Group Meeting

In class, we had another group meeting. The goal of this was to discuss overall progress on our productions, and also to share ideas about our CCR, or Creative Critical Reflection. This meeting was very helpful, as it allowed for everyone to gather feedback about their projects, and how to improve it.


For example, one of the group meeting members had a title that was hard to read. The white text color of the letters matched with the white colored car in the background, making it difficult to see. With our teamwork and the help of the internet, we figured out lowering the exposure of the clip made the title much more readable.

They also helped me come up with ideas for one of my CCRs. I wanted it to tie into my film, and we came up with an idea. It would be me in the principal office, getting questioned by the principal. He will ask me questions along the lines of "How is your film related to the genre?" and questions related to the CCR. This creates an interesting and creative video. Now, I'm not certain I will do this, but it is a very good idea.

Research for Question #1 Of CCR

 When I was creating this film, I wanted to challenge the traditional stereotype of a high-school bully by showing the reasons why he acts like how he is. When the film opens with him reluctantly getting out of bed and specifically choosing a long-sleeved hoodie to cover bruises, this immediately signals to the audience that there are problems, and that he could have factors effecting his personality. This is similar to the film Mean Creek, where a bully is confronted by a bunch of teenagers, and they uncover the truth about his life.

In this film, I wanted to show how a person's environment can shape their actions, and change how a person acts. This is very evident in our film. At school, he appears confident, but at home, he is scared, and frightened of his parents and abuse. By making this contrast, it shows how he is coping with his true pain, and how it isn't him truly wanting to inflict pain. This film encourages viewers to think twice about how someone acts, as you don't know what challenges they face.

Editing-Color

 We want to use cool colors in specific scenes, to reflect his personality on the inside. This reflects how he is truly sad, and shows in the movie.

We wanted to use it in the car scene, and it took a second to figure out how to do it. I first wanted to try to use Adobe's integrated filters, but none of them matched what I needed to use. I then tried to use a website called Clideo, to give it a cool filter. This didnt't work AT ALL, and created something that looked like it was from a sci-fi movie.

After that, I went back to Premiere Pro, and looked around in the color filters. I discovered a tab called Lumetri Color, which happened to be exactly what I needed. By simply moving the slider to the blue part, I was able to capture the exact effect I wanted. This was easy, and was perfect!

Editing- Audio

 I began editing our project, and started experimenting with audio.


With the clock scene, we wanted it to get louder the closer the shot got, and that's exactly what I did. I first tried to use an effect in Premiere Pro called constant gain, which worked, but it only allowed me to fade in the clip partially, not in the effect that I wanted. I turned to YouTube and watched a tutorial from Adobe Masters, which was concise and helpful. He demonstrated how to use key frames instead, which allowed for way more control, and created the effect I needed.

I also added the audio of the parents yelling in the background of the clip where, I, the bully, am looking at the door in my room when I got home. I wanted to have sort of a muffled sound effect, replicating how it would sound behind a door. Thankfully, a copyright free sound from the YouTube channel Free Sound Effects already had the muffled effect I wanted, so that was quick and easy!

I will continue editing, as this is very time consuming.

Day 4 of Filming

 Ok, so we made a mistake.

While i was watching over the shots and making sure they were ok, I realized that our camera was very shaky in a couple of the room shots. While it wasn't that noticeable, we went back and wanted to film them again.

The first shot we re-shot was the clock scene in the beginning.

To improve this, we re-shot it to make sure it was still, and also ended the shot to be closer to the clock. This will allow for a smoother transition to my eye opening, to wake up. The circular shape of my eye will align with the clock, creating a smooth transition for a cut.

Speaking of that, we also re-shot the scene of me, waking up!

After we re shot the clock scene, we also wanted to re-shoot the scene of me waking up, just to be safe, and also to stabilize the camera. We really like how it came out, with my eye slowly opening, showing his resistance to wake up for the day.

That's all we did today!

Day 3 of Filming

Day 3 of filming! We had a short day today, only filming 3 shots, which all take place in the car ride on the way to school.

The first shot is a POV shot of me driving to school. I had my mom in the back seat recording me driving. This is where we will have the title display while i am driving. We will also tone the colors done to include more cool, dark ones, to show how he does not feel happy on his way.

The last 2 shots were a close-up of my eyes, looking sad while driving, and a medium shot of my face while driving. That's all we did today!

I know, we didn't do a lot, but we still have to film the school scenes, which we will likely do on Tuesday. Until next time!

 

Day 2 of Filming

 Here we go again! This is how our day 2 of filming went.

We had a pretty short day today, only needing to take care of the shots for when he arrives at home.

We filmed them all in the same room as before, this time focusing on the bully's fear of his parents arriving.

The shots began with the bully arriving home, nervously closing his door. These were easy and we had no difficulty with, we just wanted to truly capture his fear of his glooming doom. We also had the room slightly lighter, with only the lamp being on. This shows how his personality from school hasn't worn off yet.

After these, the only remaining ones that we filmed were me sitting on the bed, nervous about what is going to happen, and the door. For the shots of me sitting on my bed, we had one medium shot and one over the shoulder. I really liked how the over-the-shoulder one came out, and it really captured his fright of his home life.

After this, we filmed our last shots. His parents shadows getting closer, and the door swinging open. The only challenge we had was getting the shadows to show up on camera, which we were stumped on. But I figured out if we just had brighter light in the hallway, they showed up just fine.

Ok! That's everything we did for day 2. Check out my blog tomorrow for what we did on day 3!