CCR

Here is my Creative Critical Reflection!!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ct0SX8KJsH3UnB40P918_kil9c3ZNjit/view?usp=sharing

Erased

Our short-film "Erased" is finally finished!!! It has definitely been a crazy roller coaster ride to the finished product but I am proud of the work that I was able to do. Coming up with and executing this whole idea was definitely fun and I am really proud of my family for putting up with me through all the retakes. This film was a fun one to make and I'm excited to look back on it in the future to remember these crazy times.

Anyways, here are all the links:

Short-film

Postcard: Front
                Back

Website

Reflection

     I would have never guessed this project would turn out the way it did. When we first got assigned the Portfolio Project in class and started brainstorming Raul and I were really having a tough time coming up with a story. We settled with a story that was adventurous and creative, and I even wrote up a whole script detailing events in a group of teenager's lives. But suddenly, a big scary virus known as Coronavirus shut the entire world down, including all possibilities of Raul and I filmed at public locations with actors let alone each other. School was cancelled too, and our fourth quarter was to be finished via online learning. With my senioritis raging at full capacity, I had to find a way to come up with a story that can be filmed at my house, include only my family as actors, and fit within the five-minute cap.

     Somehow, I did it and spent a lot of time just kind of thinking of new stories that I could tell. Don't ask me how ended up making a story about the government being taken over and forcing you to remove everything individual in your home, but it is something new and spicey. After some mental planning, I got the filming done around two weeks before the deadline and I don't think it could have gone even smoother. I was filming with a purpose, and I knew exactly how I wanted the story to develop in my head. My parents kinda killed it with the acting and I barely had to reshoot the scenes with them in it. Heading on into editing process, I fixed my computer storage issues by getting a flash drive, and started with laying all the footage out on Premiere. I was extremely happy to get permission for the song Chapels by Giant Rooks as I feel it really fits with the footage and the overall vibe of the film. I basically edited the non-dialouge footage completely around the song, and I made direct edits to the song such as slowing it down and rearranging the chronology of it in order to match the direction of the movie. Color-corretion was pretty simple, I just added some orange and blue highlights, added in some fade, and adjusted the exposure and contrast accordingly. Overall the edit went smoothly and I comfortably finished the film before the deadline.
     
       Working with Raul as my partner, he definitely took a lot of weight of my shoulders by taking control of the website and the post card. Staying connected with him has been extremely vital throughout this process as we have continuously been bouncing ideas off of each other and collaborating since this project began. I think we really stepped it up from what we did last year, and I think that says a lot knowing we had to complete this film under lockdown.

Song Permission

Going into the editing process, I had a pretty good vision in my head of what I wanted the end product to look like. I big part of that process for me is editing around the main song that will be included throughout the movie. So I knew before I started editing that the song I will be using was Chapels by Giant Rooks. As such, I sent out an email to the management of the band, Giant Rooks asking for permission for use of their song.

After sending that email nine days before the deadline for the project, I definitely got a little lucky getting a response so fast from Alex Ruhl so I am able comfortably to edit knowing I can actually use the song I am basing my edit around. Here is the email he sent back to me:

{Edit: I am not allowed to upload images of the email due to privacy}
He sent back a short email saying that we can use the song as long as we do not make money off of it.

So basically I am free to use the song as long as I don't make any money off of the film. Works fine with me! 

Second Day of Filming

Today I just filled in the blanks from what I did not film from yesterday. I thought a cool idea to get rid of photos was to burn them, so I got out the fire pit in my backyard and I really got some cool images! Behind some music, these videos will look really nice in the finished project!

Editing Begins

This is the part of the process where I am the most excited for. I know I'm not the best at cinematography, and I know the acting was a little troubling looking back on that first day of filming. Based on that, I'm really going to have to do my best to make this look like something that wasn't just thrown together by a family who has no idea what to do when it comes to standing in front of a camera.

Going to import all of my footage onto my computer, I realized that I had zero storage to store the nearly 6 gigabytes of footage I took onto my laptop's hard drive. So I went on a little quarantine road trip to Walgreens to get myself an external hard drive.

Little to my surprise, Walgreens did not sell external hard drives so I just bought this pretty hefty SanDisk flash drive that can store 32 Gigabytes, which is the perfect amount of storage I need to comfortably get this project done.

As seen from the screenshot above I am pretty much trying to organize all the footage and sort of quickly get the spine of the storyline on the timeline. For right now, I have just enough footage but I have noticed there are some holes in the plot that might need some refilming. So my next steps are to continue editing and tighten everything up before I make the determination that I need to film additional footage.

Progress on smaller components

Since I was finally able to shoot, I quickly sent Raul some cool screengrabs and photos relating to the film so that he can get to work on the website and the postcard ad. We have about nine days to submit our complete project so its important Raul has the time he needs to really make something cohesive and professional.

Here are some of the photos I sent over:

Since I have a lot of work to do with editing, I'm giving Raul total control over the art direction for the postcard and the website. For more images to be put on the website, I will be soon sending Raul numerous screengrabs to be displayed.

First Day of Filming

So today was my first day of shooting for the film we have still not figured out a name for. My friend Irina was able to come over so she helped me a little bit with filming and also is going to be briefly appearing in the film. I was really excited going into it knowing I had my new and improved camera setup!

Today I filmed the beginning shots where the credits will be rolling. I used my zoom lens to take videos of the many pictures frames in my house. I'm hoping to use this to open the movie up in order to foreshadow the importance of photographs in the storyline. (Here is an example)

Next, I moved onto the daunting task of filming with my family. I filmed a large dialogue scene with them in the kitchen and then moved to the master bedroom where my parents had a scene of their own. Based on just my initial thoughts, my family did an okay job with the acting, so I am really gonna have to do some good work with regards to editing. 

Screen Play... sorta

So I know I need to map out what is going to be filmed and overall details of the plot, but I don't really feel like making another screenplay. I just need something quick and easy to look through on the day of filming to give me some sort of guidance. So I'm gonna do that here...

Scene 1 (opening credits)
- close-ups shots of family photos
Scene 2 (MC room)
-Establish the main character
-Close-up of calendar establishing the year
-Gets called in by Dad to the kitchen
Scene 3 (Kitchen)
- Father reads notice from the government to family
Scene 4 (Parent's Room)
-Initial reactions
-Father plans on hiding some important things in a lockbox
Scene 5 (Kitchen)
-An alarm starts going off, loudspeaker starts playing instructing that any attempts to lock away any materials will result in immediate arrest.
-The family is frightened by the invasion of privacy and begin freaking out
Scene 6 (Numerous locations)
-Montage of family erasing all traces of themselves (throwing stuff away)
-Scene in slow motion
-Soundtrack playing in the background
Scene 7 (Living room)
-Next morning
-Whole family sitting in the living room waiting nervously for the inspection
Scene 8 (Front Door)
-A single inspection worker comes to the door
-Door closes behind the worker showing the front house
-The camera slowly drags away from the house as you can hear the conversation of the inspection worker and the father.
-A gasp is heard and you can hear the agent call for reinforcements.

For right now, this is all I really need to get to filming, I feel like I have a clear picture in my head of what I am going for. For filming dates, I need to consult with my family the best times for them but I know for a fact filming needs to be done by Friday, April 10. Nine days will be plenty for editing, wrapping up their smaller components, and of course recording and editing the CCR... I hope!

New Plot!!

So after that whole mishap Wednesday where I realized I don't even have family footage, I've spent the past few days constantly thinking about a new plot idea that is going to be able to be completely filmed at my house, with the limited cast of my own family. This is definitely going to be a tough one but as long as I really focus on the details and put in the work I'm sure it can be done. Luckily I'm not going to be alone, because my friend Irina is going to be helping me with the filming and maybe even make an appearance in the film. With regards to my partner Raul, we have been communicating back and forth and have determined that he won't be able to help me with filming and editing this project. However, we have agreed for him to take the reign of the two smaller components of the project.

Now for the actual plot, it is a little bit out there but here we go:

So the movie is set in the year 2040, a year after a radical form of government rapidly gained control in the United States with a totalitarian focus on community and dismantling any sense of individuality. Normal Americans are forced to give up their sense of self and quickly adapt to the government's radical new rules in order to stay safe and avoid government eye.

The movie follows a middle-class South Florida family as they get an inspection notice from the government. Being only a year since these insane government rules have been put in place, talk of inspection has mostly just been a rumor. The inspection notice gives the family 24 hours to adequately remove all markers of individuality from their house or else they will face the full consequences of the national government. Over the course of 24 hours, life becomes a living hell for this family as they go through a soul-crushing journey to erase any trace of themselves. Photographs, art, and everything in between has to be trashed. Will they make it through the inspection?

Though this plot idea does seem to be a tad intense, I do want to add some lighthearted aspects to it knowing my cast will be entirely made of amateurs. I'm pretty proud of this idea because I know it is something new and hasn't been done before. With a little bit of editing magic, I feel like this story can really come to life.

Another Mission Failed

So after a brief period of procrastination, I decided to try for the daunting task that I knew I had to do: look for the old home videos of me as a kid. I could have sworn I remember watching tapes like these in the past so I just assumed my parents kept them in the garage. So with my Mom's help (sorta), we whipped out a ladder and began looking through numerous storage boxes in my garage.
(Here's a photo for reference...)

Five minutes in, my Mom was already gasping over her old high school photos so I guess I was on my own. 

(Here's another photo for reference lol...)

So after an hour of looking through all of our old CD's and picture boxes, I came to the conclusion that we no longer have any of our old videos. So yeah, that is pretty much it for this plot idea because the whole film is based around the use of old footage. I'm just happy Mrs. Stoklosa extended the due date because I am literally back to the drawing board. Wish me luck :/