CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

Here are the links to my two CCRS. Hope you enjoy!

CCR#1

CCR#2

FILM OPENING

Here is the link to my film opening! Hope you enjoy it!

FORESIGHT

REFLECTION

I lied. My next blog post was not my film opening. But, Hello. I never thought this day would come. I FINISHED (OFICIALLY). I am very very happy with how everything turned out and this project has taught me so much about filmmaking, equipment, editing, time management, directing, producing and so much more. Although I had a lot of fun, lets just say I'm glad it's over. A few things that I would've done differently are one I would've written less people in my script so I didn't have to rely on so many people (I didn't listen when people told me it was a lot of people), two, I would've filmed all of my opening in one day instead of two (which wasn't my choice but still), and three, I would've started editing earlier because the last 5 days of spring break were just me editing in my room and writing scripts for my CCR's and filming and yeah I wished I would've started earlier so I could've enjoyed my time off more. Besides those things, this project went pretty smooth for me and I am very glad I got the opportunity to do it.

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Hello!! I am very proud of myself because one I FINISHED MY FILM OPENING TODAY YAYAYAYYAYA, and two I FILMED MY FIRST CCR TODAY YAYAYAYAYAY.

I filmed the Vouge makeup routine CCR here is my script:

Question 1:

Hello! It’s Julia and I was asked by Vogue to tell you a little bit about my recent project “Foresight” while I show you my makeup routine. Here are some of the products that I am going to use, and I am going to be answering some questions that Vouge sent me. Without further ado let's begin. So the first thing that Vouge wants to know is how does Foresight use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues? That is a great question. So Foresight is a Thriller about a guy named Asher who goes on a camping trip with his friends and begins to feel and see weird things. Thrillers according to research done by North Dakota South University (that I referenced when creating my film) “tend to want to be small. It's like putting your hero in a box and squeezing. One of the advantages of this narrowing of focus is that thrillers maximize emotion.” Now I think that this is something that Foresight definitely does. Within the first 30 seconds of the film, Asher (the protagonist) is put in a very uncomfortable situation where he finds a photo of his mom who passed away when he was young. Not only does this maximize emotion but it also represents a social issue which is being motherless while growing up. Foresight also attempts to represent teenagers through costume design, music choice, and casting. One thing I was very keen about when writing Foresight was that I wanted Asher’s friends to fill the void of Asher not having a full family. In other words, I wanted Asher’s friends to be his family, which is something that I see a lot with teenagers, especially those with bad living situations, or problems with their parents or siblings, those kids tend to rely on their friends and their friends rely on them and they form this sense of community which is something I wanted to represent with this project. Another thing that is usually found with thrillers that I wanted to include in mine, was the use of pacing. Most thriller films, start happy or normal and then a few minutes into the film, conflict is introduced. This is something that I wanted to use to tell my story because I thought it would be a good way to balance the representation and introduction of my characters while also sticking to the typical genre conventions of a thriller. So yeah, hopefully, that answered that question for you Vouge and now let's go on to the next one.

Question 2:

Vogue wants to know how Foresight engages with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text. Wow, that is a wonderful question. I love it. So, (re-read question under breath) okay. I think it’s important to mention my project’s target audience first, which is young adults (ages 17-25) both female and male, people who enjoy thrillers, intense movies, friendship, people who don’t mind mature content, and overall people who enjoy anxiety-inducing films. One way that Foresight engages with the audience is having a pretty good balance of boys and girls in the cast. While the main character is a boy, there are three girls and two boys in the friend group which in my opinion balances it out. The ages of the characters are 16-18 years old which means most of the target audience is either that age or just was that age. Having a character be around the same age as you, allows you to understand, relate, and therefore engage with the character more so than if they were let’s say twice your age. This is because you are both likely facing the same social pressures and experiencing similar problems. Moving on, like I said before, Foresight is targeted at people who enjoy thrillers, and by following the genre conventions of a typical thriller, by nature those people are going to be engaged with the film. In other words, using genre conventions is a great way to engage target audiences. As for distribution, I plan on uploading Foresight on YouTube, and possibly other social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. This is because my target audience is particularly active on these platforms and realistically, I cannot release my opening in theaters. With that being said, I hope you all have a fantastic night, thank you so much Vouge for having me, oh my god I almost forgot, I got carried away blabbing about opening, I almost forgot to show you my makeup, here it is, this is my everyday look, obviously I wouldn’t wear this on my red carpet but again thank you so much Vouge, and have an amazing night, morning, afternoon whatever. Blow kiss.

I was too lazy to write an actual script so I just wrote down what I wanted to say on Google Docs.

Here are some BTS:

The script-writing process took around 2 hours, which is not too bad, and the filming took around 30 minutes. I am going to edit this CCR tonight and hopefully film my second one tomorrow. I will update you when I finish editing!!

Hello, it is currently Saturday morning, I finished editing my CCR YAYAYAYAY. I was a little unsure about the credits and what I needed to do but I am going to ask my teacher just to make sure on Monday. I am going to start writing the script for the last CCR.

Hello! It is Sunday Morning. I finished writing my second CCR's script last night. Here is a picture (sorry for the scribbles):

And I just finished filming. I forgot to take BTS AGAIN! so here are some pictures from filming:

As you can see this is not carpool karaoke. This is because while I was writing my script I decided that I would much rather do a Talk show CCR.  Also, my dad pulled a muscle in his leg and I wasn't going to make him drive me with a hurt leg, and I didn't want to drive while talking because that's dangerous so yeah!! I also liked this idea more anyway so it worked out.

Now the only thing I have left is to edit my CCR and that's it.

Here are some pictures from editing:

AND THAT'S IT!!! MY NEXT BLOG POST WILL PROBABLY BE MY FILM OPENING YAY.

EDITING PT.IDK ANYMORE I JUST WANT TO FINISH

Hello, I've been editing the whole day (not really) I started at like 11, and now it's about to be 3 but still, it's a lot. I've made progress, I've started to color-correct my clips, and I'm close to finishing my first draft!

Today I want to write my script for my CCR and film my first CCR. I know I've been saying that for too long but I need to do it. This is driving me insane I just want to finish. Here are some pics from my editing process:





Right now I am trying to insert my credits and title and see where I am going to put them within my opening. Here are the possible title fonts that I created before:



Here is the one I chose:


I like it a lot. It's what I pictured in my head.


I have plans tonight so I am going to continue editing tomorrow, but I got a lot done today and I am happy. See you soon!

FILMING PT.2

Hello!! So, yesterday I filmed the shots that I was missing which is good. I feel VERY relieved. Unfortunately, I forgot to take some behind-the-scenes pictures, but I got a total of 15 mosquito bites as a result of filming so that's always fun!

One thing that was not fun about yesterday was that I forgot to bring the white glove that I needed for filming, but luckily my dad was able to give it to me when he came to pick me up so I just filmed the shots I needed with the glove at the end. I also decided to change the tracking shot (29th: Tracking shot of him running) to a pan because the tracking shot was very shaky and hard to do because of the uneven terrain inside the forest.

Today I plan on writing the script for my first CCR (the Vouge Makeup one) and hopefully film it, and also edit my opening because, since my dad updated the memory on my computer, Premiere Pro should work a lot smoother now.

UPDATE!

I hate Premiere Pro.

So I'm using CapCut. Before you judge me I tried but it just wasn't working out and I got more done using CapCut for an hour than using Premier Pro for TWO DAYS. So I think it was a good decision. Right now I am about halfway done editing my opening which is a HUGE accomplishment and I am about to go back to my sound project that we did in the second quarter (I think) to find some websites that I can find good sound effects, to incorporate into my opening. I will update when I find a website.

Here are two of the websites

Freesound

Pixabay

I got a lot done today and I am very happy with the way my opening is turning out. I'll update you tomorrow.

EDITING (attempt)

Hey! So I actually lied to you when I said I was going to edit my opening in Capcut, because I started editing in Premier Pro!! It is a pain trying to learn how to use it without any help but I'm getting there.

Why didn't you use CapCut?

Well, turns out my computer only has 4 GB of storage!!

So Capcut was super slow on my laptop, and I didn't want to download all of the clips and send them to my phone so I tried using Adobe. Surprisingly it worked. I thought it was going to be a lot scarier than it actually was, it was more confusing at first but then things started working out. Here are a few pictures of me trying my best to figure things out:

Here is me figuring out how to stabilize my clips because I'm an idiot and didn't use a tripod when I was filming some things!!

I've spent around an hour "editing" and I've been on the first two clips, color-correcting them, stabilizing them, and changing the duration of them. I love life!

Oh also I completely forgot to say my dad bought me something that's supposed to increase my RAM (whatever that means) and it comes later today so hopefully Adobe won't be as glitchy as it is now and my editing will be easier. Here is a picture of the thing my dad bought:

Since Adobe is making me mad and I am getting little to no progress done, I am going to continue editing once my storage thing comes in and Adobe decides to work! At least I got an idea of how to use Premier today and I have all of my clips uploaded to the editor. See you soon!!