My Film Intro

 Here is the link to my film intro! Thank you for coming on this journey with me and I hope you enjoy it!

My CCR

 Here is the link to my CCR! I hope you enjoy!

Reflection

 Well, it's the end of my project. The editing portion of my project took longer than I thought it would- I've been editing both my film intro and CCR since Friday and I just finished editing. It was an exhausting and aggravating process, but looking at the finished project now, I am so proud with how it turned out. I have a whole new respect for film producers, writers and editors now that create movies, since now I know how hard and challenging it is to make. Things such as how long the audio is, how to make the audio and scenes match up, and how to fix the lighting and coloring in clips that need it. 

Because I have been literally all of my free time to edit my project, I have not been able too post any updates on here that I've made recently. For example, I picked the music that I was going to use for my film. While listening to music while editing, I realized that the song that I was listening to was not copyrighted, and could be used anywhere. To test out how it would look, I played the song on my laptop while playing my film on my other computer I was editing on and it was strangely on beat so much it looked like I moved my clips to be on beat with it. I put the song in my song in the project and it was perfect. The song is Jubilee Line by Wilbur Soot.

Using After Effects, I modified the coloring in the clips on my intro so that it was brighter and more vibrant, and I showed that in my CCR by putting a clip side by side, but one with the coloring and one without.  

I talked about many different things in my CCR, such as the genre research I did for my film, how it challenges conventions, the production techniques I used such as sound and how I filmed some scenes and the technology that I used in the making of it and how I used it.

I am really proud of how my project came out and I am excited to finally share it with everyone!

Representation

 Representation is very important in media these days. It is important for the audience to see different types of character in films and not just the same type of person in every film. There are so many different and diverse types of people, whether it is race, religion, sexual orientation, disabilities, or anything else, it is important for audiences, especially younger audiences, to see characters that they can look up to that are like them or look like them, making them inspired and want to be like them.

My film deals with representation by having two young females as the main characters. Even though recently we have seen more female lead films, such as The Hunger Games, Ocean's Eight, Captain Marvel, Hidden Figures and Lady Bird, only 40% of all films have a female lead. This number needs to go up because it is important for women and young girls to see more strong female leads on their screens. The more that we see strength and power described as a feminine trait, we will see women be treated more equally amongst men. Women and young girls will also want to be like these strong female characters, and be inspired to be as smart, strong and successful as these characters. 

My film also has representation because the main character is not only a young girl, but she is more introverted and quiet, while her best friend is the loud and outspoken one. This is good representation because there are not many films where the lead character is not outspoken and is more withdrawn, especially in adventure movies. This can show people that are similar and are quiet like her can still do good and take on things just as big as people that are very extroverted and outgoing can.

Filming Day 3

 Filming with my best friend went well! Since we only had to shoot one scene, it was very quick and easy. For starters, we used the house right in front of ours to act as Selene's house instead of another in our neighborhood. We did this because our house has extraordinarily bright lights in our driveway and porch, that we can turn up and make even brighter using my dad's phone. So, I turned up the brightness even more so that the light acted as a background light for the scene, which helped with the brightness level. Also, my mom helped film the scene of me and Ari walking away, which is the last scene of the intro. I changed the scene a little bit to what it was before and on the storyboard, making it kind of a tracking shot and pan towards us. For example, in the scene, the camera is looking at Ari as I walk up to her from behind where my mom was shooting. Then, once I reached Ari, we walked down the sidewalk together, while my mom moved the camera to film us on the sidewalk. I am very proud of how it came out and can't wait to edit it!

Some Setbacks!

 Today, I looked at the footage that I had and saw a lot of problems with how it came out.

For starters, the scenes and clips that were shot outside were very dark and grainy, even when I tried to brighten it on After Effects. Another problem was how shaky some of the clips were of when I was showing the pictures of me and my parents around my room. The last complication was the music. it didn't really fit with the mood of the scene. So, I will need to find new music for the video. As for the clips, my friend is coming over tomorrow night to help me reshoot the outside scenes again. Unfortunately, my friend Kailey, who helped me the first time, is unable to help me tomorrow and is busy, so my best friend is coming instead to help me in her place. The good thing is that Kailey was only in one scene, so it will be easy to substitute my best friend Ari for Kailey. And for the shaky camera, I used my dad's GoPro to reshoot those scenes with a tripod, which is a better quality camera and came out more steady than the first time. As for the scenes outside, I am going to use my dad's phone, which is much newer and better and has a better camera quality, especially outside at night, which will make it look much better than before.

Filming Day 2

 My friend just left my house, and we finished filming! It went really well and only took about an hour. When she came over, I showed her the storyboard and started filming the scenes that move or pan up, which I could not do on my own. 

One of the technical difficulties that we had to work through was the scene where I walk out of my room and turn off my lights, which are the purple LED lights. However, since I lost the remote (whoops), the only way to turn them off is using an app on my phone. So, Kailey could not record me using my phone and also turn off the  lights when I needed her to. So, I borrowed my mom's phone so Kailey could record me on there, while turning off the lights with mine. We used my mom's phone because it is the same phone as mine, and if we were to use my dad's phone, the camera quality would be different and better in that one, making it look inconsistent when I put all of the clips together. I then sent myself the videos.

Then, after that, we went outside to shoot the last few scenes. One of them required Kailey going on my dad's latter in the street to record me leaving my house. I took a picture of her up on the latter to use in my CCR and to show her in the process of filming me. For the next scenes, since they were supposed to take place at Selene's (Kailey's) house, we went to another house in my neighborhood, one where my friend lives so we were not just shooting in the driveway of a random person's house. We did this instead of going to her actual house to film just to save on time, since we can do the same thing without actually going all the way to her house and back. Since there was a scene both Kailey and I were in, I asked my dad to come out and film that scene. Finally, Kailey filmed the last scene of me, and we were done! I am very excited to edit them all and put it all together this week, and I cannot thank Kailey enough for helping me!