottom, number 19, and it said that we were going to review number 20. There was no number 20, so we didn't have to review any one that day. we encounter another mishap on the list, were no one was going to review us. that however was a problem, because we wanted to be actually reviewed by some one with fresh eyes and ideas on our film. However there was another group that could of reveiw our film. That group only had one member and on the list said that they were not reviewing anyone. That would of worked out for us, but that person was not their that day in class . We ended up just going over it as a group together again. We also decided that we were not going to do the redo shots this weekend. Holpefully tomorrow we will be able to be peer reviewed and be able to peer review some one.

this is lit group chat, were we were dividing so music for the film

Editing Blog: Editing and arguing

   Yesterday was the first day that we started to edit our film and select what footage to use. When we filmed last weekend we took basically every shot twice or more for to find the perfect shot, however this created a problem. Our group memeber  consist of very  differently minded members, and were very stubborn about our opinions. All of us together had a hard tim deciding between many shots. The first couple of shots were mostly all agreed on together. However, One of the first shots was perfect, but the wind was a little to loud. There was another shot of the exact scene that was not as well filmed, but barely any wind. Half of our group wanted the first and the other the sending, witch started an argument. We were agrguing for a wile on this but we all soon finally realized that this really didn’t matter because we could also just do a voice over. With that in mind we used the first shot instead.

   To continue on with, the next proceeding shot created an argument too. This shot could of replaced the next two shots. If we would of replaced the single shot with the two shots it would of made us loose around 10 seconds off our time. We decided to leave this shot till later when we knew what are time was in total. Moving on from that shot we got to the nock out scene. This one we decided we might redo. We decided this because both shots looked very clunky and in realistic. We thought the same answer with the next scene when we tossed Zeke into the back of the trunk. This scene was also unrealistic, and needed more improved acting. Our last shot was in my opinion needed to be redone, but the rest of the group said it was fine. All in all, we had some good shots to choose from when selecting yesterday, but some shots need some work to be done on them.

Filming Blog: Filming in the alley

   Last weekend, on Saturday ( February 22) we all got together to start filming. That afternoon we all gathered together at Paige's house. We didn't check out a camera out the day previous because we didn't need it. We decided to film on Paige's phone because it was a lot easier to manage the battery and the storage of the film. At Paige's house, We decide to film like we did on our previous project and film in order of the scenes so all of the film would be organized in Paige's camera roll. The first shots we filmed was the first scene with Zeke our main character walking down the street. These scenes were very easy to film with little to no hard aspects of  the scene. We continued to film our fist couple of scenes with no problems. We also decided to do voice overs for some scenes too because of the wind was a little to strong top hear some of our voices. After filming the easy scenes with Zeke walking down the street we started to film in Zeke's dads car.
   Zeke's dad stayed when he dropped off Zeke at Paige's house because we needed his car in a couple of scenes. The first scene we filmed with Zeke's dad car was the first person view of his dad driving. We had Elijah with the phone film over Zeke's dads shoulder  to get the both hands on the wheel. after filming in the car, we were ready for the abduction scene. We had Me and Eli pop out of the car with a bat and pillow case in-hand for this scene. We are going to re-shoot this scene in my opinion because it was a little to clunky because in this scene Eli with a bat had to pretend wack Zeke on the back of the head, but not actually hit him with the bat. After this Scene We had to do another very clunky scene with Eli and I throwing Zeke with a pillow case into the back. In this scene I accidentally smiled at the camera, whitch we didn’t notice until after we were done shooting. For the last group of scenes we had to film in a dark room and tie up Zeke to a chair. This scene was ecoecialy hard to film because Elijah and I are very clumsy. It took us around 10 trys to do it fibaly right, and the final shot we have isn’t that good too, so we might reshoot it. Overall we did pretty good for this filming session, but we need to retake a couple of shots.

Filming blog: First weekend of filming (we didn’t)

   This weekend was the first weekend my group and I were able to film, but we didn't. On Wednesday night last week, February 12 we finally finished our story board and had all of the necessary tools to start filming. we had the sound, shooting scripts all done and finalized. Our titles were all organized for each scene. With all of that together we had our scheduled planed too. On Thursday, February 13 we were ready to film. During class on that day we were able to get our camera, but we decided not because of Zeke and Eli. Zeke and Eli that morning left for Harvard. Zeke and Eli left for a school debate competition, witch we knew for months beforehand. This was all planed to happen and a counted for in our Scheduled plan.

   Zeke and Eli left on Thursday morning, being gone for 6 days (February 13th - 19th). This leaves Paige and I being the only ones left to film. Most, not if all scenes in our movie have the main character being in each scene. The main character is being played by Zeke, who is gone witch makes filming not possible for just Paige and I. Their is One scene witch only has one undetermined actor, witch could be played by Paige, Me or an extra that we could of filmed. We decided not to because it would of been easier to just film it all when the whole crew was here. With us not being able to do anything this past weekend, we all took a little break. We didn't really need to film on this weekend in the first place because we have the next weekend to film. We also have another weekend to re-shoot our film. Paige and I have planed our filming weekend, down to the hour. We can only hope that Zeke and Eli will be  able to attend this weekend.