Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 7 - #1

Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I discuss my recent group meeting. I love meeting with other classmates and sharing thoughts and ideas. It is great to get another perspective from someone outside of my own team. We had a great time developing ideas for our Cambridge project. Here is a photo of my lovely group!

We first discussed how our projects were going and how we went about addressing issues and changes in our blog post. One specific group member had a really hard time filming and felt the result wasn't up to par. She ended up refilming and becoming the main character. It was nice to hear my team wasn't the only one with filming difficulties. We all talked about how we could improve and handle obstacles. 

Another main point of conversation was the creative critical reflections. We all had great ideas, but they needed tweaking to fulfill the requirements. There was a lot of exchanging of ooos and aaas as we shared our plans. I helped my group mates as they felt uneasy going into this point of the project. Our teacher had stressed the importance of the CCRs just moments before. So, we were all a little scared our plans wouldn't go as we originally thought. It was a great way to straighten out my own ideas. In my next blog post I will reveal my first video idea! I'll meet you in the future!

Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 6 - #4

 Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I discuss my first CCR question. If you don't know what a CCR is, I feel your pain. This part was very confusing to me at first. A CCR stands for Creative Critical Reflection. So, when I finally do the CCR I'll make it super silly and fun. Right now, I need to do some writing and research for the first CCR which is "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?" This is a LOADED question that has many elements. 

For the first part of the question, it is clear that our film follows the conventions of the coming-of-age genre. This genre has been heavily researched by me and my teammates. We have looked a countless examples and found a common ground among them. They usually focus on teens and a journey of self-discovery. Like our main character Atticus's journey. This genre is filled with emotions and connections between characters. Our film opening is no different. It relies of the characters development and how they affect each other. 

The next part focuses on group representation. The first group that comes to mind is the LGBTQ+ community. Our leading couple (Kai & Aroura) in the opening is a queer relationship. It is slightly uncommon in Hollywood to have queer characters in a coming of age. One exception that comes to mind is a movie called Book Smart. 

This movie does an amazing job of having a leading queer character in a casual way. That's how it should be introduced. Nowadays it is very normal and should be treated that way. For our opening I want to make it completely ordinary that there is a queer relationship. Although the relationship is very toxic that isn't related to their situation. The way we represent their dynamic won't be contingent on their genders. 

In my next blog post I'll discuss the next CCR question. I'll meet you in the future!

Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 6 - #3

 Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I will go over how we are including foley in our opening. We got to learn about foley a while back in our Aice media class and decided to integrate it into our project. Foley is the creation of sounds for video in post-production. Foley isn't usually made with what's actually going on in a film. For example, in the movie A Quiet Place they created monster sounds by breaking celery. Yeah, you read that right CELERY. Video about foley for A Quite Place When creating foley you have to get very creative and think outside of the box to be able to get the sound you want to achieve. 

Our lovely group member Lee took the liberty of creating some foley for our opening. She used a leather chair to mimic drawing. In our opening our main character Atticus is frantically drawing. It will be very hard to capture the actual sound of him drawing. So, taking the time to make foley is very productive. Lee's very innovative because I would have never thought of this substitution. Here is a wonderful behind the scenes video hosted by Lee of the creation. Foley Creation! And the foley audio files in the editing software!

In my next blog post I will discuss my first CCR question! I'll meet you in the future!

Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 6 - #2

Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I'll talk a little about editing. Editing is my own personal hell. It is my least favorite part of production. It is very tedious and I'm a huge perfectionist. So, editing takes a lot longer for me than most. I started editing in middle school, so I know how to edit very well. I have to edit quite often for all of my television projects. I always use an editing platform called Adobe Premiere Pro. 

Thankfully my teammate Lee likes editing so she's taking the task of editing our film opening. She also uses premiere for her projects. That is the editing software she is using for all of the editing. Here are some photos of the timelines for the film. 

All of the scenes in the timeline so far are of Aroura's scenes. In the opening the first time we see her character she is getting ready to go out with Kai. This scene includes a lot of close ups and mediums. This will establish the character just like in normal coming of age films. Another big part of editing is foley which I will talk about in my next blog post. I'll meet you in the future!

 Editing softwares

Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 6 - #1

Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I will update you on recent filming for our opening! but first I'd thought it would be nice to update you on my trip and how it went! Like I said in my last post me and my teammate Sofia went to a Televison competition in Tampa. It was so much fun, and I learned a great deal. I have some amazing news to share about it as well. Although I didn't mention it in my last post (because I thought it went so badly) I competed in another competition while I was there called sports highlight editing. It was super stressful, and I thought I did horrible BUT I actually WON SECOND PLACE!!! 

Now back to your regularly scheduled programing... 

My group got a chance to film more scenes! Unfortunately, I was deeply ill after returning from my trip and couldn't even go to school for two days. Lucky for me I have an amazing team that easily picked up my slack. They filmed Lees scenes for the opening. Here is some behind the scenes photos. 

As you can see in the photo's we use a professional camera courtesy of CBTV. The camera we use in all of our filming is a Canon T7i. It has both a photo and camera mode. It is very proficient and works for any type of filming. In my next blog post I'll talk a little about editing. I'll meet you in the future!

Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 5 - #4

 Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I go over some scheduling difficulties due to a school trip me and Sofia are on. We are both apart of the Televison class at our school called CBTV. Sofia planned the entire competition for our club. I am so grateful to go but it created difficulties with our project. Both of our teammates Lee and Makenna are back in Weston waiting for our return. Without us and our equipment they are unable to film. Like I said in my last post we were able to get some filming done before we left. 

We competed in a competition called crazy 8 news magazine. Unfortunately, my news segment didn't make it into the show, but my school did an amazing job. I'm IMPATIONTLY awaiting to see if we placed. Considering this is my senior year I'm extremely anxious for the outcome. When we return, we will be able to film the rest of our opening. I'm very excited to finally film. I know it will be very fun to act and be behind the camera. In my next blog post I will update you on the production process. I'll meet you in the future! 

Cambridge Portfolio Project Week 5 - #3

Welcome back to my blog! In this blog I will show some behind the scenes from filming. Both me and my teammate Sofia took some time to get close ups for our opening. We knew our schedules we going to be very busy (which I'll go over in my next post). So, we figured it was best to get some shots done now while we can. All of these clips were for my character. The close up will not only be visually pleasing but will help establish my personality. 

My car is my pride and joy. Not only in the film but in real life. I'm very grateful to be able to have access to it for filming. All of the close ups are before my face is even show. It will leave the audience waiting for more. The shots are things like me turning up the music. This one specifically is crucial and connects to Atticus's character as he also turns up the volume on the same song. The music establishes both characters and shows how their lives are different, but their background is similar. In my next blog post I will go over scheduling difficulties. I'll meet you in the future!