Blog 44 - CCR video 2

 CCR video 2

Blog 43 - CCR video 1

 CCR video 1

Blog 42 - Final 2 minute Film

 Final 2 minute Film

Blog 41 - Final 2 minute Film Reflection

 Final 2 minute Film Reflection

You’ve all have had the amazing opportunity to follow along me and my team with this long and rigorous journey of Media Studies. We recently just finished our 2 minute film, so let’s talk a bit more about it. 

My thoughts

My first opinion on our film is that it felt rushed. We could’ve easily avoided this by starting the film earlier in the year to make our lives easier in the end, and to have an overall better end result. The editing was perfect, it was just the talking in the film. If it wasn’t so rushed, we could’ve redid scenes on another day to make the sound quality better. But, since we didn’t have time for that we settled for some voice overs and sub titles. 

We did not want to incorporate too many voice overs during the talking scenes with friends like the one at the mall, because it would have sounded too much like a voiceover. We wanted it to be natural, not feel like it was forced too much. So adding in voiceovers in that scene would have made it sound too fake especially since not everyone in the group wanted to do a voiceover nor had the ability to download the app to do the voiceovers on their phone. 

Other than that, our film turned out super good especially if you take a trip back in time to our first ever film. My team and I have worked very hard to keep these films going, and  we  can’t wait to continue it next year!

Now getting into group members. The main directors of the film were me and Adrian. The producer was Adrian, and for our filmers we had Savannah, Amaris, Tatiana (me), and Adrian. For the actual scenes, Amaris only filmed one scene and it was the mall scene. Other than that she did nothing else. I helped film some of the mall scene, as did Adrian. I acted in every scene, as did Adrian, Savannah, and Alina. Me and Adrian did most of the directing for this film, but we got confirmation and some ideas from Savannah and Amaris.

Blog 40 - CCR Production Blog

CCR Production Blog

Today, we spent a total of 8 hours doing my CCR video. Producing this video was harder than I expected. There were many changes in script throughout the entire film, plus the fact that it needs to be 7-10 minutes long. We took maybe 1 break the whole time just to eat, then as soon as we were done, we went straight back to it.

The actual CCR

As I said last blog, I had no real script for my CCR. All I had planned out was my 4 answered questions. Here’s that script now. 

CCR question script

1. Well at first we never planned for the romance aspect. It was originally supposed to be a horror film inspired by Five Nights At Freddy's. But then once we talked with the whole group, it became clear that a romance film was our best option. It was actually perfect timing because me and my boyfriend had just finished watching the notebook, so I pitched it to the whole group (including my boyfriend) and they all said it was perfect. So there it was, we invisitioned it so well. We were gonna do our film based off inspirtation from the notebook, no questions asked. It contained drama, ups and downs, how romance is always a process, how its hard sometimes, and most importantly, how they grow over time. It was just the planning that took a turn for the worst.We wanted this film to feel relatable, and not in a lovey dovey way. We wanted to showcase the imperfections that come with each love story.  

2. Starting off, we had little to no budget. So that was already hard enough. The hardest thing our group had to do was planning the meetups because everyone always seemed to be busy ALL THE TIME! We ended up having to film some scenes without all the crew members, but that's a story some people aren't ready to hear if you know what I mean. But, if I were to decide to make this film really come to life, I would immediately go to Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures.. Something about the colors, and the bubbly conversations made it feel like it belonged in a Disney film since they always have love tropes going on. I feel like the main WOW factor in our film was the fact that it was real. So I feel showing this film to kids will make sure kids know it’s not always a ”happily ever after” and that there are ups and downs sometimes, and to get through a real relationship you have to fight for it – make moves!  

3. One of the major expenses was used to get a camera. We bought the Sony zv-1f vlogging camera. The reason we bought it was mainly for the film, but we’re using it for personal use as well. We thought the quality would be amazing since it was literally marketed as a vlogging camera. So, without doing test shots, we filmed a school scene, Then, I got the bad news from our editor that it was horrible. The camera looked like someone put a whole tub of aquaphor on it. It was horrible. So that meant - you guessed it – REFILMING THAT SCENE. It was horrible. But, we decided that we had no time to film that scene since everyone's schedules kept overlapping. So we cut it. And it was for the best too. Our main editing source was cap cut. But, our editor found this app that you can only get with the iPhone 16, so once he got it he showed us the stabilizing feature, and oh my wow was it good. So, that’s what we used to film the rest of our film. We went into a store to film the one scene I'm sure you saw, and the employees were not having it at all. They tried kicking us out, before we finally said ”we just have one last scene, give me 5 minutes please” and they gave in and we finally finished that scene. Other than that, we just had the normal hiccups in production like planning, editing, and meetups. During this whole process we learned how hard it is to actually have everyone be set on times, how to work without certain people there, how to import videos from a camera, and most importantly, how to produce a high quality film with a low budget.  

4. The thing I struggled most with was the technology aspect. So learning to do all this was completely new to me. Let's just say I watched a lot of YouTube videos. The first thing I learned how to do was blog. Let’s just say, getting videos to be uploaded onto Blogger.com was a super hard process. I had to learn how to upload a video on YouTube, get the shareable link, THEN paste it into blogger. Somewhat similar for pictures but the picture part was self explanatory. Then, we started having to do research on what our film was gonna be about, so I watched a bunch of movies on Netflix, and certain scenes on YouTube as well. Then, we moved on to actually producing this. So, we bought the camera. I did hours of research before we decide on buying the camera, and everyone was having amazing results, so we made the choice to buy it. Then obviously came the day that we filmed, and it turned out horrible, so out editor taught us about how we can use the iPhone 16 with the Final Cut Camera app. For the distribution part, YouTube and blogger.com were the best ways I could distrubuite the film, plus the process behind it all. And All this put together got our group where it is today - with an amazing film and all the knowledge that came from it. 

This was the only thing planned in my CCR, other than that, it was all pure out of my head and in the “spur of the moment” type of dialogue, which I researched is used in a lot of present films like Greys’ Anatomy, Adolecense, and Gossip Girl. 

So essentially the script other than the questions was just a stream of consciousness. 

Set-Up

I think it took around an hour to set up and prepare for our scene. We started at 7:15 and ended at 8:23

Without the lights off, this is what my chair looked like.

This is where I’d be sitting.With the lights off it was super dark - aka what I was going for - and it was perfect lighting. I had 3 cameras set up - 2 on the floor, 1 on the table. There was 1 camera on each side of the table to get angles of both me and the “helper” from the ground. Then the one on the table was to show  basically a close up shot of me talking with the helper.  This is what the rest of my setup looked like.

I wanted this set up to feel like it was being filmed in a ware house. So dungey and untaken-care of. This was to show a more “dangerous” feel. Like this is somewhere where you go when you’re up to no good.

This is the final blog about CCR’s (not including the 2 upcoming blogs of the submission of each video), and I hope to hear good things about this video as I am super proud of how everything is turning out.

Blog 39 - Finalizing Production

 Finalizing Production 

As you may know, the final due date for the late submission is on March 31st. Meaning by the end of this week we need to have both the CCR and the final film done. We’re finalizing the 2 minute film this week, and it should be done latest Wednesday. Now, since we waited until last minute to start this film, we’re stuck working on it during spring break. So, that means we need to think of ideas for the CCR as well. 

CCR

I stayed up super late on the first Monday of spring break. (Aka yesterday) and I thought of my plan for the CCR. Now, it was 3 in the morning so I didn’t feel like getting out of bed to do a blog, let alone doing a blog at that time so I wrote a rough draft in my notes app on my phone, and here it is.

Keep in mind, this is the outline not the script. My idea for the script is I’m just going to let it flow when we film and see where it goes. I’m aiming for the first video to be 3 minutes or longer, and the second video 4 minutes or longer. 

The second video has more doing rather than saying in that one, so it wasn’t really important for me to do the script for that one.

CCR outline

First video 

Intro: 

Helper turns on light and I look annoyed by it , then he says “it’s rolling, state your name, candidate number, your century, and film title

Me stating my name candidate number century number opening film title 

^

Will be done by me sitting in dark room with light on my face 

Main scene: 

Adrian getting interviewed from a far then my head creeping in 

Then: 

Go pro camera and I’m sitting on my laptop “stalking” him get interviewed 

Then cuts to me getting interviewed by the “helper”

Answer first 2 questions and elaborate on production 

Camera “glitches” then turns back on signaling next video 

Second video 

“Helper” saying “okay I think it’s fixed keep elaborating” 

I answer the last 2 questions about production elaborating more on what happened 

Cuts to first person pov 

Then helper gets shown 

Cuts back to my face 

You see helpers hand in black glove handing me a package 

I open it to find the bucees onesee and mask inside

Helper will say “I’ll help you with your problem but idk if you’re gonna like it”

Close up of my face and I say “are you sure?” Looking scared and afraid looking at the onsee 

Film ends

Now, I took pictures of what I’m going to be wearing. The “helper” is going to be wearing all black, with black gloves, only able to see maybe a sliver of his face. This is to help him look more mysterious and dangerous. While I’m wearing a gray sweatsuit. This is supposed to contradict the helper by making me seem more innocent but still up to no good. The bucees onsie is a comeback from pervious blogs, and it’s foreshadowing the next film that we have to do in A level.

This is my outfit for both scenes, on the left you see my sweatsuit, and on the right you see the bucees onsie and mask.

Blog 38 - Mall Scene

 Mall Scene

Last weekend was filled with filming because we made it the last and final week of filming.So, we made the marine scene, then now the mall scene. We did this one on Sunday because we didn’t think many people would be there and boy were we wrong!

The Mall

The mall we filmed at was The Falls here in cutler bay FL. A lot of teenagers usually go there so we decided that since a lot of teens go, it would be good to see them walking in the back since it’s a teenage love story. 

We then went into Holister and the one employee was super nice about us filming in there, but we did have to end up hurrying up because they were trying to kick us out. I’d say we were in there for a good 30 minutes before they told us something. Other than that, that scene looks super good especially since we’re still in the making for the whole film. We also decided to cut out the part where Adrian was supposed to buy me that dress because it just didn’t make real sense and we ended up going with something similar, so you’ll have to wait to see that one!

Here’s the long awaited bloopers video!

It was honestly really annoying trying to film this in the store because people saw that we were filming but still decided to talk super loud, or walk in the middle of all of us, scream “BAKA” for no reason while we were recording, and the worst of all..seeing that we’re recording then standing there still next to all of us just looking at us like we’re statues. It was so annoying because like WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!! JUST MOVE BRO!! But anyways, it was very fun trying to keep away from the employees and stuff like that.

Blog 37 - All about the Beach Scene

 All about the Beach Scene

Last weekend, we did the beach scene on a Saturday! There was a lot that happened on this trip so let’s break it down!

Getting there

Deering estate is about 2 miles away from Adrian’s house. It was me, Adrian, Alina, Sav, and Adrians mom and dad. His mom and dad drove the golf cart (that we needed for a part in the scene) with Sav and Alina in the back. However, we needed the bikes. So guess what we had to do. Me and Adrian had to bike 2 miles to deering estate going over hills and everything. Meanwhile I’m not even wearing sneakers I’m wearing open toed sandals! 

Here’s the proof of that disaster

After Getting There

After that, me and Adrian were both exausted. But! We had work to do. So we planned out the scenes, filmed, and then in the middle of filming this huge pelican swoops in and steals the show with a fish hook through his beak! You’ll see this in the blooper video but I cornered it so the man in the video could catch him. After that we went back to filming, then took the marine picture that was in the last blog. So here are the long awaited bloopers videos!

I hope you guys enjoyed, and don’t forget to come back for some more bloopers videos coming very soon!

Blog 36 - Problems

Problems

We’ve had a couple problems lately, so I’m going to be telling you what they are, plus how we’ve planned to fix them. As you know we planned to fix them.

Starting off

As you know from previous blogs, we have to refilm the school scene. But, we all chose as a group to cut that scene just because everyone was so busy so just meeting up to film was always a problem. And, we just have such a better idea now that the school scene isn’t there, which you’ll have to wait to see as a surprise!

Now that I caught you up with that, we planned on filming the beach scene in Adrian’s neighborhood, but couldn’t because of the alligators that decided to invade last minute. So due to that, they closed off that part of his neighborhood and aren’t letting anyone in no matter what, and if you decide to go in there anyway, they give you a fine. 

This was where we wanted to film. 

I think it would’ve been the perfect place to film because you can see the sun setting in the back, and it’s just perfect because there wouldn’t be anyone in the background, plus it had sand so we could’ve done a cut scene involving sand, but sadly we couldn’t. BUT! We did end up finding another place. I’m not really sure what the name is just because it’s a normal beach preserve, but it’s right next to deering estate. 

The only thing wrong with it was that there was sooo many people there, so we kind of had to ask people if we could film where we wanted to, which was awkward but it’s okay! Here’s that scene location picture.

As you can see changing film locations wasn’t such a bad idea because the sky looks so much better here than in the other picture. This was actually taken the same day we filmed. We took this right before we left so our film doesn’t have the same sky, buttt it still loos great. 

Blog 35 - Bloopers for Scene 2

 Bloopers for Scene 2

As you know, the deadline is approaching, so it’s crunch time! We’ve been so busy filming that it’s been hard to keep up with blogs. BUT today I am going to tell you everything that we’ve been doing.

Scene

This scene is the scene where me, Sav, and Alina are all at Sav’s house planning a hangout. Tati(me) is seen zoning out not listening to the conversation, meanwhile Sav is trying to get her attention so she can see if Tati actually wants to go to the mall or not. They then wonder what she was so zoned out about and what she was thinking about. This is how the bloopers video turned out!

It was so hard to make this video just because everyone kept messing up their lines! It didn’t help that I kept laughing either! I mainly only kept laughing so hard because the camera was so close to my face so it was making me feel awkward, BUT other than that this scene didn’t take that long to film.

In total, I think we only spent maybe an hour on this scene, which was perfect because we all were so busy that day, so we had to try to squeeze filming into the day as much as we could. I hope you enjoyed those bloopers as much as we enjoyed making them, and there’s more to come!

Blog 34 - Copyright Update

 Copyright Update

As you know, we've been emailing people about trying to use the Sk8ter Boi song, and we finally got a response..but it's not what we were hoping.

Response

When we woke up this morning, we found an email that broke our hearts a little bit. Kobalt Music Publishing finally responded basically saying that we couldn't use the song unless we paid them $250. We think that is very absurd seeing as how it's literally a school project and in order to use the song we need to pay $250. 

They put further details in the email saying that it depends on what we're using the song for, so if it's something irrelevant then I'm sure it won't be as much. The only thing wrong with that is that we need to fill something out online, and they said they might not get back to us for months - and we have DAYS.  So it's really important that we needed this done, but again, WE CAN'T USE IT!!!

Still super upsetting to see this email, it honestly makes me so sad. 7 o'clock on a Friday morning, and we get hit with a major road block - with zero time to fix it. So, we're trying our best to make stuff work but this is horrible for our film. 

Other road blocks

As you know, we planned to redo the school scene because it didn't come our like we had planned. The camera was foggy, some scenes were blurry, a bunch of things wrong. The only thing we really liked about using the camera was the audio quality. It was very crisp and very clear, but the camera quality didn't serve as good as the audio quality. Therefore, we are now using the iPhone 16 to film the entire film, and also using this app called Final Cut camera. 

This app allows us to cut and edit scenes right then and there. So basically, we film, cut the parts we don't want, then the app automatically puts it together for us. The app also has a stabilizer in it, so we can make sure the camera quality is crisp like how we want it. 

We also can't film the school scene this week because yet again everyone else in the group seems to have more important things to do (aka that one person) and I refuse to give credit where credit isn't due, so everyone will be participating or they will not be getting credit. But, we are going to be filming the beach scenes later this week, and also the mall scene on sunday.

FUTURE TATI HERE!

Future Tati here, we were contemplating paying the $250 as a group, so everyone would pay a part. THEENNNN we started to really look at what we needed to do like going to their website. JUST FOR SCHOOL USE WE HAD TO PAY $450!!!!!!! Which we think is outrageous because the only people that are going to see it is Cambridge - plus its an old song so does it really matter that much for you to force high school students to pay $450?? Anyways, we emailed them again saying it was just for school use, and they still said we had to pay. SO! That’s not an option anymore so we have to just move on and use the free music which is going to suck, especially for the editing process.

Blog 33 - Problems in filming

 Problems in filming

So, as you know we've already started filming. We've been a little rushed since the due date is coming up very very soon, so we've been trying to get these scenes out of the way but there's been some problems..

Problems in question

When we were filming the second scene after we started transferring the clips to the computer to edit the bloopers, we noticed that the camera lens was completely dirty, most scenes were blurry, camera was moving too much to actually classify it as a scene, just SO much that we don't have time for.

We tried making it work but there's just no way we're going to get a good score if we used that scene. So, now we're forced to go refilm a scene that we really don't have time to do. Heres the plan!

Planning

Saturday March 8: Film "movie night" scene

The movie night scene is the scene where Alina, Sav, and Tati are all at Sav's house watching a movie while Tati is spacing out thinking about Adrian - more details in scene

Sunday March 9: Film opening and ending scene at Adrians Neighborhood beach

The opening shot opens at the beach where Tati and Adrian are reminsicng about their relationship, then the ending scene is the reminiscing being over and film ending

Week of March 10th-14th: Refilm school scene

(Details above)

Saturday March 15th: Film mall scene

This scene is where Adrian is going to run into Tati at the mall, offer to buy her a dress to go on a date, then they end up parting ways for the rest of the day. 

This scene in specific we don't know how it's going to go but we're hoping for the best and going with the flow.

Sunday March 16th: EDIT ALL SCENES TOGETHER TO MAKE FILM

(Self-explanatory) 

Blog 32 - Our first filming scene

 Our first filming scene

So, as the due date for our CCR and the 2 minute film is approaching, we've started filming as a group. We had such a fun time filming this and although it took us 2 whole hours just to film one scene, we have 1 out of the 5 scenes done.

Bloopers of the first scene

As a group we've decided that since we have bloopers all throughout making these scenes, we would combine all the bloopers from each scene and make a blooper video out of each blooper we get from each scene. Then, at the end, we gather up all the best bloopers and make a final blooper video that goes along with the 2 minute film. 

So here is that video in question.

As you can see from this video, we have a lot of unplanned setbacks due to everyone messing up their lines, including me literally choking on grapes:)

This scene is supposed to be the second scene in the film where Adrian comes up to Tati while Savannah and Alina are both talking about how he's shy and supposedly a transfer. Adrian comes up to ask Tati for notes and Tati pretends not to care as she's seen smiling when Adrian starts walking away.

This weekend, we plan to make the 3rd scene where Savannah, Alina, and Tati are all sitting on the couch watching a movie and Tati starts to space out thinking about Adrian. Then on sunday we plan to create the opening and ending scene at Adrian's neighborhood since the opening and ending are at the same place.