Editing Blog (clipping vids)

Unfortunately I had no time to film between monday and thursday. This was due to my teachers deciding to pile on work to sophomores who had never been taught to schedule or organize themselves. I had two major tests on the same day and it was extremely difficult studying for both and even when I did i’m pretty sure I failed. But enough about that, this caused me to have no time to film. So instead of filming, I decided to begin trimming the clips. This isn’t quite editing because when I think of editing I think more of doing the transitions and things like that. However I dont want to do any of that until I have all my clips. That would make it able for me to see how much I should cut the rest of the videos and adding transitions to see how much time I have. If I didnt do it like that I might cut the clips too far and realize I dont have enough time. Or vice versa I could have had too much time after putting in transitions and titles.

When I began to cut the videos, I had to think about the storyboard. Because we did too many storyboards for how long our video is, each box actually represents 2 seconds. This is quite annoying because how are you supposed to take a two second clip. Especially since my storyboard boxes have conversations in them and a lot of movement. When I am done with the video I will most likely have wayyyyyyy to much film. This is because each box on a storyboard is supposed to be 5 seconds. If this were the case for our final project we would have only had to do 4 storyboard but we actually had to do 10. I really don’t understand the reasoning for this especially because it’s making my video harder to film. But I cannot question my teachers ways so whatever they want us to do I will do. This made it so that when I was clipping the videos I tried to clip as much as I could. If each video I take has to be 2 seconds that’s going to be a VERY choppy video. We will see how this turns out.

Filming Blog (Beginning)

This weekend I was actually able to get some filming done. It was just the very beginning of the video because again we all had busy schedules. I followed the storyboard I created and it really helped me be more organized and quick. I first took an opening shot of my house. This was the easiest because it didn't require any props or actors. It was just a slow pan of the front of my house. This shot was just used to show the scenery. After that is when I had to wait for my sister to have time to film. She works on Sunday so we did it on Saturday after we were both able to clear time in our schedules. Then, I began shooting her.

We did not get that much filming done due to poor lighting and a busy day. However, it was nice to finally get a start on it. This is going to make it easier to get to work this coming weekend or any of the days during this week. Im slightly concerned because this week/weekend is the last days to film and edit before we have to turn it in for peer review. I do not want a bad grade on peer review, so I have to put together the film before then. This stresses me like every other project I have this week. I have many tests this week I need a lot of time to study for, lab reports, euro homework, english work, etc. All of it is making me very stressed and unmotivated making it very difficult for me to finish everything on time. Testing is coming soon which doesn't make me feel any better. I am just going to over-film this weekend so I don't have to after the peer review. I hope I am able to get the work done in time and I really don't know what to do if I can't. I really put my effort into all my classes and its making it very hard for me to finish anything on time.

Filming Blog (Or not...)

          For this blog, I was supposed to begin filming the first 2 min of the movie project. Unfortunately, I was unable to do this by Thursday. Almost everyday there has been an obstacle blocking us from filming. For instance, me and my sister go to my mom's school after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My film in the beginning needs to be with light outside, and having it be dark when I get home everyday isn't practical. On Monday and Wednesday we drove people home after school that live near Davie and I live near lighthouse point so that wasn't practical either. Then after dropping them, my sister and I would be starving so we would get food after. This took up all of our week time to do any filming, and the past weekend was a whole other story. Even though I could film the middle of the movie first, I cannot do that. My perfectionist mind has to have every video in order when I film or else it would make it way to difficult to edit and put them all together.

          Because I wasn't able to film yet this week, it will make this weekend more of a struggle. I will have to do twice the amount of filming that I prepared for. It will be difficult to get my sister to cooperate because she always goes out on the weekend. She is my main actor so I need her home in order to film. This will most likely make it so I film on Sunday, the night neither of us can go out because its a school night. Then I will have enough time to begin filming. I felt like it would take a long time to film the first two minutes but after thinking about it, the music video we did was about 1 minute and I had a lot of extra footage I could have put in. That whole video was able to be filmed completely in 2 days. So according to my calculations because this movie is 2 min then it should take 4 days at most to complete all filming. After that, I will put the videos together and clip them to see if we need any more or less footage.

         Because the project needs to be finished by the 3rd of March, I will have to finish filming in the next two weekends. This is perfect because I have 4 days which is what I need on weekends, and then any touch up videos can be taken during the week. The music video was slightly more rushed and for this project I am trying to be organized. Because of this, I am setting a specific day for my sister and I to complete most of the filming we did. I will make sure the weather outside is good, and hopefully there is a cool sunset I can add into the movie. Those shots are always nice and set a good mood. That will make me scaring the audience even better because they wouldn't expect it coming. I have recently thought about the type of music I will edit it in. In the beginning I am going to do a hype energetic sound to show my productions. Then it will change to a high pitched eerie sound when I present the movie title. I really think this movie is going to be good. I just have to get all the props to be able to do it correctly. This consists of things like fake blood, eye makeup, etc. I will need these to create fake injuries on the victim (Kelly). I am ready to begin filming this weekend and surprisingly a little excited.

Planning Blog (Storyboard)

For this part of the final project, I had to make a storyboard. This is basically drawings and explanations for what if happening in the video with some camera angles. This makes it so when you go to film, it is very easy because you already know exactly what you need to do. Making this took a while because I had to do it by myself due to me not having a group. It all ended up taking a few hours. However now, when it comes to filming, it will be much quicker than if I did not have the storyboard to follow. Usually each box on a storyboard is worth about 5-6 second worth of film. In this case, that would have meant I did 5 min of filming. So for this, each box represented a couple seconds. In the end, I was glad to be finished and organized to begin the next step in the process: filming :).

Planning Blog (Titles)

For this blog I had to come up with all of the different titles that will be used in my title sequence of the film. Most of the titles just have my plain name. This is because I am not doing any group work. I will be the person behind the thinking, production, and editing of the film. The only names I had to come up with was MAC Productions and Doyle Bros. These both took some slight creativity but were relatively easy to think of. MAC productions is made because my sister calls me by that nickname. The Doyle bros was inspired by Warner bros and their famous studio. All of these titles were pretty easy to do. This just made it so that when i'm putting my title sequence together I don't have to remember the titles or come up with them on the spot. I will already have all of the titles that I need throughout the video. They are also in order of how they are most likely going to be presented. This just adds to the organization of this project. I am ready to edit in all of the titles to make a very delightful title sequence that has some creativity to it.

Planning Blog (Participation, Location, Health, Schedule)

This blog has to do with more planning aspects of the movie. I had to put together the participation of other actors in the movie, the locations the scenes will take place in, the health and safety of it, and a schedule. These all really help organize how I will attempt the movie. It made it much clearer as to how it will turn out in my head. Now, I have even better ideas for the film. There are a few different actors in the movie, all from my family however. The locations vary because the film has a lot to do with running away or getting away from a deadly creature. The health and safety isn't even a slight worry because there isn't really a scene that could end up in a bad injury. Maybe a scratch on the knee, a small bump on the head. But nothing too serious. For the schedule, that helped me to see how much time I needed to complete the project without having to stress. Now I will not procrastinate and I will stick to my guide so that my film can come smoothly together.

Planning Blog (Shooting Script)

To make this shooting script, I used google slides again. This is the easiest to use because it automatically saves your work so it can never get lost. For this planning blog, we had to make a script of the camera angles we used and what is generally happening in each scene. When making this, I would look at all the scenes in my sound script and then play out what I thought the movie would look like in my head. I was able to make up the camera angles in my head as I went along, just by picturing what I would like to see it as if it were a real movie. It actually wasn't that difficult to do this because I had already made the sound script which gives a lot of ideas. These ideas helped me think of the descriptions on what would happen. It also helped with me deciding my final camera angles that I would use. I might have to make some tweaks once I am actually creating my video, but for now this is a good guideline as to how I should structure/go about this project. I am ready to get my hands dirty with filming.

Planning Blog (Sound Script)

For writing this script, I opened up google slides to begin a new power point. Writing out the script is a huge process for making the movie possible. After I was able to lay out ideas in my head, I quickly thought up of a script that would fit my scenery and camera abilities. I was not completely sure on how I was going to write the script, but once there were ideas in my head, the thoughts just kept flowing. My script had to be scary but also follow a story line. This was difficult to portray in a 2 minute video that includes a title sequence. This was challenging but I accepted it and kept writing. Overall, I think I made a pretty good script for the movie. Now I will be able to write out what will happen in the scenes much more easy. Now filming is going to be cake as soon as my storyboarding is finished. I am ready to get my hands on a camera to put these thoughts altogether.