Production of CCR

My CCR production started off well. I cancelled all my plans yesterday to work on my CCR. I began recording the kidnapping scene in my spandrel. I had to move some things such as a vacuum cleaner and a box of shoes. There was an automatic light, so I had to cover it up. I began to film myself in a black hoodie and a black hat to look like I was kidnapped. I had to scream and make it muffled to sound like I was struggling. I did not move the camera and started acting as the kidnapper so I can merge the two shots together and create two of me in one shot. Then I began filming as the kidnapper, I wore a purple stripped button up to look like a gangster. I began recording and I said all my lines and it went well no problems. I also recorded the scene of me talking to the kidnapper outside. I had to record the audio on my phone since it was very windy outside. All in all it went pretty smooth and I should be finished with my portfolio project soon.

Script Question 3 and 4

 This is my script for questions 3 and 4

Question 2 CCR script

 Question 2.  How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? This is my script to answer this question

Question 1 of CCR Script

 My idea to answer the first and second has shifted a bit since my last blog post. Since I realized my last idea of a simple talking head was wayyyy too boring. My new idea is to film myself near my pool and have different angles of myself swimming and floating on my pool and answering the questions. So here is the script for the first question

Group Meeting

 Today in class we had our second group meeting. I was not in class for the first one so I was a bit confused at the start. In the beginning we discussed our film opening ideas and what we have created so far. Most of the group showed us footage from their film. Then we discussed ideas for our CCRs. We came up with a few good ones. We could do an interview Hot Ones or a wired interview type story. There was also a crazy idea of a police chase for a CCR. 

With the first member of the group I am going to discuss is Aneesa. Her project is called Ataraxia and it is about the end of the world. There is a girl who doesn't care about the world ending. It is a very interesting story. We were told about the special effects that she was going to use to make the planet and it was a very interesting project. Aneesa also came up with the Wired interview.

The next member I would discuss is Max. He had a very interesting story about a girl in a time loop. The project it self is pretty good with high quality camera work. There are also nice transitions. Max also came up with a very interesting CCR idea. He was going to do a scene where he runs over someone. While he is driving he will be answering the questions about the CCR. Then his second part will be his trial where the judge will be asking him the questions.

There were some other group members but there stories were not as interesting as Max's or Aneesa's.

Reserch for CCR

I researched how to create a good Creative Critical Reflection (CCR). We have to answer 4 different questions in our CCR, In two different media styles. I will chose to do a Director’s Commentary and a podcast. I chose the director’s commentary because it allows me to provide insights into the decisions that I made during the production, explaining certain scenes and their impact. Then I chose the podcast format  to reflect more personally on my production skills and the integration of technology. 

I will answer the question "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?" in the Directors Commentary because I can walk through specific scenes and why I chose to do certain things like shots or sounds. I will also answer "How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?" in this section because it will be easier to comment on certain parts of the film.

I will answer "How did your production skills develop throughout this project?" in the podcast because it will be easy to discuss improvements in areas like camera work, editing, and sound design. The next question "How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?" will be easy to answer in the podcast since I can simply talk about all the hardware and software I will use and explain it in an informative way. That is the way I am going to create my CCR.

Match cut into dream sequence

In my film opening about Henry Flagler one of the problems I faced was creating a smooth transition between Henry Flagler's reality and his dream. I wanted to do something that did not just look great but also immersed the viewer into the opening. The scene begins with Henry Flagler on a train, thinking. Then, the film cuts to a dream sequence of the Everglades. I still needed to create a transition that would fit well. I decided to do a match cut from the cover of the book that Henry Flagler was holding to the shot of Henry Flagler standing in front of the everglades. This transition felt perfect as his ideas are coming from the pages. Henry Flagler was a visionary as the title of my opening suggests. Therefor I wanted the audience to feel as they are entering Henry Flagler's mind. The match cut ended up working really well and made the dream sequence tie into the story. It was a fun way to show Flagler’s ideas coming to life, and Im really happy with how it turned out. Check it out.

Problem solving

Creating films always comes with challenges, and my production was not an exception. I only had 90 minutes to film because of my limited budget and I had some problems that set me back. One of the first issues I faced was getting into the train cart itself. The door was jammed, making it hard to begin the filming. Since I had limited time, this needed to be solved quickly. I went to the front desk of the museum, and the train master returned with a special tool to unlock jammed doors, and they used it to open the train cart. Once I got inside, I had to move chairs around in the train cart to make it seem more luxury. This was not a one time movement. I had to move the chairs after every alternating shot in order to get no chairs in the background. It took longer than expected but in the end it was beneficial to give me the luxury look that I wanted. The final problem I faced was the lighting. Lighting is very important in creating films, and natural light can sometimes be unpredictable. When I was filming outside, the sunlight created a shadow that was seen in the shot. To fix this, I had to adjust my setup and wait for the lighting to shift before continuing. With our time limit in mind, this was aggravating, but it was a small fix to maintain the quality of the final product. Despite the setbacks, we made the most of our 90 minutes and captured what we needed.

Color Grading

     When I was first coming up with this Idea, I knew that I wanted the project to be very cinematic. There was a major step that needed to be taken to make a project cinematic. Color Grading, now I had very limited experience with color grading. I wanted this to have a similar colors and lighting to the 2023 movie "The Color Purple". There are many very visually pleasing shots with warm colors and sunny shadows. I wanted to replicate this in my own project but I did not know how to just yet. I practiced by color correcting some still shots on practice websites such as Lift Gamma gain. Then I was finally confidant to start with grading my footage. 

             This is the shot I started out with.

I learned from my research that many historical cinematic films have this warm color scheme and I wanted to implement it into my story. I started off with finding other films with warm color grading such as "The Color Purple". I think I created a good result that matches other historical movies and looks pretty good.                                                                 

         

           This is the Shot that I color graded

 I selected these setting for the mid tones, shadows and highlights to give it that warm feeling. (The setting are at the bottom of the blog post) I actually added some warmth and yellow tint to the shot as well. These setting transformed my shots from ammeter looking to more advanced and cinematic.