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!