Progress Blog: CCR for music video

Progress Blog: Music Video

Progress Blog: Commercial

Attempting to re-film during quarantine

We still have not received any information about the postponement or cancellation of the Cambridge exam. As I mentioned in the previous blog my group has been trying to make plans to re-film our movie. Originally we had planned for Wednesday however this date was cancelled. My fear during this quarantine is that the government will restrict any movement outside of our homes unless absolutely necessary. As of now most public areas such as beaches and malls have already shut down. In this circumstance we will not be able to meet to re-film. To me, this is not an option. Our film is not anywhere close to where I would like it to be when we submit it to Cambridge. I have completed my list of scenes to re-film along with reasons why. That way if we are able to meet we will spend the least amount of time with each other to prevent the spread of the virus.
   As of now we have planned to meet this Sunday. As I have continued to say this is an extremely unique situation that I have never been in before. This being said our plans are subject to change if I receive more information. One of my group mates went traveling during the break which means he could be exposed to the corona virus. This is very serious and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, I am still unsure if I would like to meet with them to re-film. However, it needs to get done and because all of my extracurriculars have been cancelled now if the most available I’ll ever be. We plan to re-film some of the scenes that we filmed previously and alter the ending of our movie a bit. The reason we are re-filming is because the sound quality in some of the shots are really bad. We filmed on a windy day and the wind would affect the sound quality. Additionally, we noticed some small mistakes in the direction of the film.

COVID-19

This week the American president Donald Trump announced a national emergency due to the wide spread of the COVID-19 virus. This decision caused all Broward county schools to close-down to prevent further spread. This instilled a slight panic in me and my classmates. We had lots of questions regarding our academic work as well as all of our standardized testing dates. This is a unique situation all around the world so as of now a lot of us do not know what we will be doing during this break. Not only does this impact my academic life but my extracurriculars as well. Since our city government has suspended all large organized gatherings all of my swim practices have been cancelled. This is a big deal to me because I have been practicing almost everyday since I learned how to swim. This unique circumstance has put me in a position where I have to deal with extra time and the mental side affects. In this blog I will discuss what I am doing to maintain a routine to keep myself from becoming unproductive.
My coach has provided us with a variety of at home workouts we can do to stay in shape. In addition, as of now we have not heard about any extension or cancellation of the AICE Media Studies exam, so I will continue to work as planned. My group mates and I are currently discussing a time that we will be able to meet to re-film. This is a bit difficult because of the uncertainty of the situation. Some of them had planned to travel during the break, however we are now unsure if that would be a safe idea. Airports are a place where lots of people from all over come together and they could possibly be a host to the corona virus. To prepare to re-film I have composed a list of all the scenes we need to re-film and what the issues with those scenes were. This will help conserve time and make our time filming the most efficient. This helps me to organize my ideas and gives me a task to complete during the quarantine. Finally, I will be re-drawing our storyboard according to the adjustments we have made to our film.

Editing First time around

For our final task we were given a peer review date. By this date we would have to have our final task done for the most part. So we filmed our movie to the best of our abilities in the time frame. However, we did not finish filming until the last weekend before our peer review date. Due to this the editing was a bit rushed. Our group decided since Amelia’s phone contained all of the footage it would be best for her to do the editing with our help. Furthermore, she had the best creative vision for our movie. We used iMovie to edit our movie because none of us had an editing software installed. While we did have access to the school computers that had pinnacle studios uploaded we did not finish filming until last minute and we were still a bit unfamiliar with the way pinnacle studios worked. The night that Amelia was editing I called her and we discussed what footage we wanted to use and how we wanted to edit it together.
During this phone call we went back and forth on the font of the titles. This was a difficult decision because it was a major part of our movie. Eventually we came to an agreement however majority of our time was spent on this. I looked back into my title research to help aid me in this decision. I also used my title research to come up with the title we would be using in our own film. Such as the order of the titles and the timing. We also needed to add sound effects in the beginning of our film. What both Amelia and I thought would be an easy task turned out to be more difficult than we thought. We were unable to find and authentic birthing sound effects. Looking back in this it is probably an unusual sound effect to use, however, it was very inconvenient for us during this time crunch.

Peer review

Today we completed a peer review for our final task. The goal of the peer review is to provide and receive feedback on our final task. We were given this checklist to fill out and organize our thoughts. My favorite part about the movie I watched was the variety of shots and camera angles. I especially enjoyed the POV shot when the character was finding the Ouija board. The effect of the variety of shots gives the audience a better spatial awareness of the movie. This is especially beneficial in thriller movies because it helps the viewer asses the emotions of the characters. Another benefit of using a variety of shots is it keeps the viewers entertained. For example, using the same shot throughout the movie gets boring and does not show the entirety of the scene. The movie I watched did a very good job at providing a variety of shots.
Something I would recommend to the creator of this movie is to add more suspense to the movie. While it is clear throughout the character Sam does not want to play Ouija there is no real feeling of suspense. One way I might suggest they add this is by adding suspenseful music. Music is a great way at giving the audience the desired emotion. Another way they can add more suspense is by drawing out the scene. For example, the possessing scene is very short. The possessing happened very early into the scene without giving the audience much time to process the possible bad outcome and feel the suspense. Finally, another way they can add suspense is to dim the lighting in the scenes leading up to them playing. Throughout the entire film up until the Ouija scene there is very bright lighting. I believe that by dimming the lighting it gives for-shadowing and helps the audience feel suspense.