It’s Go Time!

Hey again! I’m back soon with another exciting, quick update. I’ve begun to edit the footage together from the first half of our opening that occurs at the soccer field. Even though all of our planning, the process, and progress we’ve made thus far has been important and vital to help us get to where we are in the process now, now, we are working on the final product, which is the only thing people will see. Therefore, I think all of our hard work and effort will be present on the screen for all to see when they view our film.

As I’ve taken on the responsibility of physically editing the opening together, everything has run fairly smoothly so far. The only problem I’ve encountered is that since we were filming in a public park and couldn’t really control our surroundings, even though we tried going to the most privatized part of the fields at the park, there were some people in the background and since we had to take clips at different times and angles, some of the background environments off the clips don’t exactly match up. However, I’ve done the best I can with the material we have, and I don’t think it’s too noticeable as the main focus is on our main characters. 

Seeing everything start to come together is extremely satisfying, and I can’t wait to see the final piece come together at last. As we near the deadline for our project, I plan to finish the editing earlier in this upcoming week so we can receive feedback and make any necessary corrections. Since this is one of the first times we’ve created our own legitimate film samples, we are so excited to see the completed process come together into one amazing, seamless piece. More exciting updates to come!

Filming Goal Reached!

I’m back with another exciting update. We’ve finished the filming process for our film opening. Isaac filmed the second half with his family and now we have all the material we need to edit the different pieces and clips together. 

Isaac told us that the filming process went smoothly. However, we did make a slight change to the script in that originally both of Gabe’s parents were present; however, due to Isaac’s dad not being home, we changed it to only his mom playing Gabe’s mom. We figured this change was okay and actually held some benefits to the opening as well,since it didn’t take away from the effect of having the parents play a certain demanding, overarching role in the opening and the father only had one or two lines that weren’t vital to enhancing the plot or opening. Also, I was scared our film may exceed the time frame restraints, however, by eliminating a couple lines, I think this will help ensure that it doesn't become an issue when we finish the editing process. 

Seeing all the individual clips is thrilling because it is so exciting to be able to have material to work with rather than just visualizing how everything will piece together in the end. Now that we are on to the editing process is also exciting to see that we have moved away from the planning and recording and towards the final stages of piecing the opening together and focusing on small details of the opening, such as the font used for the credits. That’s all for today. See you soon!

Creating Foley Sounds

Hey again blog, I know it’s been a while. Fear not, this doesn't mean we’ve made no progress, but as a matter of fact, I have a lot of exciting progress to update about while writing these blogs. We made the decision to include foley sounds within our project to further improve the sound quality. We know the main point of this project is to show what we know and have learned throughout the course, and since we learned a lot about the importance of sound and how to edit/manipulate it, we thought utilizing foley sounds would be a smart move. This being said, we will include this within certain key auditory-rich parts of our opening, such as those takes about below. 

Walking: One sound not typically thought about because it is so common is walking. There are two distinct type of walking sounds in our open: walking on grass and the flier inside the house. To ensure we get accurate sounds we should record sounds for walking of various speeds to see which one matches up the best.  

Kicking the ball: Although there may be background music over the scenes where the soccer ball is kicked, if we decide to include the sound of the ball being kicked we will want to emphasize it, which is why we want to overlay foley sound on top. This sound would have to be sharp and hard hitting.

That’s all for today. More new and exciting updates to come!

Clothing design kick off!

 Although it may seem as though the outfits featured in our opening were just casually thrown together as everyday outfits, there was actually a lot of thought behind them. Hey again! Today I’ll be exposing the thought process and goals of the outfits used and we hope to use in our film opening for the 4 characters revealed/ introduced.

Gabe and Daniel: These two characters wear very similar outfits, thus why I’ve grouped them together. Since the opening scene is them practicing soccer skills, we’ve decided they would wear athletic shorts and a simple colored sports brand t-shirt to make it seem realistic for not only the activity but the supposed 17-18 year old age of the characters. This is explicitly clear in photos of the outfits chosen for the characters as depicted below. 

Mom: One of the main characters shown in the remainder of the opening that takes place in Gabe’s house is his mother. Obviously at home, she seems to be in a more relaxed outfit, while still giving off a dominant energy as she seems to be overpowering Gabe through her actions, words, and now through her style. This means she’ll probably wear bold and dark colors and an outfit typically worn throughout the house.

Dad: The dad plays a similar role to the mom in the opening, but has a slightly less extreme presence to him. This being said, he also is wearing a relaxed outfit that could be worn to just chill and hang out around the house, while possibly wearing a more bold color to show power compared to Gabe.

Obviously, as we have yet to shoot the second half of the opening, our plans for the parents’ outfits can change, but they will more than likely follow these general guidelines. That’s all for now. Thanks for staying updated! See you soon!

Group Progress Check!

Hey guys! Today, in class, I participated in a group discussion with members not in my project group about my group’s project progress and gained advice from others not in my group for an outside perspective, in addition to providing insight into others’ projects.

I started by explaining the premises and plot of our film, if it were to be a full length film, and then specified the specifics of what our opening would contain. I then referenced some of my blog posts specifically to show where we were in the process, such as us shooting the first half of the opening and storyboarding the entire thing. After this occurred everyone seemed to like the idea and thought our progress was efficient thus far. 

I then proposed the idea that my group had a small dilemma when it came to finding non-cheesy background music for the beginning. The group was super helpful as they tried to find good websites for the type of music I was looking for and helped me eliminate some of the mediocre options I had already found. The other big idea my group discussed was finding a movie title for my group's film to include at the end of the opening credits. Although we never got a final name decided on, we discussed that since it’s a drama film it should not include a soccer pun, and should instead be a more symbolic title reflecting the coming of age and becoming an individual meaning of the movie in general.

Although at first having this group meeting may have seemed like it wouldn’t be too helpful, I’m happy to report that it definitely was for two main reasons. One was getting advice for the music and just overall aspects of our opening. The other was getting to see where other groups were in the process and how they are solving issues and crafting ideas, which helped further influence my ideas for parts of our projects. Overall, this experience was super helpful; however, the only unhelpful part was my group forgetting to take a picture for our blog posts. See you soon!

Planning it all out

Hey again! That last update was a pretty big one regarding us starting our filming and how we adapted to certain elements. However, we aren’t done with the filming process yet. We still have to work on filming the second half of the opening, which occurs in the setting of Gabe’s house and shows conversation and action between Gabe and his parents. 

This means we have to plan on how we are doing/ completing this step in our filming process, so we can conclude the filming and begin piecing all the clips together. Therefore, we’ve developed a plan and schedule for the rest of our project development process.

First, we have to finish filming. Since the remainder of the scenes involve Gabe’s parents and Gabe, Isaac will finish filming the scenes toward the beginning of the week. After that, I will start editing everything together, and we will work together to do this during class. From here we will look over and get others’ opinions on our project and make improvements and adjustments as needed. And, of course, we will all continue to blog the process and our progress throughout. That’s all for now. Stay tuned for another update soon!

It’s Go Time!

So……guess what? The big day is finally here. Filming day! That’s right, today we began to actually film our film opening project. Seeing all of our hard work and planning come together to make the filming process not only much easier and simpler but successful as well was really nice. Everything seemed to run fairly smoothly and it was a fairly simple process. Since Isaac and Gabe are the main two actors in the opening, I was responsible for filming and directing it for the most part.

The only “issue” we ran into wasn’t really an issue at all, as a matter of fact, it may have been more beneficial. During the filming process, we strayed from the details/ specifics of our storyboard and script as we made executive decisions we thought were for the better when it actually came to filming and we could actually visualize how everything would piece together. For example, we changed some of the camera angles we thought either didn’t make sense or thought needed to be present. We also filmed a lot of extra scenes on the soccer field as we are uncertain how they will piece together during the editing process, and our obvious goal is to make sure the project looks as good and realistic as possible, meaning it has to appear continuous.

Since we had everything planned out we were able to be very productive with our time and finish filming the scenes at the soccer field in about 1 hour. That being said, we still have to finish up the rest of the opening at the house location/ setting, but it was definitely rewarding to see our progress thus far pay off. Stay tuned for another similar bug update soon!

Figuring out “the fine print”

Hey! As we continue to work on our project, we are focusing more so on filming and piecing together the opening rather than planning it at this point. This being said we’ve been honing in and thinking about any conflicts or details we may come to when editing our project together. One detail we haven’t thought about is the opening credits and how and when they will be displayed in our opening. 

Although it still hasn’t been heavily discussed, this is what I’ve understood from our discussion on the topic so far:

Because we want the credits to be as less distracting as possible, we want to include them in a more action packed scene, so that they don’t distract from the drama present within our opening. This being said, the best place for them is probably in the very beginning when our main character Gabe is playing soccer. I think we should elongate the scene with the upbeat background music a little if we have the time and include the credits here, because you can tell what’s happening, playing soccer, while still seeing the credits. Then when he scores the goal or right before it the credits would end and it would show the name of the film, and then the rest of the opening would continue and start to get more serious and personal. Also, we haven’t really discussed a font yet, and that’s kind of hard to do without looking at them, but we are thinking of a more bold font, possibly either a white or a darker color depending on the setting of the background. If it’s green grass for the most part probably white text, but if it’s the light blue sky seen in the majority of the background, we will probably do a darker font color. Also, obviously we want the font to stand out so it will be bolder. 

That’s all for now! There will be a new and exciting update coming very soon!

Creating a “Sound” Plan

 Hey! Welcome back. As the day we plan on filming our project quickest approaches, we’ve been focusing more so on ironing out any kinks we may find along the way and how we plan on editing our project. This being said my group considered an important factor we’ve yet to talk about/ mention thus far: music. 

    Music is vital to part of our film opening in order to help encourage the contrast of mood in Gabe between when he’s playing soccer and when he’s yelling/ arguing with his parents. The bright outdoor lighting mixed with upbeat energetic music, compared to the stealthiness and upsetness created in the other scene will help further this idea and our film opening’s quality in general.

    The main downside in deciding to include music in our piece is that we have to utilize copyright free music, and although there are many options, many of these options are very cheesy, repetitive, artificial sounding background noise that would probably more so confuse the viewer rather than help aid the scene. We’ve decided that if, when we are editing our project, the music we selected isn’t up to par or advancing the project overall to just get rid of it.

    That being said, after a lot of time spent finding a bunch of sounds that have less of an artificial sound to them, meaning they build over time and develop as time goes on rather than retreating to the exact same phrase again, we’ve decided we want to try to incorporate this musical sound element into our project. The name of some of these more unique copyright free songs are “moose, high octane, and rumble” and I found them on websites such as Bensound and Adobe Stock. Although I can’t directly share what these songs/ sounds sound like with you guys through my computer, trust me in that we’ve found some of the best of the best for the very very beginning of the opening in which Gabe is playing soccer. Thanks! Stay tuned to “hear” any new and upcoming announcements. 

Fixing Some Bumps in the Road

    Hey again! Since we are pretty far into this project, actually filming the opening and editing all of the material we record together is gradually becoming more of a reality as our deadline approaches. With this in mind we’ve been thinking more so about the logistics of filming and editing and in doing so, encountered a minor issue: sound. A lot of out film opening will be recorded outside, and with our project being recorded simply on an iPhone, it won’t have a high quality enough software or microphone to cancel out uncontrollable, unnecessary, unwanted background noise the outside environment at regional park may present us with, such as kids yelling in the distance, wind, and just other sounds that affect the clarity of the sound we pan on recording. 

    Even though this faces us with a problem, my group has collectively though together and come up with a couple of possible solutions to fix this problem and enable us to properly film with our phones, yet still have a great-looking final piece. Our first thought was to record the clips normally, and then, separate the sound from the clips, delete it, and then record a voice over to get higher-quality sound. Although this might work, I think with our limited level of experience with editing, it would prove quite difficult to do this and match up the voice audio with the video itself. Also, the sound levels might not sound right, meaning the voices might be too loud compared to the rest of the video and sound too artificial or just off in general.

    Another thought was putting copyright free music in the background to cancel out the unwanted background noise; however, we all quickly realized this probably wouldn’t work and would just produce too much chaos and noise in the background, especially with dialogue as well.

    Finally our last, and I think best option, is to purchase and use a lavalier microphone for filmmaking. These microphones can connect to one of our phones, and can be used when we record our videos. Having this gadget will help localize the sound making the sound we want focused on to be heard clearly rather than foggy when heard equally to all the background noise. These microphones range in price, but one of our group members found one for purchase for around $12, which we all agreed was a decent price in order to dramatically and drastically change the sound quality of our project for the better. This being said, we think this will be the best option overall, and we can’t wait to film our project. We’ll continue to plan out small details and in doing so find easy fixes for small issues we uncover while doing so. I’ll be back with more updates soon!

The date is set!

 Welcome back! My group finally decided and finalized a date for when we plan on filming…..March 13. We decided this is far enough into our planning/ creating process that we have enough detail and a good idea of how we plan on filming the clips and editing together to a point where we will have a great final product that exceeds our expectations. 

We know we want to meet at Weston regional park to film the first part all together as it involves two characters, Gabriel and Daniel, and one person to film. The rest of the film revolves solely around our main character Gabriel and his parents. This is why Gabriel will be played by Isaac, as his parents have agreed to participate and help us with our film opening. We plan on having Isaac film most of these scenes at home to give the opening a more realistic feeling.

After everything is filmed, we will work together to edit all the clips together, utilizing some of the editing techniques discussed in our storyboard and last blog. That’s all the updates for now. See you next time!

The Story(board) Continues!

After a long wait….my group finally finished our storyboarding!! Although it was definitely very time consuming, I think we will be able to take out all the hard effort we put in when it comes time to film, as it will make the filming process that much simpler. Rather than just drawing out the scenes as we went through our plot in detail, we also specified the types of camera shots and angles and editing techniques we planned on using at each step of the way. 

Since the purpose of our film opening is to establish character and context through developing emotions, a majority of the shots we’ve decided to use, in addition to the lighting, are close ups to help build upon this. In addition we also have a mixture of medium and long shots to show some body movements/ action to add to the scenes. We also, at first, we’re on the fence about using high/low angle shots in our opening as we didn’t want then to appear cheesy, but finally decided to use both in order to paint Gabriel as small in the high angle to show in a sadder, more cowardly nature and vice versa. We also decided to use the eyeline match editing technique to show and advance Gabriel’s thoughts/ feelings without having to explicitly use dialogue to do so.

Another detail we discussed that we didn’t explicitly mention on our storyboard were the use of/ creating the effect of the use of a handheld camera in the very beginning because of action during the scene in which Gabriel is playing soccer in the beginning. I’ll be back for more updates soon!