Creative Critical Reflection

Alright, so for my CCR, I have two videos answering the 4 questions.

First I have a LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW that answers the first and second questions.

And then I have a DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY that answers the third and fourth and ends the CCR.

Film Opening

After months and long hours of work, here is my Film Opening:

BUNGLED

Hope you enjoy.

This is it.

Welp. This is it. Finally saying goodbye to this project. I'm exporting my CCRs as we speak. This project has become pretty special to me. It is the first time I have total creative control over something and truly make something of my own. I'm pretty proud that I was able to do it, and made something I can say I'm proud of and be happy with as well. 

I think my main takeaway is that if you plan and research extensively, then making your vision come to life becomes so much easier. 

Until next time.

Interview

 Just filmed the interview CCR and it went pretty well. The original person I was going to do it with canceled, but I just got another friend to fill in. I had him dress up and help me with filming. This time around all I had was my phone and some desk lamps. But the shots still came out pretty nice I think. Right now I'm just editing it real quick, shouldn't take very long as it's just a simple shot counter shot, maybe some audience cheering noises, show some stuff on screen, but that's kind of it.

Since I couldn't go crazy with the shots or the idea in general, I'm just trying to have as much fun with it. During the shoot I made my friend act as if there was a live studio audience and I ended it with a "we'll be right back after the break", so I decided to make a little promo/channel ID that would play before and after the interview ended, making it seem like a late night talk show. This is what it looks like. It's really stupid, but I love it. 

I pretty much got the edit done, just have to refine some stuff tomorrow. So I will do that, look over everything and then...I'll be done. 

Director's Commentary

Director's commentary was the first CCR I wanted to tackle since it's the easiest...or so I thought. Before even starting the commentary, I had to get the absolute final edit that I was going to submit for my project. Since I was still at around 2:15, I was trying to cut off AT LEAST 5 seconds. It was a struggle. I go to 2:12 before just sitting and looking at the project file and pretty much giving up. At this point, I was just cutting up frames and it was pointless. This is when I checked in with peers and see how they were doing. This is when I found out 2:15 was acceptable...

Minutes. Hours. Days. The amount of time I've spent trying to cut it down to 2:05. And I could've stayed at 2:15 this whole time. I was relieved and fuming at the same time.

Oh well, luckily I made another version that was perfectly 2:15 that I could use, just had to fix up the credits a bit. 

So now I could finally do the Director's Commentary. So I had to figure out how to screen record on my computer and have audio at the same time. After figuring out how to record my screen to point out certain things in the opening, I decided I would just have to record on my phone and sync up the audio later. 

So I did my first take and it was pretty poop. I kept stuttering and messing up and it was longer than 5 minutes which is not ideal since the max for the entire thing is 10 minutes. So I did another take. This one was a bit better but I knew I could do better. When I recorded my 3rd attempt, it was perfect. The time was good, and my cadence was perfect. Everything about it was beautiful. I looked back at the screen recording and it had been recording the wrong tab the entire time. 

If the 4th attempt didn't work out, I would just use the 2nd. Luckily the 4th was good, not as good a #3 (rip) but it would work. 

This project file is starting to fill up with a bunch of sequences... Next up on my list...the interview. I lowkey only have one day to do it, but it should go well...hopefully. Wish me luck. This is the home stretch. 

CCR...

Unfortunately, my CCR has been neglected and become an afterthought thanks to STN. It's also my fault too, but let's just blame it on STN for now. Since I had to film and am still finishing up editing right now, the CCR has been something I've put on the sidelines, but I have to knock it out eventually. 

The other day in class, our teacher taught us what a CCR was. With a CCR or Creative Critical Reflection, we have to answer 4 big questions reflecting on all the choices, progress, and troubles we faced while making our opening. We have to use at least two creative media products to respond to the 4 questions, so I'll just do 2 and 2. The first 2 big questions, asking about genre conventions/representation and audience/distribution, and the other 2 smaller questions, asking about the development of skills and integration of technology. I'm thinking of doing an interview for the big questions and a director's commentary for the ladder. 

First Question

To approach this question about genre conventions and representation, I would have to research the genre conventions of a thriller, but thankfully I did a lot of the heavy lifting in my first few blogs about the opening. In my response to the first part, I'll explain what the thriller genre is and what it sets out to do, "elicit strong emotions, mostly dealing with generating suspense and anxiety" as explained by StudioBinder. I'll then go into the conventions and how I follow or break them. Story Grid explains how some conventional themes include murder, crime, robbery, all things in my opening. Other conventions include cinematography (tight and closeup shots), lighting, time crunch, MacGuffins, Red Herrings, and types of characters (serial killers, police, criminals, etc.). I will explain these and explain how I follow some and avoid others and why. 

Next would be representation. For this, I can just look back at my character development blog since there I talk about how my character represents different ideas or social groups.

Second Question

The second question asks about the target audience and distribution. For my audience, it is the same as the thriller and drama audience, so I'll explain that. I'll then move on to how I target that audience (characters and the dialogue).

In terms of distribution, my options are pretty much theater, streaming or online websites like YouTube. I would have to stay realistic with my decisions and explain how that distribution method relates to my audience.

Third Question

This one focuses on how my skills developed throughout the process of making the opening. I'll talk about how I'm experienced, but nothing as big as this. I'll then move on to how pre-production, production, and post-production all took a part in developing different skills throughout. Can end with how the overall project helped me get a grasp on how to work out a big production.

Fourth Question 

Since this question asks how I integrate technologies, I can talk about Blogger, Premiere, After Effects, Sony camera, dolly, lights, all that. Explain how each contributed to the project and any advantages or disadvantages that came with each and so on.

Ending

Should end with a reflection overall. What I learned, what I could do differently, and how could I improve for next time. 

Here is my link to the script. It's pretty rough, but it will help me stay on track and not ramble on and keep my ideas and topics concise and to the point. Will get to recording these as soon as possible and finally finishing up this project!

Edit Hell

I have the basic line edit done and it's looking pretty good. I just have to add sound effects and music. And also the news segment at the end. I ended up recording yesterday along with the opening wide shot and both went well. But now I am just struggling to cut it down on time. I sort of knew this would happen, I was just hoping that it wouldn't. I am about 30 seconds over the 2-minute mark, and that's with some revisions already. I'm not exactly sure what to do at this point. Right now, I made a "director's cut" with the full dialogue and everything included, and I'll make a revised version where I cut as much as I can. I'm going to have to start cutting into dialogue and see what is unnecessary and can be removed. Hopefully, it comes out alright.

BREAKING NEWS

As I'm making the revised version, it just feels like the pacing gets thrown off by the cutting of dialogue but I think this also may have to do with the fact that I already had a vision so it feels a little empty without it. For a first-time viewer, it may not seem bad at all. At least that is my hope. I'm at around 2:15.

But right now, I'm going to just try and finish everything else, and then continue trying to cut up what I can. So this means putting the news on the TV and making the breaking news graphic. Putting videos on the TV was surprisingly easy. Since I use Adobe Premiere to edit, I just had to select the corner pinch effect and adjust the corners to fit the screen. On the right is a screenshot showing the effect. I think it turned out pretty good. I think I still may play around with it, dimming the screen a bit, making it more realistic in the scene, etc. 

The hard part about this was masking Malcolm as he was crossing the screen. Since I overlayed the video over the TV and the original clip, it would come out on top of Malcolm. So I had to manually rotoscope Malcolm's body and reveal the TV behind his body. It was a hassle. It didn't come out perfectly, or else I would've been sitting there for at least an hour just trying to perfect it, but since it isn't the main focus of the shot and it moves pretty quick anyway, it works out. 

The next big step was the breaking news graphic. For this, I went on YouTube and searched up a tutorial for a breaking news graphic for After Effects. I just followed this and it went easily. I'm already slightly familiar with After Effects so it wasn't too bad. For this clip, I just put it right before the news anchor section I recorded and put that on the TV as well, making it seem like it was interrupting a broadcast. 

SOUND

Next step, sound. Sound effects, music, all that good stuff. I first tried to find music that fit because that was pretty important to me. Throughout this whole process, I tried to decide if I should make the music myself since that gives me more control of the mood, beats, etc. But I lowkey don't have the slightest clue on how to make a suspenseful piece of music or any music in general, so I kinda gave up on that early on. 

I didn't touch it again till now, so I decided to try and find something on sound websites, like slipstream, artlist.io, etc. Only issue with these is that they require a subscription, and I kinda wanted to avoid that. Plus, a lot of them felt too dramatic, grand, or just didn't fit the mood. There were only like one or two out of the dozens I looked at that I really liked, but I didn't want to commit to anything since I was scared I could find something better for free. So I turned to YouTube to see what I could find. 

YouTube is usually hit or miss, and mainly miss when it comes to music. Most copyright-free tracks sound like they belong in a Home Depot ad, but on the rare occasion that you find something, it may just work out. And for me, it did. The suspenseful tracks on YouTube aren't that bad, they get the job done and are a solid background. I found one that wasn't loud or extravagant but it worked. With the help of some risers here and there, it should be fine. 

So the next step was sound effects. I got them from a few different places. YouTube isn't that bad for a lot of things, sometimes it can sound like it was recorded on a microwave, but other times it works just fine. Just depends on what you're looking for. I also used tune tank, free sound, etc. Really anywhere that was free and sounded good. 

My timeline ended up looking like this for audio, so I'll take that as a win. 

I'm pretty much done at this point, just doing some minor revisions and trying to cut down as many more seconds as I can. Wish me luck. Once I'm done here, I will tackle my CCR.