Answering CCR Questions

    I started planning the CCR questions this week. This is one of the main parts of the project so I consulted with my group members to make sure that what I will say is good. I will do the CCR tomorrow and on Sunday and I will then proceed to finalize my blog. I will most likely be doing a slideshow and a commentary over the video as I find these as the easiest options to do. Here is the link for my planning:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kVLBvJzy5dNdfKbpb2FX8HfsuyELA5J8/view?usp=share_link

Peer discussion

     In class on Monday me and some peers discussed our projects. Everyone I spoke with was in the final editing stages or had already finished their projects. One particular group member taught me that it’s better to start with dark lighting rather than bright lighting because otherwise the footage will look grainy. 

    We also discussed the CCR and how we would approach that. We discussed how we would present the CCR and most of us agreed that a slideshow and a commentary would be the easiest way of doing the CCR. I am still not sure what I will do but I think I will definitely be doing a slideshow.

Film Finished!

     I am very proud to announce that our film is finished! All the hard work and effort paid off and the whole group is very proud of how it turned out. I will be posting my reflections in future blog posts and my overall thoughts on the project. 

     Coming forward is the CCR and I will be preparing for that next week. This way the group can get ideas and so we finish it quickly to have time to review and edit the CCR. 

Almost done editing

    A crucial aspect of the film that we had to do this week were the credits. This process was fairly simple because this is very easy to do. Abhiram made the credits and we gave our feedback.

    On Thursday Abhiram and I talked a few times regarding the credits. He had two options in mind, a red font and a black font. The black font for the credits looked terrible as the beginning of the film takes place in a dark location. We decided to use the red-bloody font as it fit the style of the film.

    

    Apart from showing me the credits, Abhiram showed me the entire film. It honestly came out much better than I expected it to and his editing skills blew me away. The only issue with the film was that Abhiram's voice was a bit too difficult to hear so he increased the level of volume. We are almost finished with the editing process and we are now working on answering the questions for the CCR.

Good News

    Unlike in the last blog, I bring good news today. Abhriam with his magical editing skills managed to make the film look good. We no longer have the incohesive shots and my expressionless emotions in the film.

    Abhiram made the film last two minutes by spanning some clips. In the establishing shot of the house, he slowed down that scene so that the run-time greatly increased.

    He also cut the parts of the film when I had emotionless expressions so now it actually looks like I'm scared and confused.

Me on a call with Abhiram

    He told me that he showed Hayden previously and that Hayden was very shocked that he managed to pull this off. This was my same reaction and it is such a relief that we don't need to record the entire film again.

   

Hayden and I are going to find sound effects for the film while Abhiram edits the rest of the film. Hayden will also adjust the light in the film. I feel that we are actually doing good progress and should finish editing pretty soon. I also talked to Abhiram about the CCR and we agreed that they would come back to my house to do it.

   

Change in Plans

    Okay, so I have a bit of disappointing news. Hayden compiled all the clips together and showed them to me today. Let's just say it wasn't very good. 

    First, the film only lasted one minute and thirty seconds which is well under the required run time. The clips were all put so closely together that the film seemed so close and incohesive. 

    Additionally, some of my facial expressions weren't corresponding to the scenario. When I was supposed to be scared I looked neutral and emotionless.

    I got on a call with Hayden earlier today and we are seriously considering filming the whole thing again. I asked one of my friends who is in the advanced theater class in school if he can be the actor and he said that he might be able to. 

    Abhiram said that he will try to edit the clips to make the film look better and not confirm anything with the actor until then. Hopefully, he can pull this off because none of us want to reshoot the entire film.

Editing Planning

     In order for the film to look complete and semi-professional we need to edit it. This is one of the most crucial aspects of the entire project so I made sure to plan how we will edit the film.

    In the first scene where the camera is going around the main character on the couch we will have approximately four to seven different cuts throughout the conversation. We also have to merge this scene with the next one which is when he runs up the stairs. We plan to use eerie or fast-paced music when he is running up the stairs to make the scene more intense. 

    The scene where the protagonist hides in the room is cut into three parts: the opening and slamming of the door, him walking to the place he will hide, and the actual hiding itself. We plan to use a mid-shot, a low-angle shot, and a close up throughout this sequence to make the viewer more engaged in the film. 

    The most difficult part to edit will be the killing scene. I think for this part of the film when the killer jumps we use a grayish-whitish flash to not show the actual jumping of the killer since it would not look good. The flash will fit in to the horror aspect of the film. 

    We will definitely be using a plethora of cuts throughout the film since we have a lot of takes. We also plan to change the lighting of every scene to a dark lighting so it further fits the horror aspect. Using non-diegetic sound is something else that we plan to implement, especially in the revealing of the killer. 

    This is all I have for the editing as of now but this process will surely be explained in much more detail in the future.

Filming Process

     This blog will be longer than usual as I will be explaining the filming process. This was a very fun and unique experience.

    The film takes place in my house, so Abhiram and Hayden had to come over. We started off by planning where to film. The first scene takes place in my couch where the camera is going around the main character. Immediately we faced a problem which was the light. The group arrived to my house at six so it was still light which meant that we had to start filming from another part of the film. Hayden also made sure to bring a black mask, gloves, and a hoodie to cover up the killer.

Couch where filming first scene takes place

    We decided to start filming in the scene where the main character is running up the stairs because he saw the doppelganger. My idea was to use the shaky cam technique. Basically, Hayden would be behind me while I am running up the stairs. However, when we implemented this it looked really awkward and we couldn't get a good way to film it. What we did instead was while running up the stairs Hayden would film from behind me, and when I reached the halfway point Hayden would film me from above.

        

We then proceeded to record the scene where the main character hides in a room. After I ran up the stairs I would barge into a room and hide. The room we used is my mom's studio since it has blackout curtains and at this point it was still daytime. This was a fairly simple scene to film as all I had to do was run into the room and hide behind a piece of furniture. 

    

    After this we filmed the death scene. This was by far the hardest scene to film as we tried multiple angles and it looked really weird. This scene would take place after I came out of the room I was hiding in since I thought that what I saw earlier(killer) was just my imagination. I went to the railing in my stairs and had a sigh of relief. While I am doing this the killer is behind me and then I die. The problem with this was that we couldn't get a solid shot of the killer looming behind me. What we did instead was have the killer from a distance and when I look up I stutter and take two steps back and he jumps for me. In the actual production we would not show the actual jumping because it would not fit with the film. 

    At this point of the recording it was dark already. We filmed the opening shot which was the establishing shot of the house, and then we went on to film the first scene. The original plan for this was for the camera to make a rotation from the back of the protagonist's head all the way to his face. However we decided to cut the different shots together. We also had to film the main character while he is conversing with his friend on the phone. What we did here was that with every line of dialogue we would switch the camera to a different location to develop the conversation. After he hangs up he drops his phone on the couch and walks to the countertop which is when he "spots" the killer and runs away which loops back to the first thing we filmed.

    The final scene we filmed was the revealing of the killer. Throughout the film Abhiram was the one who was the killer and we made sure to thoroughly cover him up so when I revealed myself as the killer(since it's a doppelganger of the protagonist) it made sense. All I had to do was walk behind the couch and pick up the phone when the friend called. I then took off my mask and I went to the couch and took of my jacket so I would be wearing the same things that the protagonist was wearing. This made this scene more cohesive and more meaningful.

    A problem we faced here is that the camera ran out of battery so we just had to sit around and wait for it to charge. I will not be explaining the editing we plan to use and all the different cuts since the blog is already long enough. I will be doing that in the next blog.

    Overall, this was a great new experience and I can't wait for the editing to be complete so I can see the film in its entirety.

Film Complete!

     We finally recorded the film! My group has been so excited for this moment, and we've finally done it. All the hard work and planning have finally paid off and it was 100% worth it. We all think we did a good job and we're all proud of it.

    The filming process took longer than we expected it to so I won't be able to explain it in detail as we finished it literally twenty minutes ago and I have to finish my chemistry homework. Next week however the whole shooting process will be thoroughly explained. This has been a great day and definitely the best in the project by far.

Preparation for the day before filming

     Tomorrow is finally the day we record our film. The group has been looking forward to this for a long time so it's really exciting that we can put all the pieces together tomorrow.

    In order to produce the highest quality film, we needed to plan over some technical elements beforehand. Hayden has to be the person that records because he is the one who knows how to use the camera and the accessory proficiently. He also practiced some shots before the filming day such as shaky cam, close-ups, and mid-shots which is great. He also practiced with the lighting so we don't spend too much time experimenting tomorrow.

    Since Hayden is the one who is recording everything, that leaves Abhiram and me to be the actors. None of us are exceptional actors, but that doesn't really matter since we won't have much dialogue. Honestly, I don't see the acting as much of a setback and I think that it is the easiest portion of tomorrow's work. The problem is that we will probably be laughing a lot.

    We also planned the time of day to film. Since the film takes place at night we are planning on setting everything up at six and filming at 7. This will give us the lighting that we need. We also decided that we need to move some furniture around because we are looking for that mundane minimalistic lifestyle so the audience focuses completely on the film.

    All in all, I am very excited to see how this will turn out tomorrow.

In Class Discussion

    Today in class we didn't work on the project itself, but rather review blogs made by past students. I reviewed two blogs and I thought they were well made. Both blogs had a plethora of multimedia elements to better describe the process of the project, and the blogs were structured by short to mid-length paragraphs. 

    Something I learned when reviewing these blogs is that I should state the challenges I faced in the production of the film, and explain how I overcame them. Doing this will fully expand my journey throughout the project so I can receive higher marks on the final score. 

    Here are the links for the projects I reviewed:

https://rileyaicemediastudies.blogspot.com/

https://ryanblogcreation.blogspot.com/

Changes made

     In this blog, I will report some changes we have made to our overall film. I feel these changes need to be addressed since they are important.

    First, as mentioned a few blog posts ago the shooting schedule got messed up a bit due to Hayden not being able to film this weekend. This altered our schedule to having to film the entire project next weekend. That means that we will have to plan thoroughly throughout the week in order to be able to film the entire film. 

    Another aspect of the film that we might change is the actor. We were thinking on getting a proficient person in acting in order for the film to be of higher quality, but I don't think its necessary. Not only would it be difficult to find someone, but it's really not necessary. There is barely any dialogue and not too many close-ups of the protagonist so the acting won't be a huge problem. I would probably be the protagonist while Hayden is recording the whole thing.

    These were small changes made but I think they needed to be conveyed.

Script

     Recently, Abhiram decided to do the script for the film. This is really helpful because when we are filming we will have a reference of what is supposed to occur at that moment. The script is meant to be like a guide for us while we are practicing the shooting of the film. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zc2z3aiUkJcSj2W1cY2sswxTKLQNIFTy/view?usp=share_link

    The script has very little dialogue because as I said previously, we want to immerse the viewer on the film and not on what the characters are saying. We only have dialogue when it is absolutely essential, which is in the opening of the film and the ending of the film during the phone calls. The script also has the types of shots corresponding to that scene which is great so it will facilitate our filming process.

    When we are filming, we will most likely have someone who is good at acting be in the film. We are all pretty bad actors and we would not deliver the lines with emotion. That is why we are "hiring" an actor. That is the main reason for the script, as it will tell the actor what they are supposed to do. When we are filming we will see what works and what doesn't and adjust it accordingly, meaning the script isn't 100% the final plan.

Plan Changes

     Okay, so we had to do a massive change of plans today. Originally, today was the day we were supposed to record the film just to see what it would look like. (NOT THE ACTUAL FILM) I live near Abhiram so Hayden was going to come to us and we were going to record either at my house or at Abhiram's house. We planned to do it after 4 since Hayden had a job interview,(congratulations) but he then told us that his parents couldn't take him to us.

    This greatly changed our plans because the blogs for next week were supposed to be on the revisions we were going to make in the final production, but now we can't do that. We decided since we couldn't record today that we will have to record the entire production next week. That means that all the planning MUST be completed before Sunday or Saturday. I will be sure to update how the change in plans affects us next week. Until then, I hope everything works out.