Editing Blog: So Many Clips!

     Today my group and I took our first steps towards editing our music video. I went through all of the shots we took and choose which ones were the best. There was a lot of shots so this took a good bit of time. I had some help from my group mates, Roscoe and Elijah but this was really a one person job. Next Roscoe put all of the clips into iMovie, the editing software we will be using to create our project. Roscoe did not cut anything, he just put all the videos in order and added the dissolve transition to all of them. This helped so we could see our time and what we need to remove, add or change. This leads into our next part. Roscoe and I went through the shots and chose which shots should be filmed again or even completely removed. Our time with all of the shots together came out to be about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This is ideal because that gives us room to cut and take out some shots. When Roscoe and I were evaluating our shots we discovered a few imperfections. One example was a scene of a cell phone ringing. We made this shot way to short so we will need to retake it. Another example is a tracking shot of the main character walking. This shot was very shaky and will need to be filmed again. The only other main issue was that there were too many shots of the lead just walking and not doing anything else. Once we reshoot we will be able to see what time our movie is at and cut however much we need to. This will not only give us the perfect time but it will make our opening two minutes more interesting. Altogether, today was very productive and this Friday we plan to dive into our editing by adding our titles and cutting our clips. Attached is an image of Roscoe deleting an unwanted shot.

Filming Blog: All Tied Up

     Last Saturday, 2/22 my group and I began our filming process. We recorded all of our footage, but there will definitely need to be some re-filming. We began our process with the first 30 seconds of our movie. We filmed the lead character walking home and a truck following him. This is where most of the titles will be added. For the next scene we went in a dark room so we had no lighting. In this scene the kidnappers call their boss and say everything is going smoothly. The light from the phone is the only light in the shot to make a more mysterious feeling. Next we filmed the lead character getting kidnapped and thrown into a truck. This part was hard to film because we had to make it look like the kidnappers hit the lead with a bat and the lead had to pretend to be unconscious. We successfully completed this shot safely by stopping the shot right before the bat was supposed to hit the main character's head. For the next scene the kidnappers must tie up the lead character. This part was the most difficult to film because of the lighting. We had to tape sheets over the windows to get the perfect lighting. Another problem was that the kidnappers had a hard time tying up the main character. They couldn't work together, and at one point one of them was untying what the other had already tied. Once they finally, correctly tied up the character we went on to the next scene. In this scene the boss enters and asks to see the boy. To her surprise she finds out the kidnapper got the wrong kid. This scene was easy to film because it was the same as the last scene but a new character enters.

     

Filming Blog: In Boston?

     My group and I have yet to begin filming because two of our members, Zeke and Elijah, are in Boston. They had a debate field trip at Harvard University. They left on February 13 and returned on February 19. This has made it impossible to film because Zeke is the main character in our film. Since they were not in town our group decided to do the majority of our filming this weekend, the 22nd and 23rd. This weekend is ideal because none of us have any tournaments or other activities planned. We plan to utilize both days to film and will be ready to edit when we get back in class the next week. The location, my house and neighborhood, have no restrictions as to when we can film there. The only factor that has an effect on when we film is the time of day and lighting. We want a dusk lighting so our filming will take place in the evening.

     The field trip that my group mates are on has been a huge inconvenience to me and Roscoe. They left on the morning of the 13th, so Roscoe and I had to work with them on the Storyboard through technology. This was very hard because only on person could write on the actual storyboard. Last weekend was a long weekend. It would of been an great time to film if everyone was here. Roscoe and I have overcome this issue by planning our filming weekend very carefully so we are the most efficient we can be. All we ask of Zeke and Elijah is to follow our plan, which they have been reluctant to do in the past. Hopefully they will not have to many adjustments to make to our plan because we have worked hard to make our filming process as easy as possible. Attached is an image of Zeke and Elijah in Boston. We hope that this weekend all of our filming will go smoothly.

Planning Blog: Storyboard

     Moving forward to this step in our experience of making a film, it was time for us as a group to come together and really visualize the entirety of it and everything that will be included. This story board that we've made has come together with all of us putting in work. We all had the same vision at the beginning when deciding on this topic, but now that we needed to think of the extremes and every detail put into it, it was much harder for us to agree. After many disagreements, we finally made a story board that we can all agree is perfect and high grade work. In this story board, we've drawn the exact layout of the film and how it's going to go down in terms of looks. The descriptions under each picture tell us the more extreme details including whats going on in the scene, camera angles, camera movements, and what titles will go where. The drawing and descriptions were not perfect, but they're more than enough to give us a sort of guideline when we actually start to film. We plan to follow the storyboard exactly as written but if it doesn't turn out that way, we will make a few adjustments. Being that this is only the blueprint of the film, it's okay for us to stray away a little if we have to or if we have a better idea. We are now just a few days away from picking up a camera and starting our first scenes to this project.      

Planning Blog: Title Design

     Today, our group finished working on how the titles will be. We decided again to use google slides to create our presentation. It has benefited us in many ways because with its various capabilities. We decided on our titles by watching many titles on artofthetitle.com and seeing how they work. This helped a lot because it gave us a rough draft of how ours is supposed to look. While working on how the titles would look we came across a problem. The problem was whether we should just randomly put the titles on the screen or let them fade on when something happens. Paige and Roscoe thought the random idea was better because it would be easier to do, but Zeke and I thought that the other way was more visually appealing and fit the genre more. Eventually, we decided on putting the titles on the screen as something happens because it would fit the thriller theme we were looking for more. Besides that, we feel like the titles will come out great and we are glad we came to an agreement.

Planning Blog: Location, Participants, Health and Schedule

     Today, our group completed our schedule and decided on our locations, participants and a health and safety plan. We used a google slides presentation because we believe it is the best way to put all of these important things together. Google slides is a good way to put together many different elements of our film and to add photos. We decided on our locations based on proximity and environment. There was an issue amongst our group about where to film. The issue arose because the group was divided as to whether a more populated area was better or worse. In the end our group came to the conclusion that a less populated area was better and if necessary we will get extras. We had no disagreements about the participants because we have enough with just us and can use any more volunteers that wish to participate. Our safety and health plan was also easy to create because we all agree that safety is our top priority. Overall we have completed our schedule and decided on other important details to make our film the best possible.

Planning Blog: Sound Scripts

     In this blog, we'll be going over what we will actually say as actors in this film. There won't be a lot of dialogue because the only time the main character reacts with people is when he is hit upside his head and thrown into the back of the car. There will be however some dialogue between the antagonists of the film before they plan to execute their task of taking the boy. We plan on having these kidnappers communicate through phone call to their colleagues before the next scene takes place. Also in the vehicle we are using there will be some short speaking here and there. In this blog, we will be including the short google slide show of what exactly will be said. In each slide, we have a new time someone speaks either the main character or the kidnappers. The speech will be short and not have much elaboration at all. It will also be specified whether the conversation is in person or through cell phone. When we start to film, we plan on following this script to the exact so the last minute changes isn't something we need to necessarily worry about. If forever reason we are forced to make a slight change to the dialogue, we will do so. This dialogue should be one of the last pieces towards starting the filming of this clip.
 

Planning Blog: Shooting Scripts

     Today we finally got to write our shooting script, which is one of the most important parts of the planing stage. We finally got to flesh out our ideas for our movie and really figure out what's going to happen in each scene. Even though we were excited on the idea side, it was hard to fit every single idea in and what direction should we take some scenes in. We all had some different takes on what the story should be and how it was presented. some of us wanted toe interrogation scene, whit is at the end of the shooting script to be at the beginning, while others didn't want that at all. As a group we decided on our final shooting script, not as one of our group members ideas, we decided to make a compromise between all of us. We think that all of the ideas that we implemented work smoothly and that balance each other out. The plot that we created, is very interesting to all of us and is pretty good. We have a lot of intriguing details that we would like to add to this shooting script, but were on a time limit. All in all we all think that we made a good shooting script.