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

Scouting Locations Pt.2 3/28

I finally had time to get around to visit the location where I'll be filming the two-minute opening for my film. Like i mentioned before, what I wanted was to find a place secluded enough to be able to get all the shots in at least two hours. First, I looked for a place where is surrounded by woods, luckily, I found Markham park. Somethings i had to make sure of before i made any decisions was to be 100% sure that where were filming wasn't illegal or somewhere that was private, wasn't disturbing anyone, and didn't make me or my crew look suspicious of any illegal activities.

We alerted the park's staff that we were going to be using that area. One thing that worried me was that the wooded area is next to an open recreational area where my people/ schools take field trips to to  have camp outs and other activities. That worried me that since the filming day is near spring break, and every spring break is different for different schools around the area. The day we visited, the area was clear which got me excited!

filming will be done behind tat treeline

We, Eduardo, Ferran and I, will be filming on Saturday, April 1st. (Eduardo and Ferran are my good friends who will be the actors in the opening) The park opens at 8 am and we plan on getting there early to avoid any hikers or bikers that may disturb the filming.

Playing around with Photoshop

As i mentioned two blog posts ago, I mentioned that I took a TV production course my freshmen year that gave me proficiency on Adobe Premiere and Photoshop and now I was playing around with Photoshop and since I will need to use it for the title screen and the credits that will appear during the opening sequence and etc...  Since today was more a "free"day, where i didn't  have to do any pre-production  tasks, I created a little logo for the Triverge Films. Fun Fact: The name Triverge was actually created when my friends and I created a Youtube channel to make fun and exciting videos but that went nowhere. Anyway, I created a cute little logo that will for now on represent Triverge Films. Enjoy!

Coming up with the title

This is ironic but coming up with the title of my film opening is actually one of the most difficult task that I've encountered during the pre-production of the film. If you read my blog post of when i posted the the official plot line to my opening, if not, here's a quick link to it, you know that it focus on a man that wakes up disoriented and confused, which towards the end, he ends up more disoriented and confused. So, the first step I took to find the name of my film was to look up on google "synonyms for confused" in hopes to find a fancy, SAT type of word in which would satisfy me. However, that didn't happen. I came across this article from Script Fly called "How Movie Titles Work" which went into details of what a movie title should do in terms of conveying the message that you are about to present in your film. The article talks about 'Meaningless two-word titles' or MTWTs which are titles that dont give any meaning to the plot of the story but the trendy themes. Unfortunately, all my previous ideas were two word titles... There is no problem is having two word titles, in fact, many great films that were ever created started out with two word titles. Such as Star Wars, Home Alone and etc... 
After brainstorming many possible movie titles, I have come up with one that will not be a "MTWTs". 

"A Strange Return"

This title may not make any sense for what my opening is about but it would certainly make sense later in the movie. I haven't put much thought into the story after the opening, which is what I'm focusing on, the gift pertains to what the character has in which gives the plot to the story. Currently, I have almost no plot after the title screen. Maybe after I finish, I could extend the story and share it with you guys.  

Prendergast, Gabrielle. "How Movie Titles Work." How Movie Titles Work. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2017.

My Gear 3/24

I am 90 percent done with all pre-production work for my film opening. The other ten percent is coming up with a title, somewhat important, and the main character details. Since my main character has barely any lines, I will have to come up with a way where ill be able to introduce him to you. However, I would like to introduce you to what will make this film idea come to life, my camera, editing software and other technical elements. 

First, the camera- I would like to avoid using my phone to shoot the scenes of the film. I have taken a class on TV production where i learned many shooting techniques, besides the ones i learned taking AICE Media, that would only be possible if they were taken with a real camera. Luckly, my dad got a new camera a couple years back, specifically the Nikon D3300, 

Also, during the TV production course, we were able to get training with the Adobe Premiere and Photoshop tools. I got some practice on both of them and got pretty proficient on both softwares, I even made some amateur films in the past, in which i even got a certification from Adobe. But, that was during my freshman year of High School so my abilities have gotten worse. After many hours of watching Premiere tutorials to gain some of my skill back, I finally found this great website called Lynda, which gives amazing, in depth videos on hundreds of sofwares. I have been using the free trial option and i am currently contemplating on subscribing because i got so hooked.

"Lynda: Online Courses, Class, Training, Tutorials." Lynda.com - from LinkedIn. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2017.

Scouting Locations

Welcome back!

 I got to say, I am actually very proud of what have achieved so far. I have officially completed the story line and I can vision the end result of my film opening and i got to say, I am extremely excited for you guys to watch. Since this is a one man group, pre-production is a bit slower than the other groups. Luckily, I have great friends that are actually helping me with technical stuff but i am the one behind the production of it.

Next on the to-do list is finding a location. Like in the story line, the main character wakes up in a heavily wooded area with nothing but trees and and bird sounds. Here in South Florida there arent many heavily wooded areas that are also a swamp invested with alligators. Luckly, we have Makrkham Park. There, is one of the only places where theres wood that is public, so we wont get in any trouble while filming there. This Sun Sentinel article gives us a list of great camping spots here in South Florida. Distance is not a problem, but I'm not to fond of having to drive a long way to film, but it is a last resort idea. This weekend, I will be visiting Markham park and I will take Pictured and share them to give you guys a sense of what we will be dealing with.

The Storyline

For the past two weeks I have been babbling about the genre, storyboard, plot and I'm giving ideas for color schemes and etc... I know I posted a low-detail storyboard and I doubt anyone could understand the full plot from my highly detailed drawings. (The HD, final storyboard is coming soon.) Now, I feel it is the right time to give you guys the full story. Here, you will see that I gt a bit inspired by that first episode of "Lost".

Please note that this story line does not include, shots, angles or any edits.

Sound will be in red

-The film opening begins with establishing shots of the woods (location is still unknown)
- Birds sounds and forest ambiance 
-The protagonist wakes up in the middle of the forest. (Our main character's name is still unknown and I believe that his name name will not be important during the opening.)
-Dog whistle-type of noise as he wakes up.

-He sits up. Scared, he looks left and right only to find nothing but the trees and the sounds of birds.
-Birds

-The main character stands up, stumbling, he begins to walk around the forest. screaming "HELP!" He then stumbles and falls, crying.

- He then begins to hear some mumbling noises like if it was coming from the heavens.
-Whistle, birds and mumbling combined.
-He stands back up and sees black figure in the distance walking along the woods. The character begins to run towards this man while stumbling and hanging on to trees while asking for help.

-The mysterious man keeps walking, ignoring the mans plead for help. The main character finally reaches the mysterious man and extends his hand to catch his attention by touching him on the shoulder.

-But, the moment he touches him, the mysterious man disappears. Puzzled, the man stands there with his arms extended. Suddenly , a loud noise comes out of nowhere, so loud that makes the protagonist fall down and be disoriented.
- Extremely loud noise 
- While the man is looking up at the sky while in the ground, the mysterious man shows up again and the scene fades to the title screen with a distant scream in the background.
- Low whistle and distant scream

This is what I have so far, lets hope that it is at most two minutes. if i make any further changes to the plot line, I will be sure posting the edits I have made.

What I Have So Far

Well, working alone hasn't been easy, so far i was able to come up with my opening film genre and the plot. Also, with other classes to worry about, juggling this project with the rest has been a struggle recently. Now, I am completely sure that it will be an action/ sci-fi film. I have completed the story line and the rough draft of the storyboard. I will be using this website that will help me create a more detailed and visually entertaining storyboard. I have been doing some research on what color scheme my story board will be that will be also on the film opening. I have found many great articles that explain how colors can affect the way we see things. This Cinema5 article goes into great detail on which color schemes are used in well know movies. Color can affect us psychologically and physically, often without us being aware, and can be used as a strong device within a story. Being able to use color to create harmony, or tension within a scene, or to bring attention to a key visual theme can be used to spectacular effect. What i have been thinking of implementing to my film opening is a more distinct color pattern, since the entire opening will be in a forest with woods. So, a lot of green and grey. 






"5 Common Film Color Schemes - Cinematic Color Design." Cinema5D. N.p., 21 Oct. 2016. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Prototypes, LLC Clever. "The World's Best FREE Online Storyboard Creator." Storyboard That. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Storyboard-ing

 I have completed the storyboard that most likely go along the plot that I have created. This is only a rough draft to a plot that will definitely need some edits in the near future and I will be informing you all about them. To start off, yes, you can clearly tell it is somewhat inspired by that one scene in "Lost". Also, I've done some thinking and i would to try something new. During filming, I would try to recreate the style of filming that it was used in ''Kill Bill" directed by Quentin Tarantino.

"The cinematography is also very beautifully done with a touch of noir and a new cinema feel of bright colors and a sense of ambiance that the camera shows in beautiful detail."

 Anyway, here is the rough draft of the storyboard for my plot.

Please excuse my artistic inability

"Inside The Edit: Kill Bill Volume 1." THE ATHLETIC NERD. Jason McKinnon, 01 Jan. 2012. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

"Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003): USA." Student Film Reviews RSS. Kelvin Matthews, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.

This is where we start

It has been a couple days since my last post and since then, I decided to scrap up my original idea and start over. It will no longer be just an action film, now it is a mix between a sci-fi with action. Again, I will be working solo on this so i dont exactly have brainstorming power as if i had a group to work with. Fortunately, my great friends will be helping out during the filming. Anyway, i am currently working on a storyboard for a new plot that i've had in mind, which ill post a picture of it later today, that would fall between that action sci-fi mix. I would like to keep the realism aspect in terms of emotions and character personalities but still manage to slip in some futuristic, imaginative elements to it. I found this great website which is very straightforward in which goes in depth that helped me decide on the genre

I would like to talk about my inspiration for my incoming plot. What i plan on making is something based on the first episode of "Lost" "Pilot Part 1" directed by J.J Abrams. The scene in particular is when Jack wakes up in the middle of the bamboo forest. For some reason I very much like what J.J Abrams did in terms of keeping the suspense alive and leaving the audience guessing just as much as the main character and that is what I want my film opening to be.

""Lost" Pilot Part 1 (TV Episode 2004)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2017.

"Main Film Genres." An award-winning, unique resource of film reference material for film buffs and others, with reviews of classic American-Hollywood films, Academy Awards history, film posters. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog where you will all be part of this journey through this project! Let me tell you more about it, this project is part of the final paper for my AICE Media Studies AS class at my high school. We have to create a two minute film opening with an original plot, sounds, footage and music.

Sound fun, doesn't it? 

I am super excited to bring you all along with me throughout the completion of this project as I blog each and every single step of it! We learned that we would be making a project like this back in August, and since then, I've been fantasizing of all the ideas for it. But now, however, I am completely lost. I should start thinking of a genre in which will fit my style of filming. Lets say public speaking is not one of my strengths, neither is being in front of a camera so, my biggest challenge is trying to make my opening interesting and hook you, the viewer, to want to stay and watch the rest, with mostly visuals and action and not a lot of talking. But still keeping the realism aspect.

 Step 1- Deciding on a genre

This is going to be a one man show, so the only disagreement will be with myself, i guess that is one of the pros of working solo. This film will most likely an action flick, I had a first draft planned in my mind, it still needs to undergo some revision, but I'll give you guys a short summary of it:

The film starts with a black screen displaying the opening credits, then is fades from black to close up of a puddle on the street. The camera will focus on the puddles for about five seconds. Suddenly, someone running will step on the puddle sending water everywhere. at the same time the Glenn Frey's "The Heat is On" from Beverly Hills Cop (1984), will start playing. the camera will then pan to the direction of the runner revealing that he or she are being followed by two other people. * From that moment on, the rest of the two minutes would just be a chase between those three characters...

 ...that's the first thing that came to my mind when we were told about this project. I know its super cliche.
Here are the issues pertaining to my idea:
1-To keep the viewers entertained, I'll need more than just a chase on foot for two minutes.
2- Also, I doubt I'll get legal permission to use that song for my project (Doesn't hurt to try though)
3- Again... its cliche.

I wanted to make a project that will make you, the viewer go

"Wow."

    

    Alright, this is all I have for now. I am super excited for this project and also extremely nervous for it. This is my first blog post ever so I apologize if I'm not clear enough, I promise to get better at it, I will be posting three or more times a week. 

Practice makes perfect

Thank you