CCR Question

 Hey everyone!

Since I am dissecting mostly over the post-production for right now, I will be doing the CCR individually for my Cambridge portfolio. CCR stands for Creative Critical Reflection. This consists of reflection over the entire production and of course the film opening itself. There are four questions that this video should display. But of course, I will be breaking it into smaller chunks to grow and expand the consideration into this. 

The first question for my CCR is: How does my film use or challenge conventions, and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Well, this question is crucial for reflection, because it makes me consider how we used or went against the typical rules of the genre we’re working in. It also makes me reflect on how our film opening represents different social groups or important issues. For the conventions, we stuck to some traditional aspects of the genre but also added our own twist. For instance, we chose to start our opening jumping straight into action. We see Gianna doing her tricks in the gymnasium, to display and illustrate her lifestyle. However, to defy the norm that gymnasts are usually super organized, my group demonstrated her to struggle with school and her life at home.

 This was our way of building tension and slowly drawing the audience in, which is a bit different from what you usually see in this kind of film for the sports genre. 

When it comes to social groups and issues, we wanted our characters to reflect real diversity and avoid stereotypes. Our group made sure to include people from different backgrounds and gave them more depth, which feels more realistic. So, we decided to make our character's family from Venezuela, but she is from the United States. This isn't a norm in the films we see nowadays, even though this is very present in our society. Adding on to that note, a big factor in our theme for the film would be over not belonging to a specific culture. Either being too white for South American culture, or too "Latino" for American culture. I can relate to this as my dad was born in Argentina and my mom in Chile, yet I was born here in Florida. Usually in the sports drama, it is very integrated on being the "American Dream", and we decided to make it more based on Gianna's lifestyle, rather than the actual country she's located in. 

The film also touches on themes like identity and family/school/sport pressures, which are issues that a lot of people can relate to today. I’m looking forward to breaking down the rest of the questions as I reflect more on our film. It’s making me think deeper about the decisions we made and how they fit into or challenge typical conventions. I’ll be back soon with more updates on the rest of the CCR. Stay tuned lovely people, and let's start this week right.

Problems With Editing

What's up blog!

As much as I'm oozing with good things about this project, I'll let you guys in on the less exciting details. I will be real with you guys and give you a debrief on how our progress is going (the good, the bad, and the ugly).

Even though I try to stay positive, often times it's also good to show how I overcame obstacles with my group. To start with the not as bad complaints, for the group discussion I had with my group, Candelaria wasn't able to attend school since she wasn't feeling well and so we didn't know how she felt over the topics we discussed. Also in that class, the WiFi was off the first hour of class, so we couldn't interact with our editing tools, but the other 30 minutes we were free. 

Now, onto some of the bigger hurdles. One major challenge my group was syncing our footage with the diegetic sound we chose. On the other hand, the foley we had to recreate once again to match up correctly with the clips. I started searching up videos on what foley is (again) to see what I could perfect. I stumbled upon this video, and for the most part it really helped. Here's the link!

https://youtu.be/XixUWuvvYKM

Although with the diegetic sound, we still are having issues with that, but with each group discussion, we tackle the obstacle little by little! For the most part, it makes it easier to know that this is a common issue and it's not just our group dealing with this. Although I will admit it is a pain in the butt.

Also, with the multiple takes on different angles, and getting everything to line up correctly was a headache. At first, it felt like we were stuck in a loop of mistakes. It took some time, but it made the whole editing process flow a lot smoother. 

I've been noticing that with a little creativity and some persistence, you can always find a way around the obstacles. I’m proud of how far we’ve come and can’t wait to see where we end up! 

Getting Used to The Technology

Hello to my wonderful blog!

 Since the last blog I made, I decided to get started with editing. Although, spoiler alert I need to get used to Premiere Pro. On my last project I used iMovie, so this is a drastic change. I started watching some YouTube videos and asking some friends from the production class in my school over tips for this technology soooo for the most part (hopefully) I understand it. 

Another technology I've been playing around with is fonts! Since font is another simple way to illustrate a story, last class, I had a group discussion to pick out the perfect font. And after 30 minutes we decided upon Shockwave for the title (that's the font name, not our title name) and for the credits credits, Ragelo Demo. For now these are just random words that sound weird. But I promise this will all fall into place after the editing but it's still worth mentioning how even the smallest details take a lot of consideration.

Anyways, back to the technology, Premiere Pro is definitely a step up from the tools I usually use. It’s a bit confusing, but also really cool to learn. 

This is when we were playing around with the clips, layering it, and incorporating the editing techniques I talked about last post.

Right now, I’m focusing on picking out the clips I want and cutting them down to the parts I need. It’s a bit of work, but progress is progress. I’m planning to finish the rest of filming by next week so I can really dive into editing.

It feels like a lot, but I’m taking it one step at a time. I’m excited to keep learning and make this film come together!

Production Day 3

 Hey blog! I hope you had an amazing day so far!

As you all know, I filmed at TAG USA with my group! Now, we get to the most vital part of the project: editing. Even though this is super important, I dread editing so much. 

Editing has literally always been the part of filmmaking I struggle with the most. Even though this falls between the post-production line, as I said, it's super crucial to the film. While I understand its importance, it's hard for me to get fully into it and enjoy it. I don’t have the patience to experiment with different techniques, and I sometimes find it difficult to manage all the systems involved. However, I know that taking the time to edit properly will make the final product much better. 

For our group, we’ve all decided started editing by working backward. Instead of beginning with the gym scenes, we started with the ones in Candelaria's/Arianna/Gianna's room. This lets us focus on small details that will matter more later in the film. While we haven’t gotten too far yet, we’ve already coordinated and organized all our clips while adjusting the lengths to avoid keeping scenes on screen for too long. We want to engage the audience, not bore them, as this is super vital in a film. In my midterm project, I got (sadly a lot of) feedback about lingering too long on some clips, so we as a group are making sure to keep things moving.

One challenge we’re facing is staying under the 2-minute time limit. Since we shot a lot of extra footage, it’s tough to fit everything in without cutting out important parts. Although I will admit, it's such much easier to "overfilm", and in the long run it helps SOOOO much. But of course we’re working through it!

For editing techniques, we’re focusing on jump cuts and inserts. Jump cuts help speed up time in a scene and are great for the gym parts, where we’ll be switching between shots of landings, floor, bar, and beam. This will show the passage of time and emphasize the character’s hard work and dedication. Below I'll be showing notes I took on each of the editing techniques with simple terminology to help me understand: 

Inserts are another editing technique that my group is utilizing to illustrate different angles of the same scene. This helps emphasizes the important details and makes the action clearer. It also can adds visual interest and gives us the chance to focus on things that might be missed.

Overall, editing can be frustrating, but I’m excited to see how everything comes together. It’s a lot of work, but in the end, it will be worth it.

Issues

Hey guys!

 This weekend, my team and I started filming, and we’ll continue this week. This blog will mostly focus on our filming process. As this week wraps up I wanted to discuss how many challenges my group and I faced because as much as I love to sugarcoat, obstacles occur (and it's okay) but we have to get real and learn how to overcome them. 

    First, we started filming at Candelaria’s House. We planned to film on Saturday, but literally everything prevented everyone in the group to attend. Arianna which is our main character for the film, had to work as she got called for an emergency. Plus I got grounded for the weekend, so I wasn't able to come and help shoot either. So, the sane thing to do was plan another day. On Sunday, Oona, Arianna, and Candelaria all met up and were able to shoot. As for me being grounded, I was yet again not able to attend. But I'm free again!

    With props, we had various issues but there are all resolved now. One vital prop for our film is a calendar.  Since we all either have one in use (my whole family shares a calendar), or in my group's case, calendar is on our phone, we had no blank calendar. Oona originally told our group she had a blank one, but unfortunately her mom threw it away. Luckily, we realized Dollar Tree is a thing (inflation got to it though) and  found a blank calendar. Our group is a drama sport genre, so we utilized medals to use as props, which was a fun reminder of past achievements. Now that we finally had everything all set, filming went smoothly.

    Later, the second day of filming was in the gym, and it was a super stressful and complicated. TAG USA offers an  “Open Gym” time, where the gym is basically open to everyone, but the owner of the gymnasium told us it wouldn’t be available this week. 

So our luck was clearly running out and we quickly began to look for ways to record. Essentially, the earlier we record, the more time we have to clean up the clips, edit and just make the project as amazing as can be. Arianna and Oona both work at TAG USA so they asked the owner if our group could film on Friday night as opposed to Saturday, and the owner said yes. But then another problem resurface: our stunt double for Arianna, Camila, wasn't avaliable on Friday. Desperately, everyone in the group reached out to some old teammates. I asked numerous friends if they could, just for them all to tell me they were in New York and other in California. Luckily, Arianna and Oona's friend Valeria agreed help us record. 

    However, Valeria could only stay for half the filming time promised, and due to how far TAG USA was, 3 group members were running late, so Oona took the liberty in filming as she was already there working. Coincidentally, the outfits planned correlated to what Valeria was wearing, so whenever we need to change and mix up the actors, it looked clean and consistent. 

Despite the challenges, it was a great weekend of filming, and I’m excited to continue working this week. Thanks and I hope you guys have an awesome chill weekend!

Production: At the Gymnasium

 What's up guys!

We FINALLY recorded in the gym, and it was an amazing experience! TAG USA offered a huge, open space that allowed us to capture the perfect shots for our project. For every scene, we experimented with different camera angles and setups, making sure to try out various options to get the look we wanted. Each person in the group played a role in helping execute the vision for the film, whether behind the camera or in front of it. When it came to the gymnastics stunts, Arianna, Candelaria, and Oona took charge and did an incredible job performing the tricks. They were really brought energy to the shoot and of course as always with their 110%! We rotated between filming and capturing the shots, making sure to get the best shots possible illustrating action. Below, you can see some of the photos I took during the shoot while we were all working together. It was super amusing and exciting (these photos don't show how fun this all was).

I will admit, this part of filming was SOOOOO fun! As we all used to partake in gymnastics when we were little, we all got to play around and incorporate our favorite stunts into the film opening. Plus since I used to compete in gymnastics, I got to show some skills to put into the portfolio project. 

For the stunts, Oona and Candelaria wanted to shoot these scenes as the "stunt double" however, whenever we wanted to include a face, Arianna would be recorded with her full body and face being shown. Overall, this was a collaborative process and we couldn't have filmed this without everyone present. Bye guys see you soon!!

Production Day Two

 Hello to my favorite Cambridge people!

Today I will discussing more about our film process! My group and I FaceTimed each other in order to discuss how we want to move further into our project. We focused on the sound elements of the production. As we were about to finalize our work, the group decided to split up each element. Candelaria would focus more on the foley sound effects (however we made it clear if she stumbles on anything we would be more than willing to help), and Oona, Arianna, and I will research sound effects to correlate with the scenes. Also a side note, this topic of sound effects ties in with another blog I made discussing about audio/sounds. I utilized simple terminology so I can fully understand what my job is. This is the list I have to research:

Ambient sounds: Velcro ripping, car engine, car door closing, car driving/sounds, car doors being locked, car door opening. At home scenes: papers rustling, marker writing, going upstairs, and opening door. 

This picture shows all the effects being downloaded on my computer using the website Pixabay which gives me free no copyright amazing audio sounds. For the most part, my group truly is coorperating and giving their all for the project. As we keep filming, the sound effects will have a wider range to choose from. Now, our next task to tackle will be filming in the TAG gymnasium! I'm super excited for this next step in my production process. See you soon y'all!