Starting the CCR

 

    So earlier today me and my friends started working on our CCRs. We all decided to do an interview-style CCR, seeing as how the presentation has to be creative. What I decided to do was record myself being interviewed for a podcast in which I discuss my film, like what professional filmmakers do. The host would pretty much read out the questions from the rubric and I would answer them in a natural way, hence why I had a pretty loose script. 

    I was also inspired by the show Hot-Ones, which is a show in which the guests eat spicy chicken wings, and as the show progresses the wings get spicier. Although I didn't have the premise of having the interview become more difficult as it progresses, I did take the idea of the show's main premise being that the interviewer and interviewee eat something together. In my take, we ate chips and hummus, and the show is very creatively titled: The Hummus Show. 

Post-Production

 

            FINALLY done with the project! I worked hard editing this and tried my best with the limited footage I had. I actually had a lot of fun editing the footage, being able to practically alter the footage in ways I want, and let my creativity shine through is really special to me. Altogether, it took around 2 days to fully edit, which isn't bad in the grander scheme of things but I had a lot to do while editing. 

        One of the most annoying and inconvenient parts of editing this project was that my computer's GPU had a problem with image processing in DaVinci Resolve. Meaning that I couldn't work with regular images and couldn't adjust the scaling of clips. However, the most annoying part of this issue was that every once in a while DaVinci would crash, which both slowed me down tremendously and erased some of the progress I had if I didn't save. 

        However, I finally saw it through and I'm super glad that this project is over and complete. 

Beginning to Edit

 

    I'm starting to begin the process of editing after collecting all the footage I need for the project. I downloaded DaVinci Resolve onto my computer as I have experience using it before and it's free. It's actually a pretty good editing program and has a lot of features. I remember having to use it a lot last school year for my TV Production class because I had to edit projects from home. 

    I'm planning on using the animation feature that DaVinci Resolve has for my project. I have some experience using animation in this program and I think that using it will really give my project a special edge that other projects won't have. 

Recording Session #2

 

    Yesterday, we finished recording all the footage for our project. We did it at our friend's house late at night and it took about an hour to get all the footage. We got a variety of different shots just to have options when I'm editing. We tried out practically every type of shot that's possible with an iPhone and a crappy $12 tripod. 

    But ultimately I think it came out very well. The shots look professional and have a purpose to them. I'll be looking to start editing the project together next week as I'm going to be out on vacation in 2 days and don't return until the end of spring break. 

Title Sequence

 

    I was planning on doing a cool title sequence for my project sometime this week. Now that spring break is coming up I'll have time to record all the footage I want. However, I'm having difficulties figuring out what exactly I want to do for this part. It's only just hit me now that the 2-minute time limit is pretty short, especially for all the different components I want to have within my project. Or I was thinking of just putting the title text on top of the footage rather than creating an entirely separate sequence. 

Audio

 

            I've been experimenting and learning how to use the app Audacity to edit my audio. I have some familiarity with using the app before because I used to have a podcast, which required me to edit audio clips. 

    I'm mainly experimenting with audio effects such as the telephone effect and the radio effect. I'm also trying to mix different audio layers together as I have music and different audio channels within my project. 

Beginning to film

 

        So over the weekend, my group filmed the first portion of our project in Las Olas. We went around 7 at night to get shots during both the day and the night to see how it would come out. We ended up using footage taken mostly from when the sun was out, however. 

    The shoot took around an hour it was very quick and the footage came out really well. The iPhone 13 on cinematic mode could genuinely pass for real studio film quality. The reason we decided to film here was in order to gather B-Roll footage for the first half of the project. We got a lot of different shots so I can have a lot of options to choose from in post. 

Filming Schedule

 

    Ok, so the start of our official filming schedule is Monday. We plan on using the time we have during spring break and practically all of this coming week to film the project. By the end of spring break, we are hoping to be pretty much done. 

    The remaining time after spring break will be to edit the project and add some finishing touches. We'll film this coming week on Monday, Thursday, and Friday, and then we have practically all of the spring break to record. 

Stuff That I Bought

 

    So I recently bought this tripod for my phone to use for our project. It's 55 inches and even comes with a remote controller, which could be useful if we don't have enough people to help us with filming. Definitely needed this item as I'm planning on using a little of still shots for my project.

    I also tried looking for a stabilizer because a tripod isn't as mobile or as small to be able to use in more active places or situations, however, they are way too expensive and I'm not trying to spend that much on equipment. I was thinking that I could borrow the stabilizer from the tv room since I'm on TV 4, so  I'll ask on Tuesday next time I see my teacher. 

Some Even Better News

 

    So we got another response from a band. Was definitely hyped to get the go-ahead to use their music as I think that it suits our project very very well. It's less layered and less "in your face" than our other band's music, and it's definitely slower and more somber.  This makes it much better for using it as a score for our project.

    The response was a little passive-aggressive but hey they're still letting us use the music so that's all I care about. And it's also pretty cool that these musicians whose music I love actually interacted with us to some capacity. There's a lot of music ahead of me to listen to to select the perfect song. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/36hfuJ6XOZdOuToo4SgLVv?si=491d612858e54e3a

^^Was really thinking about using this one though, that subtle synth is just too good not to pass up on 

Personal Thoughts...

 

So obviously my group finished the storyboard and we know already what we're going to film, however, I'm not really satisfied with where our project is going, personally. Our plot just seems vague and too unoriginal for my liking, like it doesn't have enough of ourselves in it. I really want this project to be good, but I also want to treat this as my own piece of "art", something that paints a picture I want to paint. Right now, I feel a little disconnected from the whole thing, which is what I've felt when doing other projects in the past. That's not to say I wasn't a valuable member in making past projects, I just didn't feel like I had enough of my own creativity put into those projects. 

I think from this point on I'll be more vocal about my own ideas and take a stronger foothold over my work. I trust in myself that I could make a pretty good project, so I'll definitely try to take greater control over our final product. 

Updated Schedule

 

        So the original plan was to begin filming this weekend, preferably tomorrow night. We had our location set up and everything was good to go. However, I have dinner with my family tomorrow night to celebrate my grandpa's birthday, so we can't film tomorrow. And I don't want to film Sunday night because it's a school night and I'll probably have other homework. 

        So we both agreed to film a good chunk of the project next week on Saturday and Sunday. However, there is a bit of a dilemma as Gaby has to work on Saturday from 7 PM to 11 PM. Even though we have a very limited window to film, I think that if we prepare right we can get a good amount of quality footage. 

Great News!

            

            So as mentioned last week on my blog, my group and I were struggling to get permission from some bands to use their music. We were really keen on not using royalty-free music in our project so when we didn't get a response, we were really disappointed. Our number 1 pick-or the band we wanted to get a response from the most-was Have A Nice Life. This is not only because we are both fans of the group, but also make music that suits this type of project well. 

                Here's a message from the band's leader letting us use their music. When we got this message earlier today we were super excited. For one, getting a response from one of our favorite musicians was super cool; and secondly, being able to use their music for our project was something that we really wanted to do, so being able to do so is very exciting.