Creative Critical Reflection

You can listen to the CCR of A Strange Return here!

Final Project

This is the final project for "A Strange Return"

https://youtu.be/qxWTVDXzlnk

Rendering ans Exporting 4/7

The deadline for my film opening is a few days away and I have completely edited, rendered and exported the project! I will be uploading it to YouTube soon and will be posting the link to it here in the next few days. I am extremely satisfied with the end result and I am extremely grateful for everyone that supported me throughout this journey. (this is where it gets cheesy) I wouldn't have do it with out my friends and family. many thanks to Eddy for being the main role!

I have shared my video with many people and got mostly positive reviews. Which is a great thing. But I'm still not done with the whole project. I will be posting a director's commentary in which I will explain everything you need to know about my project. I will be posting it along with the final project, maybe on Monday, I will be finished.

Oooh, We're half way there...4/7

I am halfway done with re-editing my film opening so that it matches if what I had in mind. I would like to explain in detail what I am doing, So basically I am revamping my project because I was not extremely satisfied with the end result. Now I cant exactly re shoot  the scenes but what I can do is change the plot line using only sounds and effects. This is a basic summary of what the new plot will be, without spoiling the whole project. I added heartbeat sounds to the beginning of the opening to give the viewer a sense of wonder why the heart sounds are being emphasized and at the very end of the opening, the viewers will hear the heart palpitations again but now an EKG, an electrocardiogram, noise in the background. I also added some fades that will transition to white backgrounds. I wanted it to symbolize life, or the return to life. With those alterations, I feel confident that now the people watching can infer that the main character is somewhere like a purgatory kind of place where its neither Heaven or Hell. Now this is where the thriller and the suspense part comes in, WHY is he there and WHY he is being brought back to life and WHO is the man in black and WHERE is he? Those are the questions I hope the viewers ask and I hope to answer them throught the film.

Changing some things... 4/4

Ever since I finished filming last Saturday, I've been editing non-stop. Today, I was able to edit my project and to tell you the truth, I'm not completely satisfied with it. On paper, the idea seemed flawless and the plot flowed naturally. However, I thought something was missing. Since I had an idea of what the film was trying to show and since I knew what the plot should be, it didn't hit me that maybe it wouldn't make sense for someone who has no idea what this was about. After getting some constructive criticism from my family and friends, it made me realize that I needed to make some major changes to the plot.

There is less than a week until this project is due, and I don't have time and resources to go out and film again. So I had to rely on only sound effects and music, I tried something new, I muted the sound tracks of my film and watched it over and over again trying to figure out what I can add, sound wise, that could completely change the plot for the better. 

What I have so far is a man wakes up in the forest all alone and finds this man in black. Now what is the purpose of the man that wakes up and what is the significance of the man in black in the story? As I tried to figure out what I would do to fix this mess, I came across something. The man in black is wearing a hoodie that somewhat resembles the grim reaper.  Now I had something and it seemed that it was going somewhere, I had a plot! The greatest part of it is that I can work with the original footage and only need to work on the sound and the audio. I'm super excited to see how this will turn out. Clearly it wont an action movie, now more like a psychological thriller!

 

Editing 4/2

9:20 am
Today I will be transferring the raw footage from the camera to Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 to analyse what can be cut and what will stay. With one challenge, to be two minutes and make sense. With the selected raw clips combined, I have a total of four minutes and fifty two seconds which have to be edited.

10:00 am
I was successful on making the film two minutes. It is still pretty raw any needs tons of editing, as in transitions, more cuts, sounds and etc... Now that i'm finally watching it, I can get a sense of what it will look like. And i got to say, it does not look like an action film, more like a psychological horror, but I am extremely happy and satisfied with the "end" result.

Around 10:06am
After messing around with the cut tool for a while, I decided that it would be a good idea to save my project. As I click on "Save as", a peculiar message pops up saying the following:

" Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 had stopped working"

... After I raged for twenty minutes straight and after almost tossing my computer out the window, I took a deep breath restarted my project from scratch. At least I knew which clips I would use and where to cut. Which made the experience more bearable.  From then on, I began pressing the save button every five minutes just to be sure. You cant never be to careful.

11:00
I began downloading sound effects that I'll use for my film. I created a free account on freesound that allows me access to hundreds of useful and interesting sound effects, all royalty free!

So far, it looks, and sounds, great! I added the top and bottom black lines to give professional look to the film.

Black lines  

"Freesound.org." Freesound.org - Freesound.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2017.

FILMING DAY 4/1

Eddy and I eating between scenes

 Today was the day we began filming my opening! I am so excited i'll be finally bringing my idea to life! My friends and I decided to leave at 7:30 to be the first ones in the park. Unfortunately, my best friend, Ferran, who was set to play the main actor in the film, had to go unexpectedly to Orlando. I first thought that was some cheap April fools joke but it wasn't... But honestly, I forgive him since gave me great support when I was coming up with the whole idea for the project. However, we had another problem, we were one actor short! So a last minute change was made, Eduardo would play the main role while I would play the Mysterious man in black. Which is OK, its just that Eddy's hoodie could fit two of me inside of it.

Me struggling to take the perfect shot

Before we get to the park, we stop at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and to bring something to eat in between scenes. At 8am we arrived at the park and to find that the location where we would film was empty.
Which was great!

We filmed every single scene in a span of two hours with no disturbances... I lied, first of all, we were filming next to a mountain bike path and from time to time, there would be the talkative, loud bikes zooming by. Second, the park has a gun range probably a mile away from where we were filming. Lastly, Markham Park is located at the final to the Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport were there was the occasional Boeing 737 or Airbus 320 zooming by making us halt the filming for a minute until we began filming again. But we were successful and finished at 10:20am. I am 250 percent sure that will all the raw footage combined we have more than five minutes. Now its up to me to begin make the film at least two minutes with context!

Point of View of the image above