Film Review Blog: Editing- Turning Advice Into Something Twice As Nice

    Hi there! Today marks the day that my team and I have completed the final edits to our project. After analyzing and evaluating all of the constructive criticisms I received, I figured it would be best to just get the changes I wanted to make out of the way and call it a day! This is especially because today marks the first official day of our spring break and I'm going to need a mental timeout from all school-related activities. With that being said, let's get into how I made the edits I discussed in yesterday's blog!

    Beginning first with the bulk of my editing work is none other than making auditory modifications. When I began I determined to work in order of ease so at the top of my list was muffling the police audio and quieting the song that plays in the final scene of our short film. I was able to change both of these aspects by working in the Fairlight tab. There, I was able to alter the equalization and as such alter how muffled an inputted audio sounds. The higher the frequency, the more clear the audio, whereas the lower the frequency, the more distant it sounds, the latter of which was the effect I was shooting for. To give you an idea of the exact values I used to achieve the effect you will hear in our short film, I've attached an image below.

    Decreasing the volume of the music proved to be even easier, although I did decide to take a more complicated route to achieve the intended effect. Instead of just lowering the entire snippet of sound, I split it into three segments, making it about a medium volume before the police audio is introduced, making it extremely low, and having the song increase in volume once the police sound clip had elapsed.

    Moving on, I also found a way to fill the gap in ambient audio when the primary subject makes a comment about seeing their forgotten partner on the news. Obviously, their remark is the most important piece of information being conveyed seeing as it tells the audience that they had in fact lost all memory of their partner and relationship. Having said that, I knew that once I had created an audio I would need it to be as quiet and almost indiscernible as possible, so decreasing the volume was a must. Before I could do that, however, I needed to record the sound clip. I resorted to using the iPhone application, Voice Memos, because it was the most straightforward and accessible voice recorder that I have access to. Although I do have access to an actual voice recorder, transporting a recording of that audio over to my laptop would not only be time-consuming, but it is quite likely that the quality would be distorted when changing platforms. Since the application I used is technologically more advanced than an actual voice recorder, I did lose some of the expected static-like sounds that one might expect to hear, which matches the sound of a television in the background. Therefore, I needed to take some extra measures to get just the right sound. I held my phone as far away from myself as possible and spoke into my sleeve, methods that proved to be effective!

    With those adjustments out of the way, all I had left to do was make a transition between two scenes less choppy. Since I was working with an action-match cut between the bathroom and office scene, all I did was align the hand movements and make them a continuation of one another in both scenes. Not too difficult of a change, but definitely a necessary one. The final amendment that I made was to the coloration, tinting, and brightness of the entire film. After speaking with my groupmates, we felt as though a reddish tint was best (in fact, it was a color we had discussed prior for the same reason) because not only did it make the primary subject truly look like an alcoholic with flushed cheeks, but it added a sense of ominousness that we wanted to capitalize on for the sake of our film being a thriller.

    Overall, I'm glad to have used today as a time to reflect on the changes we needed to make to improve our short film to be the best final product that it can be. As Billie Eilish likes to sing, right now "I'm happier than ever" (2021).

Film Review Blog: Am I Tweaking? Yes.

    Hey, what's up? As you can see, I have returned quite promptly after having taken my short film in for review. I showed it to none other than my parents, whom, despite their neverending support, I have asked to be objective and critical of my work. With this in mind, I plan to take each of their criticisms without offense. After having spoken, with them individually, I came up with similar feedback from both of them. The primary issues lie in audio rather than the physical aspects of our film. As we near our deadlines, I’ve never been more grateful to not have to stress about reshooting a scene. Circling back to the auditory issues, the main problem seems to be with the introduction of the song at the very end. Both my mother and father stated that they had trouble hearing the police officer because of how loud the music was. This whilst my teammate’s sister suggested we find a way to make the sound of the police officer quieter. Herein lay the struggle to strike a balance between the muffling of the police audio so it sounds distant and as though it originated from a source external to that of the house and it being intelligible in the first place. I ultimately decided that I should increase the volume of the diegetic sound of the police officer and decrease that of the music, at least until the aforementioned sound had concluded so as to not overshadow the importance of announcing the officer’s presence as our impactful ending. The other noticeable tweak I was told to make was to have audio from the news report carry over when the primary subject makes comment about seeing their forgotten partner on-screen. That way, we could avoid an awkward and unrealistic silence. Since it is my voice, I plan on recording a muffled sentence or two in regards to the case to fill the space, but making it lower when I insert it into the short film. In doing so, I will ensure that the primary subject can still be heard.

    One of my group members’ fathers made the suggestion that we should make our short film a little brighter in some places, which I wholeheartedly agree with. The last thing we would want in our short thriller film riddled with clues and elements of foreshadowing would be to have our hard work for subtle details overlooked. As such, prior to submitting and exporting the final copy of our short film, I intend to conduct a final and cohesive edit of the lighting, color, and tones of the featurette. My other teammates' sister then proposed that we fix the transition between the bathroom scene and the office scene to have our action-match cut line up better, which I something I plan on addressing. Another piece of constructive criticism I received was actually in the vein of costuming. My father told me that it would have been better had we changed the pajamas worn by the primary subject and perhaps their jewelry as well to signify that it was a new day. Looking back, I can agree that this may have been the better option, but my group and I feel as though there are enough contextual and auditory clues that allow the audience to understand that it is in fact a new day when appropriate. In any case, I have chosen to take everyone’s advice and suggestions in stride and will be sure to retain these tips to better my personal projects going forth. I am quite grateful to have such an encouraging and honest team of people by my side and I know my success is ensured because “We're all in this together(!)” (The High School Musical Cast, 2006).

Production Blog: Inch By Inch, Editing in Increments

    Hello! Today marked our second to last day of editing (our last will be when we finalize changes with the critiques we receive) and it definitely was a doozy. I started off by editing in all of our short film titles. I talked it over with my fellow groupmates and we decided that it would be best to utilize an alarm clock font that I had come across online (very fitting, I know), and to have the titles each fade in and out acting as a parallel to the subject’s unreliable memory. I have inserted a sample image of the font we chose below. We chose white to be our font color, which may seem a bit counterintuitive given that it is such a light hue. However, upon considering that it not only matches the actual color of the clock’s own display, as well as the fact that I made certain to place each title in a visible part of the screen, it seemed to be the best choice.

    After I got all of the titles edited in, I moved on to incorporating all of the new clips I had gotten from yesterday’s filming session. I shortened them and put them in the correct order, which proved to be a relatively straightforward task. When it came to adding in the scores created by my fellow teammate, however, it proved to be a bit of a challenge. I needed to make sure that they came in at just the right time and left the scene just as smoothly. I also needed to lengthen the audios a bit and reupload new remastered copies of them. From there, using the audio editing capabilities of DaVinci Resolve 18 to my advantage, I simply used a slider to change the volume level and worked from there. On the topic of audio, when working to produce the sound effect of the subject’s partner hitting her head, we employed foley sound by having our subject bang their fist into the wall. This audio sound byte is what I then inserted into my editing software and reconfigured with the help of the foley sampler option.

    The rest of the changes that I made during editing were purely cosmetic. I began by having the seven in the time seven twenty-four appear to be darkened once the time changed so that the title of our film is clearly displayed. I was able to achieve this effect by using the paint and masking tools on DaVinci Resolve 18 and tracking them frame by frame to the moving clip, as shown below.

    Aside from that, I also worked on blurring the surroundings of the television so that any photos my team and I were not allowed to move could be obscured. Additionally, I also took care to cover the PowerPoint options that had appeared on the television screen in the final scene, seeing as I had used that program to create the news segment. I was able to do so using the same technique I mentioned prior when working on the film’s title.

    All in all, today’s editing session was not the shortest, but definitely the most valuable. This time around I truly believe that audio was my biggest hurdle, so being able to overcome that obstacle and create a worthwhile film is definitely something I’m looking forward. I've come to understand that "Nothing's impossible (!)" (Depeche Mode, 2005).

Production Blog: Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

    Well, well, well, it’s the moment I’ve been waiting for, the fight scene. Today was definitely the most interesting day I’ve experienced when it comes to filming our short film, just as it should be given that today was our final day of filming. We began by shooting the Italian restaurant sequence. The entire day has been overcast and cloudy, so it wasn't surprising when it started to drizzle. Nevertheless, today was the day that we needed to wrap everything up, so we needed to power through it. Before we stepped foot outside though, we needed to simulate the consumption of alcohol, so we whipped up a concoction of Sprite, water, and lime juice in a wine glass, making for an unpleasant, nonalcoholic, white wine-resembling beverage. When it came to the subject's partner, we simply provided her with a glass of water, serving as a contrast between their two drink choices and conflicting personalities. Once there was a break in the rain, we began to film as quickly as we possibly could, only taking us three takes to get the shots we desired. As I had done with the office and subsequent bedroom scenes leading up to the date, I posed the subject in the same manner that she had been, leaning at an angle with a smile on her face. Using the same logic as we had in previous scenes, I filmed the shots in which she was shown in one long take before switching over to filming her partner. In editing, I plan to combine these clips together to achieve both the effect of an eye-line match and cross-cutting. Going a bit off script, we used a close-up shot of the subject’s partner to allow for a real-time reaction to her observance of the subject drinking from her glass five times, which ties better into the following argument scene. 

    Speaking of that argument scene, we initially intended to have our primary subject's partner pacing around behind them on the couch as they scolded the subject. However, when reevaluating our filming location, we discovered that not only was the couch attached to the wall, but there was also a mirror that sits directly behind the couch, meaning that if I recorded directly in front of it, I would be present within the shot. Hence, I decided to shoot from an angle to account for said mirror. When it came to the general layout of the room, my team and I decided to make it look as neat and clean as possible, once again drawing a contrast between the two personalities and lifestyles of the subject and their partner. Given the context and subject of the argument, we also rolled up an alcoholic drink cart and had it be visible within the frame. With the physical altercation that transpired, I also ensured that the shot of our subject’s partner being killed after being smaller against the corner of the wall was obscured. That way we could also make certain that the groupmate playing the subject’s partner was not actually injured, given that safety is our utmost concern. 

    When we had both of those two scenes completed, we changed set locations and headed over to my teammate’s other home where we filmed her in her living room with the scene following the soured date. It did take a few tries to get her to nail the tone and emotions, but overall for someone who isn’t a professional actress, she did a pretty good job! We also discovered that we have unsuspectingly engaged in a continuity error, having the subject not dressed in her date attire the morning after the date. To accommodate for this error, I recommended that we show the subject get up to leave the frame and presumably get ready for bed before returning to the couch and falling asleep there.

As per usual, here are a few production stills to give you a better idea of what the filming process looks like from my perspective and that of my team.

The image above depicts our primary subject and I (or my arms rather) as I rearrange the props on the table in an attempt to create a more restaurant-like environment given that we filmed in the subject’s backyard. 

The photograph above is of my other teammate who is portraying the subject’s partner as we attempt to get the framing of her face just right so that her reactions to the subject’s drinking are the most central part of the shot. 

Even though we’re almost at the end of our journey, I want you to know that I’m still here and “I’m in it for the long haul” (Ian Munsick, 2021). 

Production Blog: Slicing, Dicing, and Re-Splicing

    Greetings! After having two back-to-back and very jam-packed days of filming, editing today was quite the hefty task! As you might have already expected, the first step was running the clips through iMovie. That application has to be my favorite one-stop shop for piecing clips together and testing out different transitions before moving on to the more complicated platforms like Davinci Resolve 18. When working in iMovie, I was able to take care of transitioning between cuts during the morning sequence. By slowly sliding through each clip, I was able to find the perfect moment to combine the shots in which the primary subject is shown listening to the voice recorder from a medium shot framing to when they are captured with the use of an over-the-shoulder shot and then back again when the message closes off to show their reaction. Furthermore, before switching programs, I also worked on tweaking the transition between the conclusion of the bathroom scene to the office scene by aligning the hand placements to make it seem as though the motion was completed from one scene to the next, effectively introducing an action-match cut into the mix. As such, I was able to avoid awkward pauses, moving on to sizing down the length of shots in some cases, and for smoother transitions, sometimes extending the length of some clips, all in an effort to meet our given time constraint of five minutes. At this time, we have about two minutes and thirty seconds left of filming leeway for our last few scenes. Once I had ordered all of the clips that we had presently available, I uploaded copies of them onto Google Drive, downloaded them onto my laptop, and booted up DaVinci Resolve 18. The first thing I did when I opened up the application, in fact, my utmost priority, was finding a way to back up my work. You can truly never be too careful, and it's too late in the game to run the risk of losing any hard work I put in going forwards, so I did repeatedly save my progress every couple of minutes or so once I had made any major changes. The platform's new update has made it more user-friendly, but my previous experience working with the software allowed me to navigate the settings and put in my preset saving preferences, as I have shown below.

    Before continuing forward and making actual alterations to what we currently have of our short film, I did confer with my teammates and we decided that it would be best to leave the tonal and color scheme editing for the film at the very end that way each scene had a uniform look instead of having to work with presets as I had originally intended. I began my work on DaVinci Resolve 18 by inputting the scores I had at my disposal. That meant integrating the score for the morning scene, pre-date scene, as well as the final scene of our short film, the last of which was composed by an actual band, Jayomi, who as you may recall, gave us permission to utilize their song. All of said scores would also give my team and I the innate opportunity to minimize ambient background noises that detract attention away from our short film and its message. When it came to including the final song, I found that our earlier decision to have the television audio turned down by the primary subject within the clip, allowed me to capitalize on the relative lack of sound and gradually introduce the melody. In that same scene, I need to overlap that song with the audio of the police officer stating their presence (courtesy of our primary subject's father). To do so, I employed the amazing capabilities of the DaVinci Resolve 18 program, which allowed me to lower the volume of the song and increase that of the officer's voice to ensure its intelligibility. In the meantime, one of my teammates is continuing to work diligently to provide me with the rest of our necessary scores so that I can later edit them into their respective scenes, as to encapsulate the distinctive tones that they each exude. Incorporating these audios meant that I needed to have them fade seamlessly in and out, matching them the best I could to any dietetic sounds to make their introduction into a shot as natural as possible. Aside from the insertion of said scores, I also worked on including dietetic sound effects, such as the news station jingle, signally to the viewers that the primary subject had turned on their television and was watching the morning news broadcast. This also doubled as a means of avoiding an awkward cut, by acting as a sound bridge between shots. The entire concept of including an originally produced video inside of our own piece of media was something I had wanted to attempt since last year, so being able to see everything start to fall into place and come together was absolutely worth it! As I worked on that sound effect and examined the rest of that news segment clip, I discovered that some of the audio had been cut off before its transfer to DaVinci Resolve 18 from iMovie. In order to avoid a slow upload time from one device to another, I decided to be resourceful and superimposed the last remaining bit of the statement after stripping the full-length clip of its audio. That proved to be the more efficient method in the end. 

    In terms of the physical improvements I made to the short film, I inserted a fade out to black at the very end of our short film. This final transition will allow the audience to not only fully appreciate the pure masterpiece that the song "metamorphosis" by Jayomi is, but also to experience a complete realization of what had just unfolded on the screen in front of them. Try as I might, I still could not entirely resolve the issue of accounting for the camera movement during the bathroom scene, but I did tilt the screen a bit to attempt to remediate as much as I could and it seems as though it is barely noticeable. 

 I have included some snippets of my editing process below to give you an insight as to what goes on behind the camera.

    Since I had other school work I needed to attend to I was unable to work on making the number twenty-four more noticeable on the alarm clock, blurring out the objects that we were not allowed to move from the background, and covering up the obvious indication that the news segment was created on PowerPoint. Aside from those three things I need to address, in my next editing session, I also intend to work with my team to incorporate the titles to give proper credit to all of the collaborators of this project, as well as to determine the proper font choice, color, and placement to match the tone of our short film.

 I think I've done a fair amount of work to call it day and all I can say about these scenes that I've been working with is that "I wanna slice you and dice you(!)" (Post Malone and Young Thug, 2019).

Production Blog: A Part of the Action

    Well hello there reader! As you might have been expecting, I am back again with another filming blog today! I will say that since we last spoke things have gotten interesting regarding my role in the project. When we filmed today, my group mates and I focused in on the final scene. While filming just one scene may not seem like much of an achievement, I will say that given the volume of work my team and I needed to put forth it was quite the feat. To begin, we needed to create a fake news report to show on the television screen which our subject would watch, doubling as the big reveal for our audience. That's where I came in! Since both of my other teammates are central subjects of our short film, someone needed to fill in the gap for the additional individual we would be showing on-screen, so I stepped up to the plate. Now, because we lack direct access to an actual news recording studio, I decided to make the most of what we had, rolling up an office chair against a blank wall in my groupmate's bedroom, grabbing a cute mug from her cupboard, flipping over her black laundry bin, and then setting up shop. To avoid giving the impression that a random, poor-quality video was playing on-screen, I knew it had finally become time to put my PowerPoint skills back to the test. Using the animation feature, I was able to have the latest headline slide across the bottom of the clip as they do in real life. Additionally, I was also able to have the photo of the victim and an adoption related image fade in. It did take more effort than I had expected because I was unfamiliar with the laptop I was using (it was not my own), but it was a success. Once we had finalized the news segment, we tidied up the living room and cleared away any items that conflicted with the subject's personality or their constructed background. In the case that we were told not to touch or remove any of the items, I planned ahead on removing them with the help of a blurring tool when I get into the editing phase. We also added in an alcohol bottle, ensuring it was visible in the shot each time it needed to be shown. After we sorted that out, we got straight to recording! Staying true to our screenplay, we began with our use of an overhead medium shot to show our subject as they woke up on their couch and turned on their television. The process of filming that particular shot was no overly difficult, although we did need to reshoot a couple of times due to external interruptions. 

    Now I’ve experienced enlightened to say that sometimes technology fails us in contemporary society (DaVinci Resolve 17, don't think I forgot about you), but other times it absolutely saves the day. Today was the latter because with the laptop's screen-sharing capability I was able to directly connect the desktop's contents to the television screen, which is going to save me a great deal of time when I begin editing this batch of clips. That is because I will not need to worry about aligning a superimposed video over the scene and having to account for minor shifts in the camera's framing or angle. Despite our screenplay outlining our incorporation of a close-up shot on the television, I ultimately opted not to use one because I felt that the cut between the facing the subject and looking at the television was too jarring. It felt more natural to have employ a point of view shot and capture the television screen that way. As I had learned from shooting the bathroom scene, it is better to shoot one particular sequence in one go and edit the clips together than it is to try and cut back and forth and maintain the same framing, lighting, and positioning.

    After that was complete, I had the opportunity to take on more active role in the film once more, being the person who knocks on the subject’s door at the very end. Although the window is frosted over, I tried my very best to adopt an authoritative stance likened to that of a police officer. With all of that now out of the way, my team and I are just about done with only three scenes left to go!

    Just so you can get in on some behind-the-scenes action, I've included a couple of filming stills below!

Here's a photo of my groupmates and I moving a prop to a different location on set.

Although I am not pictured in this photo, this is the PowerPoint slide I had been working on in an effort to simulate a real news report.

As we get ever-closer to concluding our production phase, my sole words of motivation are sang loud and proud by Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel “Don’t give up (!)” (1986).

Production Blog: More Recording and A Bit of Re-Shooting

    Welcome back! I am pleased to tell you that my team and I have made great strides since our last filming session! We started off strong today, having all of our necessary props prepped and ready to go, meaning that I was able to start setting up my phone to film right away. Well, that is with the exception of our subject's T-shirt. After speaking to her upon my arrival, I was notified of the fact that it had been unfortunately misplaced. Given that our last go-around with recording only allowed for us to film one of the scenes, of which we had preceding scenes we needed to shoot, that meant we needed to re-record our entire bathroom scene to ensure that all of the clips aligned perfectly costuming-wise. I'm not one for luck or superstition, but given the issues I ran into while editing the last batch of shots, I'd say that the missing shirt was a blessing in disguise. Naturally, having the experience of filming the bathroom scene and now understanding where the problem originated from, we decided to start filming there. One of teammates suggested with use a camera stand and attach my phone to it as securely as possible. Doing so would minimize accidental shifts of the camera due to an unsteady hand, making the transition between our cut less noticeable. As soon as we finished recording the continuous shot, I made sure to take a quick, impromptu trip over to the iMovie app where I spliced the two clips together. This time around the only noticeable difference was with the lighting, so I'd say that's a win in my book! 

    After we got the bathroom scene down-pat, we moved on to the morning sequence. The preparation for that scene was quite the involved process. I began by working with my team to remove any extraneous items from the shot. Aside from what was mentioned in the screenplay, I took the liberate of incorporating a few more items that I felt would establish the tone that we intended to convey. The first of which was the inclusion of pill bottles, which one of groupmates suggested we messily spread out to illustrate how scattered the thoughts and actions of our subject are. In my teammates room, I also found there to be two books of interest. Their titles were intriguing and I felt they were relevant to the storyline of the film, which are important for their foreshadowing of later events, allowing perceptive viewers to extrapolate information and come to such conclusions before it all unfolds on-screen, just as thrillers are intended to be. As such, I chose to place them within view of the close-up shot that captured the alarm clock. Speaking of the alarm clock, it was my job to set and reset it every time we reshot the scene, which was a good handful considering that we needed to get the timing just right between our subject waking up, the alarm going off, and the time changing on the clock to be our film's title. I also readjusted the props any time they were moved, putting them back into their standard state or original location. Additionally, I figured out how to work the voice recorder and am even featured as the voice that says "Sunday" to denote when the message had originally been recorded. 

    Prior to filming today, I had spoken over the phone with one of my other groupmates to determine what details on the primary subject's life we should include on the sheet of paper that they read every morning. Said sheet of paper is also visible to our audience in the shot, and as such should include information that they may find useful in establishing more context for the subject given the limited time we have to give them a fully fleshed background in our five-minute short film. We ultimately decided that the name of the subject's affliction as well as a short description of it should be included, as well as their date of birth, full legal name, home address, social security number (no I did not my, or my teammates', actual numbers), phone number, parents and their relationship to the subject, as well as their place of work should be listed.

    Getting to back my actual filming experience, once we had wrapped up the morning sequence, we moved on to filming the office scene. My team and I ensured to leave the room we were shooting in in the exact same condition while we filmed the office scene because we were later going to film one more scene in said location. To jump forward a bit here, that scene was of the primary subject listening back to part of another voice recording in which the audience becomes aware of their date later that same night. The reason why we had chosen not to film that scene while we filmed the rest of our scenes in that same location was because we wanted to establish a parallel between the office scene and the morning after with regards to the subject's expression and posture. When it came to the office scene, the setup was relatively easy. Now before I get into that, you may recall that I had previously mentioned in an earlier blog that one of our teammates' fathers has a personal office at his place of work. Whilst it would have been amazing if we had been able to utilize said location to film, recent safety restrictions were put in place at his job that have prevented us from doing so. Being the resourceful young ladies that we are, we turned a dining room table into an office space with some clever placement of a laptop, desk chair, pens, stress ball (or brain rather), and sticky notes, you know, the works! Having our subject use the laptop, she was able to time herself before queuing a sound effect to play, which would be the ringing of the desk phone. It proved to be a good decision given that it reduced the strain of having either myself our my other teammates struggle with getting the timing just right. Once we had finished filming that scene, we cleaned everything up, called it a day and went our separate ways. Now here I am finishing this blog for you! I have decided to attach a few filming stills below, so be sure to check those out!

In the photograph above, I am shown working with our lead actress to record a message on the voice recorder.

Here you are able to catch of glimpse of my perfectionism taking over as I ensure to perfectly place the sticky note back onto the correct position where they were originally found on the primary subject's glasses before we refilm a shot.

In the preceding photo, I am pictured with both of my teammates after we grabbed a quick bite to eat and took a well-deserved break.

    My team and I will be convening again tomorrow to continue filming and I'll be sure to post another blog and keep you in the loop. As our subject would say, I hope you enjoy the rest of your day, and have a nice twenty-four, but in the words of The Smashing Pumpkins, I hope you make sure that "Today is the greatest (!)" (1993).

Production Blog: The Editing Edition

    Hi! After having filmed the other day, I was finally able to get to what is probably one of my favorite parts of the production process, editing! My editing session was rather short today because we were only able to get one scene completed due to the tight schedule we were running on the other day, but I would definitely say that I was rather productive. Considering that I only had one scene to edit, I determined that it would be best if today I just worked on preliminary alterations in iMovie. Using that platform at this point in time would optimize the efficiency of my editing period instead of having to navigate around the more complicated Davinci Resolve application this early on (yes, it will be making a comeback despite our differences last year). During filming, we ran into the issue of human error once my phone stabilizer had run out of battery, which unfortunately manifested itself in an awkward cut between two shots once I spliced together two parts from the continuous video we had taken. Interestingly, the purpose of taking the long, continuous shot was to avoid encountering such an issue, but even the most unnoticeable shifts of the camera during filming are picked up once the shot is later reviewed. Before making any drastic changes I conferred with the rest of my group. 

    One of my teammates suggested that I try to line up the other shots we had taken of the first half of the scene with those of the later half to make the cut less obvious. A great idea, I must admit, but it was to no avail. Either the framing or lighting was off (no, I don't mean literally for the latter), so it was a no-go. Plus, the first half of the lengthier shot was the one in which the alcohol flask was the most prominent, so had one of the other clips lined up with the other half of the longer clip, then our viewers may have instead taken our effort to achieve a unique transition as a sign that my team and I had fallen victim to a continuity error so early on in our short film. Since adjusting the framing of both shots to fit one another would also, in part, require me to compare them to each of the preceding and following scenes (which we have yet to film) so as to ensure there is a seamless transition between each location, I resorted to editing the tints and hues of said scene so that they fit with the overall tone my groupmates and I aspired to create for that part of the short film. With that being said, for consistency's sake, I did make sure to save a copy of the exact modifications I used as a preset so that I can later apply it to additional scenes in which such a mood is appropriate. This did warrant some collaboration with our in-house, on-team, music creator and innovator (I think reading Dr. Seuss's books to my younger cousin is doing a number on me), who helped me map out the score for each scene. She actually created a score for the scene we worked on the same day that we filmed, so I was able to superimpose the audio over the clips I had gathered. That then allowed me to determine what color I felt best matched the emotions I felt that the shots evoked. I ultimately settled on a red and greenish tint, which I felt evoked a sense of boredom, something that the rest of my team also seemed to concur with. This establishment of said tone would also allow for the scene to be reminiscent of an earlier time, giving it a more vintage feel. It also went hand in hand with the idea that when one drinks alcohol, their face becomes flushed and adopts a more red-like hue.

I just know that with some patience, "tender love and care" (Michael Jackson 1982) our short film can be edited into a masterpiece!

Production Blog: Finally Filming

    Hello! Yesterday was a momentous occasion, my team and I were finally able to convene and film. We left together after school and I rode with one of my teammates to the other's house. After eating a hearty chicken sandwich, we were on our way to our filming location. Once we arrived at the home we would be filming at, we immediately set up and prepared to shoot. I had gathered what I believed to be all of the necessary props, but upon taking stock of what we had collected, we realized that we were short on a few items, likely due in part to oversight, but primarily as a result of the excitement we had felt about finally being able to begin. Since one of the props we had forgotten to acquire was the pair of glasses that our primary subject wears and interacts with at the very start of the film, which we had intended to record yesterday, we had to resort to filming the bathroom sequence. Before anything else, we ensured that our primary subject was dressed in an informal, pajama looking outfit (impeccable taste in terms of the T-shirt, I must say), and that the bathroom was properly set up for us to film, removing miscellaneous objects. We had originally planned to have a medium full shot frame our subject while they got ready in front of their mirror, but after re-evaluating the dimensions of the mirror inside of the room, we determined that said approach would not be plausible. As one does when faced with an unexpected challenge, I adapted to the situation. As a result, I nominated that we settle on an angled medium close-up shot, which would ensure that the camera remained out of view of the mirror and that the necessary elements, particularly the alcohol flask, remained in the shot. In order to sell the idea that the primary subject was a messy individual without detracting attention away from her, I suggested we find a way to make the mirror seem dirtier. In response, our main actress spit some water (mixed with toothpaste) onto it. As we began to film, we realized that to match the feeling of a quick, yet monotonous morning routine, we would need to have a quicker cut. To do so, I suggested we incorporate an additional, seamless transition into the scene, which one of my groupmates expanded on, by stating that a quick cut should occur between the toothbrushing and the drinking of "alcohol" from the flask. In an effort to make the scene look uninterrupted as a result of the cut, we took a long, continuous shot of the entire sequence. When I edit said scene, I plan to splice together during an upcoming editing session. Filming ended up taking us a total of eleven shots, but we got it right! There were times where I was starting to get a little but frustrated because of how tedious it had become trying to obtain the right shot, but the perfectionist in me couldn't help but be elated once we finally achieved it. Obviously since we filmed after school on a weekday, that meant that my team and I were running on limited time, but I felt as though we accomplished a decent amount that will set us up for our next filming session.

Here's a still from the scene we filmed yesterday! 

As we get closer and closer to the deadline, I can vouch for my team when I say that we are definitely feeling the pressure. As Ke$ha puts it, I'm really seeing that "tick-tock on the clock(!)" (2009) as our time winds down!

Production Blog: March "Marketing" Madness

    Hey there! As you might have expected, a marketing blog was well on its way. For any short film or full-length feature, it is essential to have not only an established fanbase, but also a means of promoting our work to a larger audience. Given that our films intended to appeal to a wide variety of ages, my team and I have decided to expand our reach across a number of different streaming and social media platforms today. The first account I created was one on Gmail. The creation of a centralized email account, to which my teammates and I all share the password to, allowed me to then create linked social media accounts. It has, as such, become a working business email for us to eventually relay information from the production team (ourselves) to the viewers when our website is officially up and running, as well as a means to contact film festival organizers in the case that we choose to enter our short. Following the creation of our formal email address, I figured the next logical course of action was to start a channel on YouTube. The process was quite seamless because both platforms are managed by the same company. After discussing the creation of the channel with my teammates, we decided that we might choose to post a blooper reel later on, or perhaps some behind-the-scenes footage, aside from just uploading our film there. As amazing as it was to have received permission to incorporate an actual song ("metamorphosis" by Jayomi) into our short film, I prefer to err on the side of caution and, as such, to avoid having our video taken down and inaccessible for viewers, I created a Vimeo account as well. 

    When it came to actual social media accounts, I also secured an Instagram account. Since I am familiar with the popular platform, creating a profile was not at all difficult. As for the actual profile picture, I was able to work some photo editing and digital art magic (of which I am no master) on ibis Paint X to get an image that I felt matched the tone of our film, as well as one that inspired intrigue to attract followers. I ensured to follow some of my top cinematographic inspirations (I've asked my partners to do the same) as well as my fellow groupmates so that we would be able to remain connected and active. The handle, or username, I created for our Instagram account is the very same one I used upon then opening up another account on Twitter, where I also used the same profile picture for consistency purposes. In doing so, I intend for our short film to increase its publicity by maintaining a recognizable name and image across platforms. Of course, I also needed to create a Facebook account. 

    Unfortunately, it seems as though in Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to reconcile with his upset patrons following the 2018 Facebook incident, security and protective measures for users have been tightened, to the detriment of high school students like myself who are just looking for another outlet through which I am able to increase viewership for my short film. This is especially true considering that I lack access to the funds and public connections necessary to create widespread advertising campaigns and receive sponsorships for our featurette. Anywho, my approval for a Facebook is currently pending, so hopefully it will be accepted into the database, if not, we have a myriad of other ways to reach out to our potential audience. 

If the name looks a bit odd, that is because it is a combination of all three of my team members: Jordyn (myself), Aja, and Ashley.

    With great outreach powers comes great responsibility and I have since delegated the duty of social media manager and website creator to my other teammates. I, on the other hand, will be devising ideas for posts and having them made in the first place before they are reviewed by the team as a whole. In fact, I am currently working on our launch post for our Instagram account where I will be introducing my groupmates and giving our viewers a chance to familiarize themselves with the cast and production crew behind the film, so keep an eye out for that! Aside from all of that, I am also working on designing the postcard for our short film, so I'll be sure to keep you "posted" on that as well. I will be including images of each of our social media platforms below with the usernames included, so be sure to give us a follow to stay current on our latest posts, announcements, and updates!

As this blog comes to a close I'm happy to say that I'm ready to welcome our audience "with open arms(!)" (Journey 1982).