Pier Review

This week, we completed the pier review process. Overall, I believe that this process is very helpful in assisting the quality of our movie. Hearing advice from another group just like us helps us to realize what we really need to fix. We were assigned a group of 3 girls, whose movie we were reviewing. We were given a piece of paper to take down guided notes about their film. Even though we were reviewing their movie, they were not reviewing ours. Another group reviewed ours, and we read about our feedback. When we reviewed the other group, we realized a few things that were wrong. Even though we wanted to not criticize their movie, we wanted to give them helpful advice so their final grade will be really good. We watched their movie a few times before beginning to edit.

One thing that we noticed that needs to be fixed within their movie was the titles. They did not have any titles yet, but they were planning on adding them. Another thing that we suggested to them was to add some back ground music, or non-diegetic sound. Their whole film consists of diegetic sound, and at some points it can be slightly too quiet. I believe that this will make their film more interesting and easier to stay intrigued. In our film, we added quiet background music to keep the audience interested. Additionally, this music adds suspense to the film. When the car honks outside, the music stops and the movie switches locations. I believe that if this group strategically added music in a format like this, it could really help keep their movie interesting. Below is a picture of their pier review sheet that we filled out for them.

Editing- Beginning of Editing

This past weekend we began our editing process. As previously mentioned, my group mate and I decided to film with our iPhones. This way it is much easier to transport the clips when we edit. Additionally, we agree that the camera quality is better than the school's cameras, leading us to choosing our iPhones over them. We are editing on iMovie, which will take time. When using iMovie, I needed to ensure that all of my clips were inserted in the right order, properly. If they were not inserted in a specific way, then I was not able to utilize the transitions I wanted. When we finished filming, we did encounter a mistake that we made. Some of the film was not facing the correct way, which messed up our editing and final product. We then needed to re-shoot these certain clips.

Besides this mistake that we made, I did not really encounter many other errors when editing. My main challenge that I faced when editing was the creativity of the movie. I do not want to just insert a lot of clips together and have that be our final product. I envision for our movie to be interesting, innovating, inspiring and creative. In order to achieve this, I needed to rearrange, add, delete, and edit some things in our film. For example, I began the movie with an extreme close-up of the girl's eyes. This was too boring so I made it black and white. Also, I added some sound effects, like a text message sound, or the sound of keys, or even the turning of the lock on the door. We also made sure to include all of our titles in the correct and proper order. We are now preparing to evaluate our pier-editing session and listen to the feedback that we were given. Below is a picture of how far we have gotten in our editing process so far.

Filming- Successfully Filmed

Yesterday, my group mate and I finally begun our filming process. Even though it took a few attempts, we got the final product that we had intended to. We changed a few things from last time, when our film did not turn out as planned. We filmed during the day, and the lighting was a lot better. Everything was visible and the film was not blurry. The lighting from outside accompanied the artificial lighting from the inside, which created good ambiance for the beginning of our film. It also was not raining this time. This helped our film a lot because there was no background sound that was distracting to the final product. So far, we have only filmed our first scene. We plan on separating the filming process into separate days. This way the film is quality and we are not rushed each time we film.
When I first arrived to my group mate’s house, we sat down and decided what we will film and how we will do it. We agreed that we would only film the first scene, so we can film properly and not rushed. We also decided when we would film next, which will be this upcoming weekend. The first clip that we filmed was her looking in the mirror and putting on makeup. This is what we had originally planned out in our script and it turned out the way we had planned. We then filmed her picking out her outfit and making sure it looked good. This will then continue into the next scene, where she will finish getting ready and then leave the house. This process will be long, but as long as we take our time it will turn out right. We are content with the product so far, as it has turned out much better than the first time. In a few days, we will begin to edit. Below is a screenshot from a clip that we filmed yesterday.

Filming- Attempt to Film

This past weekend, we begun our filming process. First of all, we have decided that we will not be checking out a camera from our media classroom. We agree that the iPhone is both easier to manipulate with, and has much better quality than the cameras provided to us by the school. Because we will be using our iPhones to film, we are also going to be using iMovie to film. An alternative option to this would be to use Pinnacle studios as our editing platform. This is too complicated for both my partner and I, and it is much easier to edit on our phones. Our plan for this weekend was to begin filming the first and second scene of our movie. I went to my group mate's house to begin the filming process. We chose to begin filming at her house because the first scene is created in a room, which makes most sense to start filming in a house. This process did not go as planed.
At first, both my group mate and I agreed that this was the perfect idea and everything would work out. However, we faced a few obstacles. Our first was the lighting since we began to film at night, the lighting inside her room was not ideal. Even with the lights on, the film appeared fuzzy, and definitely not the best quality we could have gotten. We intend to fix this by filming during the daytime instead. Another obstacle that we faced were the background noises. As her family was cooking dinner in the kitchen, we both found it very difficult to make sure these noses were not heard. Next time, we will make sure that no other loud activities will be going on in the house. Overall, the film that we created did not go as planned, so we decided to delete this film and complete restart. We will begin this process over again next weekend, or after-school during the week. Below is a picture of our iMovie ready to edit our film.

Filming- Did Not Get to Film

This past weekend, we planned to begin our filming journey. We were supposed to film the first 1-2 scenes of our movie. However, this did not go exactly as planned. There were multiple obstacles in our way of filming. One of our main challenges was the rain. Since we are in Florida, the rain is very unpredictable and constant. Even though our first 1-2 scenes are indoors, the rain makes transportation very challenging. It is difficult to ensure that all of our participants can safely arrive to our filming destination. We did not want to risk any chance where safety is a concern, so we decided it was not a good weekend to begin filming. The rain would also create unnecessary background noises to our film. We did not plan on having this dietetic sound in our film, which is also another reason that we could not film this weekend.
Another obstacle in our way of filming was the 4-day weekend. Since it was a 4-day weekend, my group mate took the opportunity to visit family out of town. Potentially, we could film the first few scenes alone. However, we really would rather not do this. Since it's the beginning of the film, we want to work together and film everything as a group. This way we both have the same visions for the rest of the film and we can create it together. Overall, it was a very complicated weekend and it was not possible to film. We are planning on filming sometime this week or next weekend. Even though we have not begun the filming process yet, we are still blogging and will begin our filming process very soon. Below is a picture of us working on our blogs.

Planning- Story Boarding

Displayed above is our storyboard template. This portrays what is going to happen every scene. It is split up into 6 seconds for every little box on the paper. There are also 6 boxes per paper. There is a small picture and description for what happens exactly in each scene.  Storyboarding is very helpful because it forces us to know what is happening each second in the film. We are planning on following this template as much as we can. Nothing should effect our filming too much so we are counting on this. This also helps us a lot with hitting the right time for the video. Now that we have all our information we will need to start filming soon.

Planning- Location, Health and Safety, Participants and Schedule

Attached above is our planning Google slide. Incorporated is the exact details that we need for our film. For example, we wrote about the filming location and even included pictures. While filming, we are involving many of our friends as participants. This will be a huge help because we need more actors and actresses than just my group member and I. Having this information will assist us in being prepared prior to filming. This will further save us a lot of time. We are planning to film throughout the period of two weeks. This gives enough time to make changes and to make sure everything is perfect like we planned. By the end of March, filming should be done and editing will begin.