Editing Blog: Titles

      Hi guys, I’m back with an update about our movie, Double Deceit. We still have not left our homes to film anything as of yet. However, we have continued the process within the safe and clean environment of our homes. So far, all we need is to film two more scenes, those will take place at one of our group mates’ house. Her house is in a very populated and complex area where many people go in and out of every day. She lives near a bus terminal and we have been advised to not visit areas with such a high risk of contacting the virus.
     Basically, we are stuck in our homes and are communicating through social platforms and messages. We have began the process of doing the titles sequence and adding it to the beginning of the film. This meant we had to blend in the titles and come together to pick what color background and how long they will each be shown on-screen.
       Our movie is titled Double Deceit, so we wanted the title picture to express the words as their literal meanings. By reading the title and seeing the way it came on screen, the audience should be able to tell what type of movie it is going to be. The goal was to do like most successful and interesting movies do and plant an idea in your head before the movie even begins.
      We still have plenty of time to add tweaks and correct both minor and major errors in our film. For now, we are limited and restricted regarding our ability to do certain things outside of our homes at this point by both our parents and officials. But we do plan on getting this assignment done and perfected far before the due date now that we have extra time on our hands. I will be back to log more of our journey as film makers soon again.
    We do have hope that we will be able to reshoot some scenes again. In order for us to be completely satisfied with our project the scenes have to correlate and we will continue to edit along the way.

Reshoot

     Hey guys, I have bad news. We did not get to film today and reshoot anything. Due to the corona virus, many of us haven’t left our homes. We have been advised to not gather in groups to reduce exposure. Also, we were told to limit contact with other individuals and to be safe, so we haven’t really been out much. It doesn’t seem to have an effect on individuals our age, but we are taking precautionary measures and don’t want to risk anything. However, today we did try to film regardless of the circumstances but other factors lead to us not doing so. One of our group mates did not have a ride, the others had work.
      The next chance we get we will reshoot. We have two weeks off of school and plan to use them to finish our project. We don’t need to shoot every single scene again, only about one or two of them. We ran into a problem because we have a specific time frame we have to be within. We ran over the time and forgot about the two separate filming days.
     For us to reshoot, we may change our attire or keep it the same but we haven’t figured it out yet. Most likely, we will just record the individual scenes with the time crunch in mind. This will also aid in a more productive editing process because we won’t have to cut as much. We will film about 10 scenes and most will be 2 seconds (like flash pans).
      Our project is almost done, all we have to do is correct the time errors. Hopefully, we will be able to film this week or at least before we return to school. My next blog will be on another topic, but I will be sure to mention the progress we’ve made since.
     

Editing Blog

    Hey, I’m back to log my movie journey and to share our film making process. So far, we filmed some of our scenes and we’re peer reviewed. With our first assignment, we soon realized that our regular editing app that we had to use on the school computers would not work as well with this project. We also already had to struggle with the computers themselves, so pinnacle studios was a no-go.
       We really didn’t want to have to bear the hassle of a faulty app that we weren’t very sure of how to use properly. So we first started this project, assigned each individual of our group a role. My role was to be one of the actors and the idea person for the storyboard. Erik is in charge of editing and the actual putting together of the movie. We recently had a peer review assignment that was assigned so we could get a second view and unbiased or fresh perspective on our movie. This did prove to be very helpful because it let us know what our classmates thought. They were  also doing this project as well, so everyone was assigned an individual to peer review or a group.
    For the peer review, we were told that we couldn’t just send in clips. We actually had to put together what we had to film so far and put it on a flash drive. We only filmed the  scene at the park, and we did shoot some scenes more than once because of lighting or other issues. So we had to cut some of the footage and add it in certain places in order to be in sync with the storyboard. Then, we had to make sure that our film  was within the timeframe and didn’t go over or under it. We basically just cut and put together the scenes, but we did have a problem. Because  we took longer than expected to film, our peer review wasn’t the full movie. But it still went over the timeframe that the movie was supposed to be in. But we had to turn in something for our peer review. this weekend we plan on finishing the rest of our scenes, and I will be back to log the rest of our journey!

Filming Blog: The Park

        So far, our movie has been a success! We finally got to film last weekend on Saturday. Everything came together so nicely. I was able to bring one of my friends to play one of the parts of the people that we needed, which was very helpful and turned out to be great in the end. Everyone played in their roles very nicely and the lighting was so perfect, we don’t have to worry about reshooting with better lighting. My role  was the kidnapper (the lawyer), and my face wasn’t supposed to show in any of the things that we filmed. I simply had to lure the child in with candy, which was pretty easy and basic. Also, this was the main part of our movie so precision was everything. 

         Then came the part where we had  to get all of the other actors together since we were going to shoot the movie in order of the story board slides. The toddler did create some difficulty and a little bit of a struggle, she was actually a young child, it was difficult to keep her attention throughout the whole time we were filming. So I had to wave one of her toy dolls at her and then lure her in with the candy after she saw the doll. 

         Overall, it was pretty fun filming and taking pictures because the setting was just perfect and so was the lighting. We procrastinated for a while and also had to wait for the area to die down because it actually is a playground and a park and people were there. One of the first rules we were taught about the filmmaking process was to not include individuals in the film that were not meant to be there unless it was for the purpose of the film as if they were bystanders. Of course, we didn’t want to get points off and we want our film to be exactly like the storyboard, so we waited. 

          I must admit, We didn’t use the camera or the tripod to film even though we checked it out. We didn’t use it because it will be too time-consuming to record or risk the battery dying. Also, we didn’t want to record and then have to rush into class the next school day and dump the footage and then save it. So we recorded on our cell phones, and after we finished filming they sent all the footage to me. Then, I sent it to the group chat for it to be reviewed and edited for peer review. 

Peer Review Blog For Movie

      I would have to say the most interesting part of this film was the way they kept my attention. I often get distracted or easily bored when watching films no matter the length. For an AICE Media film, this one was actually good. They also managed to keep my attention while also not giving away the entire story. Most short films are like that. Although this isn’t a short film, is seems as though it was. I do believe that they followed the instructions of the assignment because in the end. Meaning, I wanted more and did wonder what else was going to happen. It wasn’t too much or too little, and wasn’t boring or too adventurous. 

      I would suggest they filmed in an area with calmer weather. It was kind of hard to hear the dialogue with the wind. They should have used artificial wind that was lighter, and edited it into the movie.  I don’t think it would be very difficult for them to do this. I also suggested this to my group members for our project as well. An audience naturally won’t force themselves to struggle to hear the dialogue or the lower sounding sounds in a film. Then adding the wind after the dialogue or during it would be better. It would allow them to adjust the level of the sound so it won’t be so disruptive. Also, they would be able to blend the sound to their advantage. This would ensure that it would be able to fade in (sound wise) or fade out (sound wise). This would have been better for the film.