My Final Project

Film Opening:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dtwv8nzciyrub1dj1ed1p/April-Fools.mp4?rlkey=3jw53lmzi5yyyk87xlwqyk4c5&st=iqc8yegq&dl=0

Critical Reflection:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/zr6o9u04nn3nl7spzxq5e/Creative-Critical-Reflection.mov?rlkey=wwjxy55cvrns200zv044cvyd0&st=3gi7uswz&dl=0

Filming my Creative Reflection

 To film my creative reflection, I want it to be a personal story video in which I speak to the camera as my audience. In order to keep from this being a boring video while I answer the questions I will be driving around in my Jeep. I have a phone stand where I will be recording myself and I have a portable ring light to support the visual quality of the video. In the editing process I am going to insert shots on the film as I talk about it to add visual effects and have the overall result be an attractive and entertaining video.

Preparing my Critical Reflection

My goal is to finish the project by tonight. I am currently looking to write myself a little script for what I am going to talk about. I am obviously not going to do it word for word it is mostly to have a layout of what I want to say. There are four important questions I must answer in the video and this is how I will do so:

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

The cast in my film consists of a social group of teenage girls, the film focuses on issues would appeal to their personal lives and teenage mind. As teenagers have a lot of emotion towards things and situations, this would be portrayed in the film through personal obstacles that the audience would relate to where they can create personal connections with the characters and enjoy the film on a deeper level.

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

My product is advertised for teenage audiences. This is done through the main characters being high schools students. It creates a common reality and similar though process and understandings in which the audience will often feel identified throughout the film. When it comes to distribution, I feel like theatrical releases have diminished since the pandemic and movie theaters don't fill like they used to. My main source of distribution would be video on demand platforms and streaming services. 

 

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

I have previously created a short film. Comparing to this one I feel like I have improved in a variety of areas. I have learned to cooperate better with the cast members to help them understand the delivery I am looking for as the director. I used a better quality camera for this film which helped me develop more creative and elaborate shots. When it comes to post production, AICE media has taught me to edit sound and color as projects in class gave me room to play around with editing software's and learn to use them, for this film I was able to develop overall better sound production and I believe the end result looks as professional as it can with my limitations as a high school student. 

• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

In this project I wanted to give the illusion that the audience was also with the characters but I felt that filming the whole film with a handheld camera and characters constantly breaking the fourth wall was going to lower the quality of the film. Therefore, I decided to add my digital camera footage in some scenes as to show what the characters are vlogging. 

Editing Problems

 I just spent the last two days trying to figure out why my DaVinci Resolve software wasn't working and I ended up using CapCut to edit the finishing touches to the film. I am very happy with the result. While editing I wanted to make the difference between camera footage more noticeable so with DaVinci I edited the saturation and color while with CapCut I added the date for the digital camera and added grain to the film. Here is an example of what each one looks like.

Canon Camera:

Digital Camera:

Editing Day 1

 A couple of days ago I began the editing process of my film on Davinci Resolve 19.1.4 

I have compiled all the clips together and managed to finish editing the introduction portion. There is still much to edit and I am planning on finishing by tonight or tomorrow night. I prepared a production title introduction to the film and made the title of the movie a different font, more related to the film. It is the same font I will be using for the title sequences shown throughout the video.

The background of the image is actually the last clip of the short film. I just edit the color and blur to prevent spoilers but the idea of this being a easter egg to the film intrigues me.

Behind The Scenes - Part 2

For my film I had my friends take pictures of me while I recorded. There is a moment when I needed my friends to act surprised all at the same time and so I played really loud music and I scared them, their reactions were funny. Overall the whole filming experience was super fun!

Behind The Scenes!

Behind the scenes of my short film, to create the fake blood, I blended corn syrup and food coloring, until the mixture looked dark enough under the lights, messy, but oddly satisfying. Once that was done, I shifted my focus to the kitchen itself, reorganizing it to be clean yet visually interesting. I added props to add color to the atmosphere. I added my red record player and vintage telephone that added a slight color to the background. Every detail, from the placement of the fake blood to the choice of props, was thoughtfully arranged to bring the scene to life and make the space feel like a messy play room for arts and crafts.

A short video of the set design process:

Shooting day!!!

 On the day we shot everything was Wednesday 03/12/25 I had four friends come over to help act in the film. Sam and Rebeca Ripoli, two of my actresses are studying photography and film so they were paying attention that the other two girls respected my work and what I asked for without getting frustrated. For example, I had the girls shoot the same scene various times so that I had content to chose from when editing and Sam helped explain that. They were also able to helping hold some lights up while I recorded the extreme close ups f the arts and crafts equipment. Here is some raw footage from those extreme close up shots:

Group Meeting #2

The people who I had a group meeting with today (03/12/25) were Renn, Miguel, and Roman. We discussed our film ideas and brainstormed creative content for our next project, the critical reflection. Renn is looking to do a Western film, she has already recorded and is almost done editing. She explains the only thing missing is color correcting and sound production. Miguel's film is about a senior rock band having a falling out with a guitarist with anger issues that ends up killing the lead singer of the band in a dispute. Miguels group has not recorded yet but they are looking on doing so this Saturday 03/15/25. Roman and his group are making a film about a drug dealer getting arrested by cops and interviewed. They have already recorded and were able to use real props as they had connections to a real cop they were allowed to use his badge and cop car for the film. Renn needed our help deciding the font for her introduction and we took a vote within the group. I needed help discussing my creative idea for my critical reflection. Renn explained she is looking to put her camera on her bike and talk about her film and answer questions as she rides her bike. I was thinking of filming a cooking video from POV shot, however we agreed that is not professional and media based. I ended up deciding to do a interview in which I watch my film and pause it as I speak about the BTS I went through as I was recording certain scenes, inserting BTS images, like a directors commentary.

A picture of my group and I:

Working on script

 I do not want to give my characters a script as these are just a group of girls hanging out and gossiping I am afraid of script writing making the the audio unnatural. I trust the cast can have fun and implement their own improvised lines to the scene. As we all, I am planning on recording each individual say 2 to 3 phrases I may implement and adjust the volume to anywhere throughout the scene in the editing portion of post production. The phrases I will request my cast members to say are "Someone call the police!" and "Hide the alcohol!" and I will have them record cries for help. These recordings will be used for the final shot of the digital camera in the long hot Dutch angle position.

Camera Technique

 For my film, I want to create the illusion that the audience is with the characters. I also enjoy films shot with a hand held camera. However, as this is a student film I fear this might make my film look uncared for. So, I had the creative idea of implementing two different cameras. I own a professional canon camera and a digital camera. (I like the vintage noise the digital camera makes when it zooms in and out so I will very likely find a way to include that in my film). I am planning on shooting the characters with an outside perspective using long shots with the canon camera and switching back and fourth with the digital camera. I will show the characters recording with the digital camera and inserting the video the digital camera took to show the characters POV and as a acoustic feel to the film.

Sound Production

 For todays blog post, I was working on my original sound track for the film. I have an old friend named Jack Kimmel who is looking to have a career in the music industry. I contacted him in regards to making a simple sound track for the background of my film.

Filming Re-Scheduled!

 Throughout the week I have been finalizing my storyboard. Unfortunately due to an unexpected event I was unable to record the short film over the weekend. However, the date has been rescheduled. I have made a second group chat with a different cast as a back up plan in case another emergency takes place and my original cast members are unable to record on Wednesday 03/12/25

Set Design

As my parents are architects my mother is used to working with interior design. As well as she used to help prepare sets for commercials and music videos in her first years working back n Argentina. I explained to her that I like the space of our kitchen to film the video as it is spacious and well symmetrical compared to the play room. However, my kitchen is cabinets are black and white. What attracted me to filming in my playroom was the amount of color and vibrancy the room has. I want to, in a way, prepare my kitchen by adding props by giving it color. I was going to add a colorful vas with flowers, add a purple candle I own, I have various random things in my playroom that I will locate in the kitchen area to bring it to life. Such as, a red record player, a pink telephone, a disco ball, a pink mini radio, a rack of costumes, puzzles and movie posters. 

Creating Fake Blood

Over the weekend, I had some friends loan me some arts and crafts equipment they had laying around. I managed to collect some paint tubes and glitter. For the film, I need fake blood. I was thinking of shopping somewhere in person but I am afraid that as it is not currently Halloween season I won't find any. I have learned through research that people often make fake blood using red food coloring with very little bit of blue and combining it with corn syrup. Here is a video of me preparing that concoction for my film.

Filming Dates

Unfortunately, as this is my senior year of high school, my friends and I are constantly busy preparing for the end of the year. This makes it difficult for me to find a filming date in which all four of us are free and can spend the majority of the day filming. However, thankfully we established a date for next Saturday, March 8th. I made a group chat in which the description explains a jist of what the film is about and the role of each character. I will soon be creating short scripts for each character to keep in mind throughout the filming process. I will likely record each character saying their lines into a microphone later that way when editing I may include the background comments and adjust the volume of each voice accordingly and efficiently.