Final by Numbers

     Hey hey, blog. I am ending the process of how I started it with "Final by Numbers" tying back to the original title of my first project blog "Film by Numbers" When I began this process I had no idea what I was going to make. Now "Can You Help Me?" is my final product. It turned out a thousand times better compared to what I thought but that may just be because I have zero faith in myself. 

    I am in love with my film future but for now here is "Can You Help Me?" created by Julie Bruzon and Grace Decker

Link: https://youtu.be/Z6Vi_blTZK8

Moving Foward:

    As the Spaceship Earth ride at EPCOT once said, "This just in looks like it's going to be a great big beautiful tomorrow. The end, or should I say the beginning of [my] future."

    Bye bye, blog (for now). Stream "my future" by Billie Eilish after reading this blog as it is what I feel while writing this. 

CCR

     The day has come, t minus zero days until the project is due.  It is Monday, April 4th, 2022 meaning my Cambridge Portfolio Project for AICE Media Studies AS is due. I do not know how to feel. I was going to upload my CCR yesterday but as I attempted to record for I would say a good 6 hours. 7pm-1am. I realized I needed to go to bed and try again the next day. So that's what I did I woke up today and it only took me a good two hours today to get a version I was somewhat proud of.

    I remember why I decided to be behind the camera for "Can You Help Me?" while filming my CCR. I am really not meant for the camera as I begin to panic the second I start to mess up. I have never recorded on Zoom before so this was a bit of a risk. We are going to pretend a portion of my head is not out of the frame!

    I think my Creative Critical Reflection is me. It is a fast pace panicked-filled reflection/me in video form wearing my signature red lipstick which ties back to the blood aspect of our opener. 

CCR:

Link:

https://youtu.be/Q-4WFjsVfho 

Moving Foward:

    "Can You Help Me?" will be shared here next!

It's Not The Same Anymore

     Hey, blog today is Saturday oh my goodness. T minus two days until my entire project will be submitted. Today's blog is a reflection as I prepare to shoot my CCR tomorrow. 

    I recommend you listen to "It'S Not The Same Anymore" by Rex Orange County either before, while, or after reading this blog as it is what I feel while writing this. 

Important Announcements:

    I figured out how to get the font from font space and I am very proud of myself since it was my tired self's struggle yesterday.

Font In

    Yesterday in my blog I stated I needed to "Get the production company intro from Julie. It is done she just keeps forgetting to send it to me but that is okay." I was in the wrong as she had sent it to me and I just completely missed it. So the production company intro is in!

1:30 AM Update

    Our opener is done I'm so happy that this part of the process is over so my focus can shift to my CCR

Final

Reflection:

    I want to use this portion of my blog as the area for my thoughts on my journey with "Can You Help Me?" When I first heard about the Creative Portfolio Project at the very beginning of the year I was super excited, then the day came when we were told to begin working on the project and my excitement switched to panic. I was super worried that I would be unable to complete it in time but well based on how things are going it will be on time. 

What I Would Change:

    If I had to redo my project completely I would likely not work with a partner. I have realized it is not easy scheduling-wise. This was Julie and my main problem as we both are busy people with very different schedules. I think working on my own time would be easier. 

    Next timed video project one of my first steps will be to plan out exactly how long each clip will be so I am able to use all clips we shoot. If we would have done this with "Can You Help Me" we could have developed the setting more. 

    Somewhat jokingly I would also try to either find $500 or convince Asthmatic Kitty Records to use "Fourth of July" One day I will be involved in a project using this song just wait and see.

Overall:

    I am super proud of Julie and me for how the opener turned out to be. I am proud of myself for the amount of research I did, for learning new editing techniques, for learning how to direct, and for the amount of heart and soul I put into this

CCR Update

     I have decided to stick with my idea of recording my CCR like a rant to my psychologist. I am going to make it like it is my first appointment with a new psychologist so it makes sense why I am with a psychologist who ignores me. It will also be a virtual appointment that I will record by using zoom. The zoom will allow me to share my screen to show what I am speaking about.

Zoom Grace

CCR Breakdown:

    In my Creative Critical Reflection, I will be focusing on answering four questions.

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

2. How does your product engage with audiences and how it would be distributed as a real media text?

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

4. How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - in this project?

Script:

     I do not want to share my CCR script until tomorrow when I officially publish the CCR.

Current Script

Moving Foward:

    While yes, I was hoping to shoot my CCR today that did not work out and that is okay. I wanted to make sure I had a set script and also that my opener was for sure ready to be posted here Monday night. I will film and edit my CCR tomorrow. Wish me luck!

    As Rex Orange County once sang "I should be happy of course" my project is coming to an end but I will miss it, especially my blog. I really want to continue blogging over the summer as I dive deeper into the film world. But, I am unsure if this blog is the place for it. One way or another I will be becoming a blogger this summer and I hope you stick around with me for that part of my life along with the future of my AICE Media Studies journey as I am hoping to take A level next year.  This was way long, I apologize bye.

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!"