2nd group meeting

    We recently had our second group meeting, in my group there was Keyla Seoane Vega, Benjamin Marchan, Will Cullen, and Santiago Racca. So I am going to individually talk about each other projects, our advice, and the feedback I received.

    Keyla told us about her project titled "Falling Through The Rosebush". Her genre is a psychological drama and period piece about a girl named Lily in the 1800's who saw her twin sister commit suicide and went insane due to the experience. Due to her being of high class the family didn't want to ruin their image with her insanity so they got her lobotomized. This procedure made her forget about her sister and caused her to be forgetful, clueless, and childlike. These symptoms will be shown through color by saturating the colors of the opening to be more vibrant like a child would see the world. The movie will consist of her finding out about her sisters existence and essentially going crazy again while attempting to solve the mystery of what had happened. The story will be told through a narration of her writing in her diary, during her narration she will sometimes repeat phrases due to now being forgetful from the procedure. The title is called "Falling Through the Rosebush" because Lily's twins name was Rose. Her opening will begin in a field setting with Lily looking at the clouds, frolicking. She will have a regency kind of dress that is long white and flowy (Keyla is in drama and she acquired this dress already for a play so she will conveniently be able to use that). Her credits are going to be shown in a cursive written looking font during a scene showing Lily's notebook in order to smoothly integrate them into the opening. The opening will end with Lily's mother calling her to dinner, as she passes a tree her title and new background music will being that will hint at the horrors of her past.

    I really loved Keyla's idea for the film opening, I was very interested and she had so many details well thought out. When she was explaining it I felt like I was listening to the plot of a real movie and I really wish I could watch it. We did not really have any negative feedback for Keyla since her ideas were so amazing, any question we asked she could answer. She has already finished filming and is currently working on editing, show showed us some clips and they look amazing and exactly what I pictured when she was describing them!

    Next Benjamin Marchan presented his idea which is titled "Offseason". His genre is a sports drama. It is about 2 best friend practicing for football during the offseason, it showcases their friendship and bond. A climax of the movie is that they will go through an argument but ultimately forgive each other and fix their relationship. The setting will be a football field (Tequesta trace football fields), a weight room (at school), a track (Tequesta parks track) and at houses. Benjamin will be in the film as well as his real life best friend. The lighting will be very natural and warm. He is going to have the credits integrated into the background such as written on posters or objects. 

    During the meeting he asked us which of a few name options he though of were best and we said that Offseason would be the best one. We also suggested that he integrates the credits into the background as it seemed better for his film and more interesting than other ideas. We also recommended that his movie would show the perspective of both friend in situations so we would see both of their perspectives, so his film be interesting because the 2 main characters will be equally important. An example of this is that if friend #1 suggested that friend #2 rest since he looked tired friend #2's perspective would show friend #1 saying he's weak, it displays how both friends depict each others words. I though the idea seems interesting and would be a fun movie to watch, it was well though of out and appears like he really enjoys his idea.

    After him I presented my project idea. I didn't really receive any feedback, they said they liked my idea and my title. They asked a few questions about genre and plot, their looked at my blog and said they really liked my horror scene. I don't think I explained my opening to well so they might been a bit confused on the plot.

    Next Will Cullen presented his project which doesn't have a title yet and is in the sports drama genre. The opening begins with the character being late to work at a golf course, when he gets to work his boss yells at him and he sees an attractive girl. Their is a slow-mo of the two seeing each other and he wants to get to know her more so he starts playing golf to get the girl. The title will be shown in the opening on a golf ball flying towards the camera and shattering it. Their will be a clear cover protecting the camera with a shattering effect. His credits will be a clean font with a color opposite from the background. His location will be in Bonaventure golf course, the main actor will be played by himself and the love interest is not yet selected. 

    He has already filmed some parts but not everything, we suggested to maybe not make the credits color the exact opposite as the background as it will usually be green golf fields and we don't think purple credits will fit the vibe of the film. We also tried helping him think of a name but we didn't come up with anything too good. His film was well thought out and sees interesting, I thin he just needs to make the plot a bit more detailed and give the character some clearer motives. 

    The last person to present their film opening was Santiago Racca and his genre is a thriller. His movie will be about a kidnapping where the character keeps escaping and being captured again, to the kidnapper this is a sick game, at the end of the film the character finally escapes. It will include a lot of suspense and low key lighting. The opening will just show him in the middle of escaping and being recaptured. The location is at his house and mostly his garage. I though the plot seems cool and he has already filmed/worked on editing which looked really good compared to the already fantastic raw footage. I really like his plot and he has made a lot of progress.

    I found this group meeting very interesting and it was very fun to hear about everyone's films and see their progress.

CCR

     For question #1 of the CCR which is: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? I was trying really hard to think of ideas to create the first media product that creatively respond to the question and display my personality.

    For this question I would first have to

1. Start by discussing genre conventions (cite where I found this information).

2. Discuss which genre conventions I chose to challenge or discuss why I chose not to challenge genre conventions.

3. End with a discussion of representation. (Representation refers to the choices made in how individuals, groups, events, and issues are illustrated within a production).

    So, I was thinking that for the first media product I would be making a podcast. This media product would include the 1st and 4th question but I will discuss how I work with the 4th question in a later post. 

    So, for my podcast I am going to have it feature a host who interviews media producers (influencers, producers etc.). I am going to incorporate Intro music and sound effects to make the products more like a real podcast. I am also going to make sure to write a script that is all audio based, descriptive, and clear. I am definitely going to make sure that my voice is very clear since audio is the main key factor to the whole project. And the last thing I need to do is have a sponsor/add for my podcast that I will talk about between question 1 & 4, this product will be media influenced so I am thinking it will advertise a microphone for audio recording since I am in an audio podcast. 

    The only visual element I will have is a image cover for the podcast which I see they have on Spotify. It hard for me to explain so this is an example:

This image is a cover for the podcast while the audio plays which I think I should make, on it I would try to include the Podcast name and the host's name.

Color Grading

    I am very new to editing and filmmaking, so I wasn't very sure how to edit things like color grading. One of my other partners Victoria however has worked with editing a lot for other classes, but I want to be able to help work on the editing a learn a bit for myself. So, this first video I watched as just an introductory to color grading:

    Afterwards I looked into color grading for horror movies which I found a video for here:

    I though this video was very inspirational and educational about color grading to utilize in our film. I also found this video of color grading presets that we can maybe use or work with for the film opening:

       I think this video was a very good find since it recommends presets for the horror genre that we can use to speed up the editing process. 

    I am really glad I found these videos with tips and ideas to incorporate in our editing that definitely help make the process much easier. I especially like the video about the color grading for horror movies because it talks a lot about minor details that we can include.

 

Line edit

     We have started our editing process by making a basic line edit of all the footage we want in the final product.

    We began this process by following the script to insert each piece in order, when we were putting the footage in order, we used process of elimination to decide which take we liked best for each scene. However, we left both the closeup and long shot versions for the table setting section of the film because we are still undecided on what is best and need to figure out which of the options is more suitable for how we want to incorporate our credits. 

    After doing this the film is around 18 minutes long which was not ideal because it will require a lot of tough decisions on what to cut from the final product, however we were grateful not to have too little film. This also was not that big of an issue because the main reasons it was so long is due to some duplicate of scenes in close up and long shot, we also have about two clips that run for a long time so we can decide what's best, but they will be much shorter.

    Due to this being so long we began by cropping the clips to cut out parts where we have mistakes or haven't started acting yet, this shortened the product to around 6 minutes. We still need to decide on music for the film which has been a major struggle for us as we can't find any that we think fit the exact vibe we are trying to have, we also need to record our foley. Not having the music or foley yet is delaying the editing process because certain aspects need to smoothly correlate with the music. Another thing delaying our process in not yet having our title card and credits, we need to have these so we can find a way to incorporate them in the film and further editing isn't really possible without them. 

    I think the line edit went smoothly but it definitely brought to light that we really need to get these steps done r editing isn't very possible. In the meantime, we will start by color grading the clips and cutting more out to bring the film closer to the 2-minute maximum. 

Filming Part 2

     This portion of filming is about after the scene where the wine pouring was interrupted by the oven beeping. Located at this scene on the story board:

                                                           Here⮝

    After the oven had beeped interrupting the wine opening, we put the camera in the oven, and I could be seen opening the oven and taking out the dinner (a rotisserie chicken that Juan bought. I though this shot was more interesting than just filming me opening the oven from behind or the side, it gave us more unique shots. I shut the oven door and then we had an overhead shot of me seasoning the chicken and bringing it to the table, followed by another shot from above of me chopping some cucumber for a salad that was in the top right third of the shot. As the character was cutting the cucumber one rolled of the cutting board, as she was picking it up from the floor in an over the shoulder shot she was still holding the knife and there is a flashback in red lighting of her in the same position but instead with a dead body in the background, bloody gloves on her hand, and the knife covered in blood. After the scene returns back to normal of her holding the knife and cucumber, she walks over to the trash and throws away the cucumber, there is a tracking shot of the cucumber into the trashcan which contains bloody napkins and gloves from the aftermath of the flashback scene. Elena than goes back to cutting the cucumber and scoping them into the salad bowl. 

    Then she brings the salad to the table and as she's putting the bowl down, she receives a notification from twitter on her phone. The camera pans up to show all her messages from messages that were delivered week ago to the most recent notification. All the messages consisted of the same information that the man had arrived at her house however they were all from different people and the last thing they had sent. This reveals that whatever happened Elena never talks to them again, and since there are so many similar messages that leaves the audience suspicious and assuming of what happened at Elena's dinners. 

    Elena is shown from a low angle looking at her phone smirking which shows her malicious intent. The doorbell then rings and in editing there will be a cut to a black screen with the movie's title "Manslaughter". We are working on designing the title and also deciding if we make it on word "Manslaughter" or split it up in two words " Man Slaughter", or if it should be one word with both parts titles "ManSlaughter" or dash between the two "Man-Slaughter". It seems unimportant but there are so many options and feel like each one has a different vibe, so we need to work on that. After the title card it cuts back to Elena walking towards the front door to open it which shows that its only the beginning of the film and there's more to come. 

    

    We didn't really have any issues with this part of filming except for 

1. I was SOOOO hard to make the cucumber roll of the cutting board naturally without looking like I purposefully smacked it off so that took a couple shots to get right.

2. I could not smirk well for the scene where I smirk at the phone. It always looked unnatural or just plain happy with no deeper emotion, so I don't know how I feel about that part and maybe refilming it at some point with more practice to make it look better for the final film. I feel like it throws of the film, I am just not an amazing actor with facials so I will have to see how I feel about it later. 

    I think overall the filming was very successful and went smoothly, we didn't have a lot of issues and the ones we had were able to be solved quickly. My team and I have been very cooperative with each other so and have had mostly the same thoughts. I think our editing is going smoothly the only issue is we have a lot of film but at least we have many options and not too little film. 

Filming part one

     We started of our filming with the first couple of beginning scenes only up to the second frame of the 2nd page on the story board (up to the wine pouring in the script).

                                                                         Here▽

    So, this is how the first part of our filming went: First, we met up at Victoria's house at around sunset, our films setting is at dinner which is during night, so we needed it to be dark outside. While we waited for the sun to go down, we cleaned up the area we would be filing first (the dining table) and we moved all our props to the kitchen counter out of the camera's site. We then set up the lights and stands for the camera. We messed around with the lighting until we found a warmth we liked. It was finally getting dark outside, and filming has begun.

    We tried to film the majority of our scenes in chronological order to make sure that everything was accurate and there were no inconsistencies. We wanted to have the versatility of deciding between different shots in editing, so we took more than 3 attempts per shot. First we filmed the main character walking up to the record player placing in a vinyl, playing it and walking away. This took many shits because I was having a lot of troble turing on teh recird player and smoothly putting teh vinyl in, their were so many steps that I was forgtting when I would actualy walk up and do it even though I have a record playter at home and normally do this. I was also worries to mess up because I didnt want to break Victoria's record player or scratch her vinyl so it was definiteky stressful. I was also feeling uneasy since we just started filming but once I finally started feeling comfortable, we got a decent shot. We let the camera record the vinyl playing and also another angle of it for a long time so we could decide exactly when we wanted to move on when we edited it with the song.

    After the vinyl shots we filmed the whole table setting scene which we decided to shoot each part in a close up and long shot so that in editing we could decide which was best, this made the process a lot lengthier, but I think it was definitely for the best. This also allows us to decide where to integrate our credits which we talked about having revealed in the credits post. The first thing we did to set the table was putting down the tablecloth, I really liked this shot because the camera was on the table and the tablecloth fell over it in the most perfect way it was amazing. The rest of the shots were pretty monotonous long/close u shots of me putting down the placemats, silverware, napkins, plates, flower vase and candles. For each of the shots we filmed the long shots first to keep them similar and vice versa for the close ups. I struggled a bit making sure that everything was placed evenly with the other side as well as making sure that the close ups and long shots has all the props in the same exact positions but I think the difference between the shots are unnoticeable. 

  

   The last part of this sections filming was the placing down of the wine glasses and going to open the wine opener when the oven going off interrupts the character. This shot was so beautiful in my opinion, just the lighting a composition of the scene looked so gorgeous, especially the way the light from the candles lights up on the glasses. I feel like overall this filming was successful, all the problem I talked about were very minimal and easily solved, I was very happy with the shits and our decision to keep the character faceless till the very end made her so much more ominous/mysterious as well as making filming so much easier because I didn't have to be acting with my face. I was able to talk to my teammates and better follow instructions/co-operate by being able to discuss with them.

Prop Setback

     Another prop we needed was fake blood, luckily I found some fake blood with props for Halloween costumes. However we had an issue, while this fake blood looked incredibly realistic and we could definitely put it on other props like the knife it stains. This means we couldn’t put it on the floor or “dead” body without it staining. So how could we solve this issue? This is our fake blood for props that we don’t need to worry about staining -

    We began by thinking of other red substances that we could modify to make them appear like blood, this alternative wouldn’t be as close to the camera anyway as the body/blood was in the background. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything red that wouldn’t stain except ketchup which definitely didn’t have the right color or textural look. Then we realized that since the scene with blood was being filmed in red lighting that the blood appeared darker/blacker so other products could appear similar even if they weren’t red. We experimented with different liquids and sauces when we finally settle on a mixture of soy sauce and another sauce, I forgot the name of. I believe it ended up looking pretty realistic and this is how it looks under normal vs. red lighting -