The Struggle Is Real

    Hey, blog today is Friday t minus three days until my entire project will be submitted. I am scared to say the least! 

Updates: 

    Today I had planned to go to school and share my version of the project with Julie and she would share hers.  Julie did not edit a version (due to her busy schedule) so I would not have been able to compare but thought I could show her mine and she could make changes. Instead, I woke up today feeling terrible and basically broke down the moment I woke up, so to better myself I decided to stay home from school and ended up sleeping the majority of the day. While yes, I wish my anxiety and depression would not have decided to make an appearance on April Fools. I am glad my breakdown happened today and not Saturday or Sunday or Monday.

Music:

    On Thursday I called my brother to discuss music. He sent me a copy of his original work and there was a part in it I just knew had to be Patti's alarm tone. I asked him if he could make a sped-up version of it and he did! I absolutely love how the music, in the end, ties back to the alarm tone. I also had him make a few changes to the music so that the slowed-down alarm tone part is playing while the blood is oozing out of the faucet. I believe this adds to the intensity of the moment. 

The text I sent to ask for the alarm tone

    I made sure to gain the rights from Tyler for his pieces.

The email from Tyler granting me the rights

Editing:

    I have finished editing and got two opinions on it! I of course shared it with Julie who told me that she thinks the mumbling of the unnamed patient should be quieter as it is a little distracting and that the cut between the unnamed patient saying "I feel like I'm" "drowning" was too drastic. I agree with both of these statements so I made the changes. 

Opinions:
    I wanted to see what others thought of the opener. The question I had for the two people I wanted an opinion from was which version was best. The one where the sound of the music cut before Meredith showed up in the mirror or the one where there was no cut.

    I got my opinions from Tai, my friend who is in TV Production and won multiple awards at STN this year. I knew she would give great advice since she loves production. The other person I got my opinion from was my friend Berkley Morris who is currently in the AICE Media Studies AS level class. Her film is very different from mine so I knew she would be great to get advice from.

    Both of the advice-givers agreed that the version with no cut was better so this is the version we are using. They also both believed it was great so yay!

Current Problem:

    I do not know where my Apple clipboard is. I have never used a font website before. Julie found the "Meltdown MF" font on font space so now I am struggling to figure out how to get the font into the opener. 

No Comment

    I will figure this out somehow. I asked Julie but my brain just can not process words right now.

To Be Done:

    Figure out how to put font into our video.

    Get the production company intro from Julie. It is done she just keeps forgetting to send it to me but that is okay.

How It's Going:

Note: I have placed where the title will go.

CCR

    I will further explain the CCR tomorrow but it is basically an in-depth reflection of my film opener. Going from pre-production to production, and post-production. 

    My current idea is that I am ranting to my psychologist. First off, I rant all the time, this would capture and show my personality part of the CCR. This can probably be noticed by the number of times I rant in my blog. Second off, since I rant so often I am very comfortable ranting so I would probably not have to refilm many times. Lastly, the idea would include that my psychologist is ignoring me similar to the unnamed patient in "Can You Help Me?" being ignored by Patti. 

    I plan to create the script and hopefully film it tomorrow and then use Sunday as my day to edit. Monday will be used as my day to recheck the opener and the CCR and to make sure my (sadly) final blog post is a great one! 

Moving Foward:

    My mom just dropped her phone and I fully jumped out of my bed while typing this, my anxiety is at its highest level I can't wait for Tuesday at twelve am. Anyways, I will figure out the intro and credits after posting this blog and then my weekend will go as I mentioned before. 

The Final Countdown

     Good evening blog, t minus 5 days until my AICE Media AS Cambridge Portfolio Project will be submitted. On Tuesday at 12am I believe I will either be asleep at my computer (with a turned-in project) or I will be happily dancing. Either way, I am so excited to share with you "Can You Help Me?" I am crazy proud of how far this opener has come and all that I have learned from this experience.

    I recommend you listen to "The Final Countdown" by Europe either before, while, or after reading this blog as it is what I feel while writing this. 

 As I shared Monday sounds were created. Today, Wednesday I created a few more sounds I realized I missed Monday. All of the sounds were relatively easy to create since they are basic sounds such as doors closing and footsteps.  

Sounds Created:

Footsteps of Patti, Meredith, and the unnamed patient.

Dripping water

Running water

Doors closing and opening

Pencil

Notebook close and open

Hitting of sink

Drying of notebook

Breathing

Sitting down

Vocals

    For the unnamed patient, I tried to make my voice sound muffled by covering my mouth with a piece of paper. This somewhat worked but I wanted more so I decided to use the Muffled audio effect on iMovie

Tired Monday Me

    I did remember my good old friend Foley sound and decided to use it when creating the water sound for when Meredith drips water on Patti's paper. I had used foley in a past project where Foley was used to create a football games soundscape. In that project, I dropped rice on a pie pan to create deep heavy rain noise sounds. I knew this noise would not fit the light water drip I wanted to create so instead I dropped the rice on notebook paper. 

    Not all sounds are yet imported as I am typing this blog but I will not sleep until I do so. I will be up till dawn if I need to. I could just do it in study hall tomorrow afternoon but I feel a bolt of energy. 

Lighting:

    I am using Camo an iMovie clip filter. I believe the darkness of the filter I believe fits our opener in the imagined scenes since lighting wise we did not use a ring light to differentiate as planned.  I also currently have the Blast iMovie clip filter on the last scene. I want to see Julie's opinion on this as I am not sure I fully like it.  I also discovered the Match Color button on Imovie. I would like to hug whoever created this button as you saved me a lot of stress and time. Match Color helped me make sure all of my real scenes and imagined scenes respectively had the same lighting.

Camo

    Blast

Match Color

Moving Foward:

    Progress on music has been made! My music idea changed a bit, so I want to take a full blog post to discuss this so that will be tomorrow. Stay tuned...

    Other than that our project is wrapping up and our CCR is beginning. I will discuss the CCR Friday. For now, my idea consists of a rant. It would be like my therapy sessions but instead of my psychologist, it's the camera. I think this would fit really well with our genre and opener theme. This would also allow my panic personality to have its five seconds of fame! I am oddly excited to create the CCR. This year I am in AICE Global Perspectives AS level and one of our components is a presentation that is recorded. My peers said I had a very newscaster voice likely due to my background in acting in theatre so I think this background will help me make my CCR informative and engaging. 

Still to be completed:

Editing of sound, lighting, timing, etc. - Julie and I in class Friday will be comparing our edited versions and creating our final edit.

Creation of production company - Julie wants to animate this but has a busy work schedule this week so she has not been able to yet. If she does not by Saturday I will make it. 

Credits - We just need to add them to our opener. This will be likely the final addition, the cherry on top. 

CCR- I am devoting my weekend to the CCR.

Currently thinking I may become a blogger as I enjoy this a little too much. I am rambling so I will end it here, goodnight. 

Oscars Progress

    Hi blog, I am currently watching the Oscars, maybe one day I will be on that stage. Today progress was made!! 

Sound:

    All verbal sound was recorded! I was worried about how I would find a quiet place to record the sound and well it was a little difficult. I live in a home right next to a major road so I decided to record in my brother's room which is near the neighborhood street. I had to stop and start recording a lot but we (my mom and I) got it done! 

I then imported the sound into Imovie and have the majority of it edited in.

How it's going

How it started

    Progress was also made in finding our font and production company.

Font:

    I love this font. Julie and I agreed we really wanted all caps, we believe this gives off the thriller energy. It also looks a lot like water which ties into our opener.

Production Company:

    I came up with the name "deep productions". I thought of deep due to water but Julie believes it could also be deep mentally. Our production company focuses on real mentally challenging things that people go through. The logo will likely be a brain but we have not designed it yet. 

Moving Foward:
    Tomorrow I will be recording sounds such as walking and water. I will then do what I did today, import and edit the sounds! I will also reach out to Julie to see if she has any lighting suggestions as I still am unsure what to do. I will send my edited version to Tyler tomorrow. 

Live from New York, it's My Blog!

    Hi blog, New York City has been quite busy. I leave tomorrow and planned to stay home and focus on my project Saturday-Monday. I then discovered that I do not get home till very late, past midnight, so I did some editing tonight.

Editing:

    Major progress has been made time-wise! I got the film opener down to two minutes and thirty-seven seconds. All clips we filmed combined totaled to over five minutes so I am very glad this number has shrunk. Our goal is a two-minute film opener so our length needs to shorten some more but I am proud of what I edited today. I am still so excited about how smooth the transitions between imagined scenes and real scenes are. 

Sound:

    Minimal progress on sound has been made. I found out Julie is for sure okay with all spoken sound, other than the patient's voice recording, being dub. For now, I have muted all clips.

Lighting:

    I am going to mess around a little more with lighting in the future I thought about using one of the existing clip filter options but I am not sure if this is what we will end up using. This is something else I will discuss with Julie. 

Music:

    Today I called my brother Tyler, our score creator, to discuss our score. He believes if I am able to get him a finalized edit by Sunday night he can have it done sometime this upcoming week. I also discussed that I want sad piano music to cover the entire bathroom scene. I think it would be interesting if it gets louder each time the imagined room is shown and maybe ends the way it started showing nothing has really changed. I will be sharing this with Julie to get her opinion.

Moving Foward:

    Tomorrow I will reach out to the cast about dubbing. Luckily the majority of the sound comes from two voices. Patti and the unnamed patient/my mother and I. Sunday, I will record my lines and if my mother is up for it, I will help her record. I will see if Julie and Paola can get their line to me Sunday as well. 

    Once all sound is recorded I will begin to edit the sound into the opener. I believe this may be the most difficult part of the process since I need to make sure the sound lines up with the movement of the mouth. I will edit my own voice recording first, for the patient, as I believe this will be easier than editing the dub will be. Then I will take on the task of editing the dub.

    Once all dubbing and my voice recordings are edited in we can move focus to record diegetic sounds such as the door closing, walking, the water running, etc. I have no school Monday so I will spend the day focusing on this task and then editing the sounds into the opener. 

    I will then edit the lighting. Once I have my final edit I will share and compare to Julie's edit. We will then together edit whoever's turned out to be our combined favorite. 

    We need to find our font still and create the production company logo. Our screenplay is done... but Julie wants to put it into Word instead of the original website we used. Once she gets it formated the final way I will share it here! 

    In Saturday Night Live fashion I will end this blog with the words "We have a great film opener in the works for future viewers! Hard work is here so stick around!"

 

Reshoot Monday

     Reshoot day was today!! I will explain how it went, but first, I recommend you to watch the vlog!

Explanation:

    Julie and Paola got to my house around 10:15 first I explained to Paola what the film opener is about and how we planned to shoot. We began to shoot in order of appearance. This was difficult, to say the least. The actress playing Patti, Laura/My mom, found it hard to stay still between scenes as everything was being moved around her. Also, at times I worried whether or not each prop was always in its exact location. At one point I bumped the phone so the phone looks different in one shot compared to the next and I am really mad at myself for causing that. Other than my mistake and my mom not enjoying sitting still in between shots, everything went well

    Somewhat sad news, my dad was at work so now Paola is playing the role of the person who bumps into Patti. We are changing this role to a patient and not a coworker since Paola is a short teen and we did not have professional-looking clothing for her to change into. 

    We finished shooting the office and hallway scenes and got midway through the bathroom scene when Julie had to leave. I was unaware she was going to have to leave since she did not have work today I just assumed she could stay till whenever. I was wrong though and should have asked her prior what time she needed to leave. 

    I had a panic attack as Julie was leaving. I am quite surprised this is my first panic attack caused by this film opener project. I panicked worrying that when she came back we would have to reshoot the bathrooms scene since the camera and tripod were majorly moved. I should not have had a panic attack but I can not control them. 

    We broke for lunch and I took Paola home. Julie came back around four pm and we shot the remaining bathroom scenes. This time she did not have her tripod so we used this phone stand I have had for a long time and never used till now. Julie left once we were done and I inserted all clips into Imovie. 

    Overall, shooting was a bit hectic but I am glad it is done. Paola was a great help so I am glad I decided to not be afraid to ask for help. I am also thankful Julie was able to come back to film after having dental fillings and that my mom was able to power through this process.

Editing:

    When I first inserted the clips we were way over time as I expected the opener to be. We were at over five minutes. 

I found a spot that needed to be reshot so I did reshoot it. My camera quality is not the same as Julie's but unless we have time to reshoot this short clip the version I have will work. The problem shot is once Patti walks into the bathroom. In the shot we took during refilming the door is visible. The door is open but in the previous shot Patti closed the door, so I reshot this scene with the door not visible. 

Original Refilmed Shot

Refilmed Refilmed Shot

    I have not edited to great detail yet, but I do think I figured out how to do the mirror trick inspired by "Last Night In Soho" directed by Edgar Wright

    I did this by using iMovies Green/Blue Screen tool. It looks a little choppy but I will fix this. 

Moving Foward:

     I will begin to edit the lighting and sound whilst in New York. I also am going to send the current version of the opening to Tyler so he knows exactly where music is needed. I hope to get the music back by next Monday this gives him around a week. I need to talk with Julie again to make sure the screenplay is completed and that we begin to look for fonts. I also need to make sure she is okay with all audio being dubbed. If so, I can begin recording the dub for Patti and the voiceover for the patient and I will make sure Paola and Julie record their few lines. 

    I am still very nervous since the time till my due date continues to creep closer. 

Film Fails

     Film day is tomorrow! Today I reviewed what we did the last shoot to see where we went wrong and how we can improve. 

Order of Opener:

    I do not want to share the film opener as I would like to leave this as a surprise revealed during the final edit. But here is the current shot order. 

Error Examples:

Shots #3 and #4

    These two mid-shots are supposed to be used in a match cut. The change in camera position creates the inability for this cut to work. The two different camera positions can be seen by looking at the window and props. Also shooting in order will allow for Laura our actress playing Patti to stay in the exact same position and not have to try and copy the position she was in the day prior. 

Shot #12 and #13

    These two close-up zoom shots are back to back yet have completely different framing and a different angle used. In shot twelve the poster can be seen whereas in shot thirteen it can not be seen. This is due to shot thirteen being a tighter shot. Filming back to back will allow this to not happen again. One person will stay holding the tripod with the camera on it and another person will switch the posters. 

Shots #21 and #22 (Also known as "glass off glass on")

    Here is another example of why we should have shot in one day. In the real bathroom shot Patti takes her glasses off but in the imagined bathroom shot Patti's glasses are back on. Also, her body and fingers are in different places. Filming in order on one day only will cause these issues to not occur again. 

Shot #30

    In this midshot, our plan was for Meredith to be seen in the mirror behind Patti. The way we filmed it Meredith is barely visible and while yes, this may look creepy, our goal was for it to be clear that Meredith is behind Patti. This shot will instead be similar to the mirror scene in "Last Night in Soho" directed by Edgar Wright. This will allow for both characters' facial expressions to be seen. 

Overall:

    The above are just a few examples of the issues I found along with how the issue will not happen again. 

    Initially, I said, "I would like to film all bathroom shots, then bedroom, and lastly hallway." But I now realize we should shoot in order of appearance. Shooting in order will make the flow of the opener work making sure little things such as Patti's hair look exactly the same between real and imagined room. We also must use the same lighting in both the real and imagined rooms. This will allow for minimal camera movements allowing for match cuts allowing for easy transition between rooms.

Moving Foward:

    I am eager to start refilming stay tuned for the vlog!

Update

     Welp blog it is Saturday and we still have not refilmed as I planned to. The issue is Julie was unavailable Saturday and Sunday and I leave for New York City Tuesday, so... we are filming everything on Monday. I am scared, to say the least. Now hopefully since we already did a first shoot things will run smoothly. 

    Also, I have asked my friend Paola to help us. She has agreed to help! This additional person will be very beneficial since we are now planning to shoot in order. We will be having a lot of quick set changes between real and imagined. 

Introduction to Paola:

    Paola has been a great friend of mine since the sixth grade. She took TV production in eighth grade and is currently in DECA where she has learned all things business-related. I believe she will be a great help since she is very dedicated to all that she does. She has experience in theatre and is very artistic so I believe she will understand our set easily and have an eye for where each item should be placed. I am very thankful for her future help on set!

Worries:

    Overall, the cuts between real and imagined must be cleaner. We are trying to have match cuts and the way we filmed last time did not allow for these cuts. We need to make sure the camera is always in the same location and we have decided to not use my ring light and instead edit the lighting after filming so the camera does not have to be moved for the ring light to be placed on it.

    Another worry of mine is sound, we have planned to add all sound during post-production but I am worried the dub will not match up, I guess if worse comes to worst we will keep the sound coming from Patti from filming, but it may not be very clear. 

 Music Update:

    Tyler has gone back to school, I want to have my first edit of the reshot opener by Friday so I can send it to him and he can begin working on our piece. Hopefully, he can have this done by Monday! Tyler is not very worried about this creation since it will be a very short piece and he has lots of experience. The sooner I can have my first edit finished, the better!

Moving Foward:
    Today is a short blog, as I will admit little progress has been made due to scheduling conflicts. My anxiety is at a high which can be shown by the pure panic of this blog.  Tomorrow I will share sections from the opener I edited last week. I will share what went wrong during the filming process and how I plan to fix these problems on Monday. On Monday I will be vlogging our film process since the members in my group discussion loved the vlog as it let them see directly how the process went. I want to make sure this vlog is longer and goes into greater detail. 

    Our screenplay is still not done but Julie wants to do it so I am letting her but will gladly help if needed. Sometime next week we will be looking at fonts for our titles. 

    We have a lot to get done and not exactly a good amount of time left, but we can do this!