Film Opening

 Here's a link to the film opening on youtube.

YouTube

Whelp

 This is it, the day has come I am finally done!! It was nice blogging for ya! See you next year for A level, hope you enjoy :)

Creative Critical Reflection

 Here's a podcast answering the first two questions.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ASUCdr9WY7xtdBPUxwy3sQJcn4SR9Waq/view?usp=sharing

and here's the second set of questions answered in an livestream type video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uj0LQZu9AUBxBhrTsibJvgNnHC6lBcGa/view?usp=sharing

More changes

 Today was the first day back in school but it's a B day, so I don't see Mrs. Stoklosa until tomorrow when the final submission is due.. kind of cutting it a little close. I showed my TV teacher and friends though and they gave me some pointers, specifically in editing.  

I guess because I know the idea I expect everyone else to understand it, but I need to make it more obvious that the flashbacks are well, FLASHBACKS. They recommended adding a subtle vignette effect, desaturating a little more (or maybe going full black and white but I'm worried that's too cheesy), and maybe using a special transition like dip to white for the first flashback clip. I can't edit until I'm home because I have all my Premiere stuff on my Dad's computer but it shouldn't take long. I also have to fix the music levels a bit.

here's how the current flashbacks look^

Update: I got to editing at home at like 10pm (it was my Mom's birthday so I wasn't able to until now) and I lessened the lowpass a little so the music isnt as muffled, I added a dip to white transition for the first flashback shown, and I also desaturated it a a lot. I didn't go full black and white because it felt cheesy and vintage ish, which isnt what I wanted.

here's the updated look^

Editing

I am officially done editing the final film opening. Runner Up COMPLETED!! (I can't wait to post the final product soon) Here's how editing went: techniques I used and why along with changes I made throughout the process.

This is the final timeline on Premiere ^^

Kind of exposing myself here but the setup was silly and my friend Mateo took a picture of me... I have the worst posture ever and look like a 9 year old while editing just wanted to share lol

First thing I did was organize all my clips into bins so I would know where to pull from when editing.

I divided it into audio files, wrestling clips, training clips, and exit clips. 

General Sequence

After a while of not knowing where to start and just staring at my screen, I went all in and started building the sequence from nothing (building a montage was kind of hard because I got so many different kinds of clips that I could mix and match into any way). I eased into it with some b-roll type shots to briefly establish the area and feature Matt's face and establish him as the protagonist. Then, I went straight into the montage, alternating with a training clip and then a wrestling clip. Before I finished that though, I stopped and skipped to the end (2min mark) so I wouldn't overdo it and have to delete my work to fit the "end" (quoted because obviously it's not a real END since it's a film OPENING). I ordered the exit clips, which was easy since there was only 3, and then developed the final wrestling/training montage leading up to that. I'm super happy with how that turned out because I was able to edit it in a way that you can see how the protagonist's defeat within the match matches up with his defeat in the training as well. Once that was set I just had to finish the rest of the montage. Obviously after watching it all together I changed a few things, but the original sequence I put together ended up being the final product.

Sound

As I said in my music post, I got super lucky. I think it was meant to be because after putting in Erick's song, I didn't have to change anything. All I did was line it up with the end and it worked really well, I'm happy with how it turned out. In order to emphasize the flashback feeling, I added a lowpass to the parts of the song playing during the wrestling clips, this gave it a muffled or drowned out effect. This was exactly as I wanted as it would reflect how in the actual match, the protagonist drowned out all outside noise; it was just him and his opponent. I ended up not adding constant powers after every transition of training to wrestling because I liked how abrupt it sounded, felt more dramatic. I also added some sounds effects I found online in the free to use Youtube Audio Library in order to make the sound more dramatic or emphasized. I did this for the metal plates clanging, which were used as a sound transition from a training clip to a wrestling flashback. I also added other noises like outside ambiance towards the end when the protagonist exits the building and for a phone ringing sound, apart from that I didn't need any other crazy effects. 

Flashback clips

In addition to the lowpass added for a muffled affect, I chose to do some other things to emphasize the wrestling scenes as a flashback. For one, I adjusted the aspect ratio using the crop tool (not sure if that's how you actually do it but it worked just fine) not only to differentiate it but to do as I researched in my previous blog post about Aspect Ratios and give a confined feeling. I also color graded to make the clips more blue toned, like a "cold" or bad memory. 

Graphics

Originally, for the title, my friend Mateo was going to help me use a mask tracking thing to make the title reveal. We ended up scrapping it though because with all the movement in that clip it was super tedious having to manually track it frame by frame. 

                                               

(that's him trying before giving up)^

Instead, I stuck to a classic title with no movement, I like how it looks though. Font wise I just chose a "sporty" font that looked good in all caps. 

For the credits I won't lie, I felt super awkward. It's weird crediting yourself on a project.. having to write your name for directing, editing, writing, cinematography, producing, and editing just sounds like overkill. The way I ended up doing it though to look a little less awkward is just keeping my name and using cross dissolves to fade in/out the applicable titles. Additionally, I added Matt and Roger of course and Erick for music creds. 

Editing wasn't too bad overall. I showed my not-so-final to my friends, heard their critiques and adjusted a few more things before the actual final was born.

Filming (3/26)

Since everything went smoothly scheduling wise and we were able to sort something that worked for me, the actors, equipment wise, and for the location, everything was ready for the next day. The day before, I picked up the equipment from Mariana and made sure everything worked (it did) and sent some last minute reminders to the actors. 

I asked Roger to take pictures of me while I was filming Matt, but he said he forgot because he was "playing brawl stars." So the pictures I have are just ones I took on the camera itself so sorry that they're kind of silly lol.

When we first got there, at 3, the agreed time we had with Coach Cater, there was a little misunderstanding. I had asked to come when the mats would be empty, after their practice, but he didn't seem to understand when I asked over text. See, they had just BEGAN their two hour practice when we got there and wouldn't be done until 5pm. No big deal though, we just filmed in the weight room (which was a good majority of the shots anyways) from 3-4:20 and then waited it out until 5. We had to wait a bit longer than 5 because the wrestlers were clearing out but then again, no big deal. We got all the shots we needed and it went really good. Honestly, the best part of this experience was working with Matt. He was super invested throughout the whole process and would give his own ideas on shots top get, it was fun to do and I did take a lot from his vision.

Edit: In more detail, some things were different than I expected. For one, the lighting was actually really good in both the mat and weight room, so I didn't even use the light kit I had checked out. The Sony camera is super good at letting you adjust the ISO and aperture without it looking too grainy, so that was obviously a big factor that allowed me to rely on the lighting already there. Not having to haul a light kit in and out of the school was very nice though. Also, another great thing about this camera (I unfortunately don't know what specific model it is.. but general rule of thumb is that Sony makes great cameras) is the built in stabilizers. While I'm already pretty comfortable with going handheld from my experience in other projects, I do know that it's kind of "frowned upon" and you should always use a tripod in order to avoid shaky shots. Not so hot-take though.. I HATE TRIPODS!! I feel like they limit your movement sooooo much and I just prefer going handheld whenever possible. With the help of these stabilizers and my already steady hands, I honestly shot every single clip handheld. Like every single one. Which was a life saver for the wrestling scenes because I very stupidly realized that I didn't check out a Ronin or steady cam, which is what was used when shooting the 360 movement in the Waves scene I took inspiration from. Lucky for me, I was able to create the same effect just by going handheld and moving around the actors as they wrestled.. it went perfectly. The shots were stable and still had great movement (movement I wouldn't have been able to get had I used a tripod!). 

After filming, I did as promised and we went out for dinner at Hooters!! We ordered 50 wings like we usually do... except we didn't take into account that we usually eat that many with our whole team. We did in fact NOT finish, but they were delicious :)

Overall, filming went great, I got all the shots I had in mind plus so many more I came up with on the spot or that Matt had ideas for. In TV, we're always told to overshoot and I think I did exactly that so I guess the good habits are forming!! I reshot anything that needed and made sure to get lots of angles. I ended up with like 182 shots and had to cut down to like 89 before I started editing.

The death of my beloved laptop

As I keep mentioning in the past few blog posts, I had issues with my laptop. Here's what exactly happened. 

On Friday, March 15th, my laptop worked fine during 5th and 6th hour. I remember what day this was because I was grinding out some work for my classes while listening to music and even took some picture of my setup (I take pictures of everything). However, on a day that I REALLY could not afford my computer to breakdown, it did just that. Come 8th hour and my computer isn't even turning on. I got home and tried everything, I would try to keep it on a charger and got absolutely NOTHING but an eerie hum. I told my Dad who ended up procrastinating to call some tech guy for help, not that it would save my laptop. The guy checked it out over spring break and said it wasn't worth it to fix as the motherboard or something was fried and replacing it is about the same price as a new computer (no idea what any of that means but RIP). This was obviously a setback, especially as for this class alone I need some kind of computer to edit my segment and do blog posts. 

(here's a mini shrine to her, I don't have pictures of the back right now but I had so many cute stickers I'll miss >:c)

I'll miss you always :(

No time to grieve when I had a project to finish though, here's how I worked around this.

So, on the day it actually broke down, I had SO MUCH WORK. Like I had to edit a segment for my TV class due that day and knock out some other school work. Once I got home, I just downloaded Premiere on my Mom' s laptop and did just that. Come spring break and there was another little obstacle to overcome. I filmed on Tuesday (3/26) and planned to just grind out editing on Wednesday. However, my Mom and Dad kind of just.. went to Orlando for the day without a word (they were tasting catering options for my older sister's upcoming wedding). When I woke up I tried to go to my Mom's office to use her computer only to discover she had taken it with her. I literally started crying out of panic (only for like 2 seconds but still, THAT'S how freaked out I was that I wouldn't be able to edit). After some convincing though, my Dad let me use his super cool Alienware laptop. 

It ended up working out, main issue was having limited or weird hours to use the computer since my Dad has work. I pulled like two all nighters to be able to have laptop hours.. it was all worth it though!!

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE.. I am getting a new laptop!! It should arrive on Wednesday (4/3). I'm super excited because I've never owned like my OWN laptop, this one was my first and it was my Mom's 6 year old one. Plus, my Dad got one with an i7 processor or whatever so those are good for video editing (I'll finally have a laptop that won't crash every time I open Premiere!!) I'm pretty excited :)