Editing blog: Adding Transitions

I included a variety of transitions. Some examples of these are: fade in, fade out, black out, jumpcut, and cross blur animation transitions. We inserted jump cuts because it was the perfect ending to the scene. After the main character in our film opened the door to find nobody there, we inserted the black out. It left the audience anting to know more, and the black out was fit to match this curiosity. We inserted the jumpcut to show the passage of time. In the film story, a lot more time is passing than in real life. Thus, we thought the jumpcut was perfect for this scene. Finally, we inserted the blur. 

 We decided on Sony Vegas pro  because our project does not include a lot of special effects, and iMovie only works well for simple editing. So, we had to combine all of our footage for our peer edit. We did this by importing all the footage  to one computer and phone so editing would be easier 

Editing Blog First Attempt

I have started our editing process. The first step of editing was dumping our film footage. I imported my footage into iMovie. then I selected the scenes that we would be editing in our first editing session. I put a lot of thought into which scenes would fit the best in our final movie. To determine this, we selected scenes with a certain number of specific attributes. These included things like the lighting of the scene, as well as the camera angles and movement. In addition, we considered how our titles and credits would fit into the scene. Finally, we chose takes in which the acting was the best. All in all, our editing process was very detailed and in-depth.

 I have decided that we will work on inserting our titles near the end of the editing process. I chose to do this because it allows us to work on polishing our scenes beforehand. During the editing of our scenes, we did a lot of polishing up. For example, I searched for non-copyright music to include in our final product. Once I added that music I verified it was sourced by a non copyright brand by going to website made to check and verifying . I had to in group the natural sound of the videos and delete the real sound then add the music /sound effects and make it sound smooth

Peer Review Blog

What is one thing you REALLY liked about the film?

Overall I really enjoyed the film this group put together. Specifically I enjoyed how they were able to tie in all of the elements of the genre into the opening sequence. The film is about a boy being assigned to a mission and having to say goodbye to his family. It is apart of the tragedy film genre and incorporates a lot of the conventions. For example, regarding the lighting, it is very well throughout. Everything is visible and nothing is too bright or dark. Another element that was well incorporated was the sound. Most things could be heard, the sound level was even, and there was no sharp changes in sound that were unnatural. Furthermore, the movie included various shots/angles/movements that were needed to satisfy the genre and the requirements. For example, an establishing shot, close up, medium shot, low angles, and over-the-shoulder shot could all be seen, just to name a few. Finally, I really enjoyed the titles. They were evenly spaced and legible is all scenes.

What is one suggestion you would make to the film?

Despite the film being overall very well produced, there are a few suggestions I would make to the creators. A glaring issue is the duration of the film. As of currently, the film lasts approximately 1 minutes and 25 seconds. This is well above the guidelines of 1:50-2:00. I would Add the beginning scenes of pulling into the drive away and other aspects in order to shorten the film. Another issue was how loud the dialogue was. I would recommend the creators increase the sound of the dialogue in order to make it understandable. However, a quick disclaimer, I was in a noisy room and this may been apart of the reason it was hard to ear. Overall, I believed the film this group produced was very well made and only needs minor corrections.

Filming blog Filming Process

Today was the second day I went out to film. I managed to film two more scenes. The locations I went to were the train tracks and park. I didn't have to go to two different locations since they're right next to each other. I started filming the train track scene first. It didn't take too long since there weren't that many different shot in the scene. I managed to include an over the shoulder shot in the scene.

After that I filmed the next scene. The next scene included a pan and a diegetic sound. This was the shot of me trying to explain the misson. However, it did not go as well as we hoped since we encountered some difficulties. The first being it was bright and sunny outside, so it was hard to figure out the lighting on camera so it looked like it was nighttime. We tried to fix this issue by adjusting the blinds on the window and getting it just right to make the light outside appear to be moonlight. Then, once we got this problem taken care of we encountered another issue.We filmed on the stairs, in the bedroom, and in the hallway. Just as we did downstairs, we filmed each scene a couple times. Some of the scenes were difficult to get because it was only the two of us. We did not have anyone to help us film, so only one of us could be in the shot at a time. But, it ended up working out and making the film look more interesting and dramatic. We filmed all the scenes for our entire movie. But, we plan to get together again Sunday and re-film some shots. We want to film the shots again to get some better ones if possible, and to also have extra clips just incase. On Sunday, we also plan to edit the majority of our video. On Tuesday in class, some of our classmates will be watching the first draft of our edited video. They will be peer reviewing our video and giving us feedback on how to make it better.

Filming Blog The Beginning

1. Today, my group mate and I decided to begin filming some scenes for our movie. After school, we drove to my house. My group mate could not stay for long because he was Tobe home sooner. Because of this, we chose to just do some practice shots. We looked at our storyboard and went scene by scene deciding where we were going to film each one. For the kitchen scene, we obviously chose to film in the kitchen. What we really needed to focus on was figuring out what rooms to place the intruder and the victim. We also needed to figure out how we could make the sounds we wanted to have in our movie. We decided to use my moms bedroom to film one of the scenes because it fit the idea of our movie the best. We did get some actual footage as well. Since we did not have much time, we wanted to go through and just practice filming each scene to see if we liked the camera angles and movements we planned on using. We also played around with the lighting. We wanted to make sure we were able to set the right mood in the scenes with the lighting and angles

Filming blog The plan

Today I started filming and i was forced to make difficult decisioms early. I decided to use my own camera and SD card for this project so that's where I started. I headed to Best Buy to buy an SD card. I wasn't sure how much storage I needed but I got a 64 GB SD card. It seems like a lot but I often use my camera to film or take pictures that are not for this project. When I got back home, I realized I forgot to buy a tripod. I was going to go back to Best Buy to buy one but then I remembered I could borrow one from school. Since I didn't have a tripod, I couldn't get most shots done. However, I was able to film some shots. Before I did, I encountered some problems with my camera. For some reason, it didn't let me record. Every time I hit the record button, it said: "Movie recording has been stopped automatically." I tried turning it off and turning it back on, but nothing changed. The same message appeared on the screen. After doing some research online, I figured out a few ways on how I could fix it. I first tried removing the SD card and inserting it again. Luckily, that was exactly what it needed for it to work. I hit the record button again and it began recording. I then was able to film a few scenes before the day ended. I recorded the first, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and twelveth scene. It wasn't much but I'm sure I will be able to do more next time.

Planning blog Storyboard

I have composed multiple Google Slides regarding my Final Task and various aspects of the filming process. In the presentations I reviewed each element individually and discussed important elements that will be used. For instance, I talk about the shots/movements/angles, safety, actors, props, costumes, and settings. Additionally, I also include any extra information. This would include things like needing to remain extra quiet during the filming of the early morning scenes. Information like this was necessary for preparing the storyboard for the opening sequence. In the storyboard each square or shot represents a 6 second time period. On each piece of paper there are 6 squares, and each piece of paper represents a scene Overall, I believe between the previous google slides and their scripts with the storyboard will prove very useful in constructing my Final Task.