Aice Media Final Project

2 minute film opening 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XhkNHSEsqU7AqexTen3nuqKQrprQxI_t/view?usp=sharing 

CCR questions 1 and 2

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Zs8O6KG-oo1KYfH3a6beMZqKrTTp3ZR/view?usp=sharing 

CCR questions 3 and 4

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zTssIUPgMtqVdR4uAF_RmkAPwEtqzddQ/view?usp=drive_link 

One more to go

 As my project comes to an end I really don't know how to feel. Its been a really long way and I can see all the effort we've put into it, and all the things we have learned. And despite this I still feel I could've done better. It is probably part of the process. Im an amateur filmmaker and Im still on the learning stage. But it makes me feel a little bad when a lot of problems could be solved with better planning. 

It isn't somenthing to put my head down though. As I'm really proud of the final product for our film opening. And also for my CCR's. I now they aren't a really strong piece but the week I missed in which they explained them really hurt my process. 

I still believe they have really funny moments that I enjoyed filming and editing.

Its been a long time with this project. It taught me a lot. For my future projects I'll take into account how important planning is. And how much it can improve a project. My ideas for my CCR offer high constrast of concepts. My CCR for questions 1 and 2 has a better idea as a base but the execution could've been way better. In the other hand the one for questions 3 and 4 has a very simple idea but a great execution in the first few minutes. But as a simple idea I feel the video falls after a few minutes. This shows that to match the ideas my brain produce I gotta acompany them with a great planning. This is why I feel this sour feeling. As the project showed me I have the editting skill to match up my ideas. I'm just lacking planning. 

But I'll make sure to change that. 

Im really glad I'll stop making blogposts soon....

CCR POST PRODUCTION

Im so sorry Ms Stoklosa I couldn't get my project ready on friday but Its going really good. I think the editing is making the ccr's way better. The editing isn't super complex but both of them have a clear direction and make the whole video flow great. 

It is not a really complex timeline as one can see but the video is good. Another reason for shooting with my phone is that the basic color correcting elements don't have to be fixed that much so it made the editing easier and faster. 

The other time line has way more cuts but it is nothing crazy either. This one needed more color correcting and gradind as some of the shots are outside. 

I believe both productions have improved a lot thanks to the integration of sound elements. Making the videos have more impact and dynamism. This was somenthing I was worried the videos may not have as the footage wasn't anything crazy. And my ideas well where just like okay. 

This only shows how always execution can be just as important as the concept. I'll keep the path Im following for the editing and I'll try to make it better. 

SUBMITTING SOON

I RECORDED MY TWO CCRs

 On Wednesday I recorded my two CCR videos. In terms of production they are simple. Recorded with my phone and its is nothing really crazy, but there are some nice shots and Im happy with the result. I decided to record with my phone as I don't own any wireless mic and I didn't wanted to have any extra complications with audio.

CCR questions 1 and 2

This is my cooking video. In its format I offered contrast between the shots, creating a lot of focus and working as a transition of what Im going to talk about. In postproduction Im currently reinforcing this contrast with sound design. Shots outside ofcourse have nat sounds, while the inside doesn't and Im using different music. Almost like asound motif. 

CCR Questions 3 and 4

While this one is much simplier it has a really funny start and Im also happy with it

CCR #1 (Im scared)

 Im really a little bit late with my CCR but I finally got my script ready. 

845 words make this a fairly long script, but this are the harder questions being. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? and How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

My replies where: Our project follows many production conventions in the western genre. Visual aspects like a warm color palette, and a constant use of wide shots are used in our project and create meaning, with the wide shots for example our character is meant to be alone as she is hiding a body, and the wide shots allow us to see this. Other conventions that allow this is the length of our shots, and use of fades as transitions. THis two elements evoke a contemplative mood. and Our product would play an important cultural role. As mentioned western is a genre dominated by male main characters. A female main character plays an important role. Current audiences constantly seek representation in media, mainly in identity and sex related topics. Offering representation in an unconventional environment is a resource to engage audiences as current audiences really love when conventions are broken in favor of gender roles.

This really arent my complete answers as I expanded them a lot as I intergrated them to the script. Im really happy with the final result, but I really gotta work hard to make it, but I know I can. 

In my final script I sacrifficed a little bit of the style in order to boost the content but Im in a god middle ground. 

RECIPE CHOICE FOR CCR

 My CCR main idea is making a cooking video. This whole weekend I was thinking of what recipe to make and here is my final choice.

As I explain I need an ingreedient that represent an aspect of the culture or history of a nation or group. And I have a preference for making a dessert as the process of making them gives more oportunities for talking and making the script more dynamic. 

1. Caneles. 

This is my top idea, as it is a desert I love and my sisters makes, so she can teach me how to do it. In the steps I have to mix, melt, and use an oven. Having a lot of spaces to talk. 

When prompted with "whats the story behind the desert caneles in france" the ChatGPT-generated text indicated that "Some believe that canelés were first made by nuns at the Couvent des Annonciades in Bordeaux in the 16th or 17th century. They supposedly used leftover egg yolks, as egg whites were commonly used to clarify wine in Bordeaux’s booming wine industry."

I really like this origin story. I don't know how much we can relate it to western but it isn't a neceseray part of my script. I just need to say that its a french national dessert to show how it represents a community and build my bridge to how my filmoppening does the same thing. 

I just thought on how we could use the origin story, somenthing like; despite finding its origins in a pile of leftovers in the Couvent des Annonciades. Caneles open the path to sweet the life of those in need. 

CCR planning

 In this blog post I'll be presenting my basic idea for the CCR. I have one which I really like, and I'll stick with it no matter what, while the other still needs to be developed and might change in the future as Im not completely convinced by it. 

GOOD IDEA 

This idea would be great. As it is has a creative format and I didn't see anything like it in the examples. The examples had a characteristic of having a really straightforward way of exposing the information. This more creative format would make it a little bit hard, as I have a cooking narrative. But with the idea that I describe of the match cuts, I would open a door to talkdirectly to the audience about the topic. 

I have to make a really good script but I believe both narratives can coexist and make each other better, in a really creative way that wont compromise the quality of the content. As it would be my priority in every moment. 

I would seek to constantly change to the western POV so I can develop deeper into answering my questions. And cooking part would work mainly as a bridge towards answering this questions. This way as mentioned before the content (answers to the questions) will have the importance they deserve. The cooking introduction would mainly be used as a comic resourse and an stylistic one. I would like to offer a big sense of contrast to enhace the change of scenarios and as well enhace the importance of the answers. As contrast generates focus. 

For this the cooking scenes would have a fancy look, and a warm illumination, while the western ones will be recorded outside  with natural light, and with a natural background. 

It is an ambitious idea but I'll talk to my teacher and I'll make it work. 

NOT REALLY GOOD IDEA 

I see a really funny sketch of this in my mind but I would really have to work on this script to make it work. It would be really like a shortfilm so really explain and expose the answers for my CCR might be too complicated. The examples I saw were really simple ones so I want to go with ambitious stuff but maybe this wont work. 

I want to change this idea in the future as the composition of it didn't flowed as natural in my head as the other one did. 

In search of diferent answers I explored diferent concepts. Finding one which I really like but another one that is a little pretencious considering what is asked. One can be really creative but has to take into account what are the basic requirements. I'll take this into account as I continue developing my CCR.

CCR first idea

 Hey, I just found out what a CCR was the on March 12. Scary. I wasn't at school when my teacher explained because I was in Tampa at STN. Lovely trip, but making up work sucks. Most when it is somenthing as important as this huge project that AICE media has. 

(little pic of y STN team)

I came up with an idea that could answer one of the questions really easily, and maybe another one. Its going to be a hard script to write but the creativity of it compensates it. My idea is doing a cooking/recipe video. 

Pretty weird idea but let me explain. The two questions i want to answer are: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? and How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text? The idea to answer this with a cooking video is to make a recepie that represents certain culture, a classical recepi. This with the idea of making a paralelism between it and the western, a classical american genre. The ingredients of the plate would be the conventions that we use, and a secret ingrdient would represent how we challenge convention. This works as our main element to challenge convention is that our main character is a woman. This ofocurse affects the piece in deeper levels, but in a basic one, it is just a single element.  

This is a really creative idea but in order to dive really deep into the answers I have to write a really good script. My idea to maybe make it more simple is to use match cuts, to transition between kitchen and western. I would for example cut somenthing with a knife in the kitchen and I would cut the same thing outside. I would tilt to me showing a change of outfit, from kitchen clothes to a western outift so I can adress the topic more directly, making it easier. I could use elements like idk the sauce its almost ready to cut back to the kitchen and keep both narratives at the same time. 

i really like this idea, and I believe it matches what I was explained. The main things I was asked to do was to make somenthing original. And my teacher said how eating food videos were not a good idea, so I thought on maybe cooking. And I also took it one step furder. So I believe this would be awesome. 

I have no clue what to to for the other one though. 

Group Meeting #2

We had our second grup meeting today, so we had the chance to see the work of other people of the class and talk about their progress. I always find this meetings really useful as talking to people outside of our teams makes the environment more "casual", allowing ideas to flow really easily. So lets dive into it. 

(team meeting pic) 

We are finally in the final stages of our project. Missing only color grading, credits and tittles. So I was able to show a really advanced edit of my project. I explained to the group how every shot looked really different from each other so it was of big importance to fix this. They agreed but in the first few shots they didn't noticed it. As we reached the mark of 1 minute the difference became more noticeable. This is somenthing my team and I are  aware of, as the final shots were takken at 12pm with the sun in a different position than the first few shots. 

(the diference is really noticeable in the color of the sky, and the color of the grass)

I also said how sometimes the color of our character looked really orange due to the colorgrading, but they thought it wasn't a big problem. I still believe we should fix it. The main issue is that we changed the overall temperature of the footage, affecting also skin color and elements like sky and grass. We should've changed color by color ussing adjustment layers. Making the process more clinical. 

Looking at the footage of other people was a really nice experience. An assignment with total freedom regarding what type of story we wanted to tell is really exciting to watch. As the diversity of stories is massive. It also made me feel really proud for the ambition of our project. But I also got to see some other ambitious projects, there was a person that also went to record outside, and made an apocalypse story. For this project I didn't had any negative feedback to give. To some extent because she didn't show the whole thing but also because it did look pretty good. The other members of the discussion were not able to show their projects as they didn't had their laptobs with them. But they were able to explain me about the CCR. Which was really useful as I missed the explanation at class because I was in a competition in Tampa. 

They explained me how we had to answer four different questions in at least two videos. Non of them really knew what they were going to do and I felt a little bit scared as I had even less time to think of this, BUT, (big but) I came with a really cool idea that I'll develope in a blogpost this week. 

To conclude. Pretty useful group meeting. It allowed me to see the strengths of my project, how to boost them and how to fix its weaknesses. Sharing this information with the group im working for my project will be useful as an outside opinion on it will make the points made on our weaknesses more valuable. 

EXTRA SHOTS

 As part of our post production process, we noticed that some shots didn't flowed as well as they should. We needed some extras shots to connect them. We also forgot to bring prop the first day. The prop was the picture of the me playing the son of the guy who was killed, being a really important point for our story. So yeah basically we we had to go for another shooting day. 

In our film opening we used diferent elements as transitions, all of them had intentions. Ofcourses fades between some shots to show the passing of time. Others we used a symbolic match cut. In which we transitioned from the crucifix to the cross that would be used as a tombstone. 

1.

2.

This is done to explore the christian values of our main character and how they connect to death. This is a important moment that can make use of a cut like this in order to reinforce its visual narrative. But the shots that lacked connection in our first edit were just sequences that showed actions just like walking. This shows that we needed a little bit more planning. The shots we got just connect this shots to make them flow better and don't disrupt with the pacing of the film opening. 

With the line edit pretty much done. Our next goal is make the sound design better and get into color grading as most of the shots look different from each other. 

This experience basically shows how planning is important. We did overshoot thhe first time. But even with this we had to go again. This beccause our planning wasn't as good as it should. So the overshooting couldn't fill every problem. As the problem was down in the structure. We had to plan more shots, and as we added some new shots during shooting the problems to be solved simply multiplied. I believe that the things we added to the script had a lot of value so I don't complain but we definitely need to make a stronger planning in orther to don't face this problems again. It is true that due to the lack of dialogue our film openning is a little bit harder to record as it solely depends on visual narrative, but just because of this our planning should be even better to enhace this visual story telling. 

EDITING: SOUND

 As an initial plan I thought of adding sound effects in post production. Both ambient sounds and ofcourse music. But I didn't knew one of my teammates had wireless mics which made posible to get some ambient audio. It was a really noisy environment so we used the noice cancelation, focusing in getting the most important sounds like the shovel, as well as the gasps when the shovel is being used. This wireless mics put the audio directly into the camera so it also makes the editing process fster. Allowing us to focus in other things like the music and try to edit to the beat. In a previous blog post I mentioned how I was trying to mix music to make a song from scratch for the film opening, but I stop this as we found a royalty free song that really matched what we had in mind. The main reason for making the music by myself was that it would make easier to match the video with the music, but due to the dramatic and slow pacing of the song it was easy to match. 

Another element from the sound that is important to highlight is the voice over. We only have a couple lines that serve the only purpose of adding some dramatism. We simply recorded the lines in voices memos on a phone and put them in the time line. Phones have really good quality this days and with the music as a constant background noice any problem with the audio wasn't almost noticeable.

The sound design still lacks complexity and deepness so we are going to go back to the place we recorded to record some extra sounds. And we'll also add some stock soundeffects like wind.