Creative Critical Reflection

Welcome back, everyone. This is my final blog post! After sharing my final project with all of you, I took some time to reflect on my work and analyze its content.

This journey has been a blast! I'm so glad I got to share my experiences with everyone, and I am even happier that I got the opportunity to make these memories with my group members. Thank you guys for sticking around over the last few months, and I hope you enjoy my Creative Critical Reflection!

https://prezi.com/view/rBrzOMTuoRmvtF78pkk6/

Final Project

 Forgotten Trails

Welcome back, everyone! IT’S TIME!! FORGOTTEN TRAILS IS OUT NOW! Grab your popcorn!

Well, that’s the opener. I think it was quite a decent movie being the first film that my group members and I made. All these months of work, and all these blogs led up to this moment. I hope you guys enjoyed this journey with me and liked the movie as well. Please comment your opinions and any constructive criticism you may have for my future movie projects! 

I enjoyed sharing my experience with all of you! Looking back at my blogs, it amazes me to see just how far I came from blog 1. Again, I thank you guys greatly, and I will be back with just one more blog post, although it will be more evaluative. THANK YOU FOR STICKING ALONG!!

Rating my Experience

 My Personal Review

Welcome back, everyone. Just one more day to go until Forgotten Trails is out! Today, I think it is a perfect time to wrap up everything I've been doing by rating my experiences across different tasks, providing an insight into my favorite parts as well ass my dislikes throughout this project.

Learning About Film: 10/10

Probably my favorite part over the past few months. I loved learning about all the hidden features that movie producers and directors focus on to enhance our experience. These include all the various camera shots, camera angles, camera movements, sounds, lighting, mise en, scene, transitions, etc. Nowadays, when I watch movies, I can't help but notice all these characteristics that are in film, something that I previously had no knowledge of. This has significantly changed my perspective on films, and I will forever remember these elements every time I watch a movie.

Film-making 7.5/10

Don't get me wrong. I did enjoy the experience of making my very own film with some of my closest friends. However, we did have plenty of struggles and were forced to do re-shoots a lot. It became overwhelming at times and removed the fun out of it. Still, for the most part, I enjoyed the memories I made creating this film, and I realize why film directors, editors and actors are paid so much! 

Blogging 6/10

While I did like sharing my progress throughout the past few months, it sometimes became tiring to keep updating you guys (nothing against you!). I am just a lazy person, so I did procrastinate at times and then I have to suddenly upload a post before too long so I don't fall behind, and I don't lose the interest of my followers. Despite, looking back now, I'm glad I blogged my entire journey. It makes me delighted to see the progress I achieved. From where I started until now, I learned so much about filmmaking and I was involved in so many more experiences of film than I would have ever thought!

That was just a broad overview of my experience. I don't want to bore you guys! The moment you have been waiting is near...

Lessons Learned

The Highs and Lows

Welcome back, everyone! My group and I have concluded the creation of our movie opener, finalizing all components of the film earlier today. So, I believe this is a good time to conclude the day with some lessons I learned throughout the process of creating this film:

Time Management:

In all honesty, this was the hardest, but most important lesson I had to learn through the process. Almost every component of this class relies on time management. If done properly, it can be so simple to produce a quality project and track your progress via blog posts. Unfortunately, I must admit that I did start off pretty well in terms of due dates and times, but I began to slow down around the New Year because it became time to actually begin planning and recording our final projects. Although I really wanted to get everything done as early as possible, unforeseeable circumstances mixed with my, and my group's procrastination, made it seemingly difficult to manage everything in a timely fashion.

Group Work

In this assignment, I learned the different ways in which group work can be either efficient and beneficial or distracting and harmful. On a high note, working as a group motivated me to want to work on this project, even when I felt lazy or had a tight schedule. This is because anything can be fun when done with friends. Also, group work is important to split up responsibilities of tasks into smaller, easily digestible chunks. However, if not done properly, group work has its downsides. At times, my group and I would get distracted and veer off task. While this was limited when working remotely together, it really hit us on shooting days. For example, while recording scenes in the gym, we would often go off-task and start challenging one another to short boxing duels. This is just one example of a distractor, and I believe we would have been more successful had we found a way to maintain our attention to the project.

There are many more lessons I learned, but I feel these two were the most significant ones that will surely be in my mind next time I work on a project of this caliber. Anyways, stay tuned for my final project release! I will post one more blog similar to this one tomorrow, before the BIG REVEAL...

Final Steps

Sound Layering

Welcome back, everyone! Today, I am proud to say we have completed almost every aspect of our film. We are now doing the final step: Sound layering!

Yesterday, we concluded creating and adding all the sounds of our movie, including the dialogue, sound effects, and music. However, we noticed some of the sounds seemed too low, and others were far too high. Also, timing the sounds to play in proper locations, such as the distance between the sound effects in our mini sound story were key. We had to separate the sounds to make a realistic approach of a transition in time as well as a person exiting from a car. As for music, we needed to adjust the volume to be at a level where it was reflective of the intended emotions without overshadowing other sound effects. 

I believe sound layering was quite simple to do. If you recall, in the early stages of my blog, Eugene and I worked together to work on a sound story. This experience proved to be very beneficial for me in this current movie because I learned A LOT about how to sound layer properly and the importance of being able to tell a story through only audio components. Had I not done that project a few months back, I would have likely struggled a lot more on sound layering and would not have been able to edit it in the little amount of time that I did.

Avoiding Copyright

Finding Sounds

Welcome back, everyone! As we are finalizing editing, we need to include various sounds to get the most out of our film. Sounds, including but not limited to score, diegetic sound, and sound effects are very important to empowering the movie. However, a major problem arises due to copyright laws in this country and around the world:

For the most part, many songs used in Hollywood movies are only included after formal permissions and agreements are granted between the owners of the material and the movie company. As a high school student, we obviously cannot achieve this, so our music options are heavily limited to rummaging the internet for artists who are kind enough to NOT license their products. An alternative would be making the sounds ourselves as well.

With that in mind, my group opted to dedicate time to search YouTube for copyright free music that fits our needs, such as motivational music during our montage to go with the mindset of Agent Eugene. Though we have not found a perfect song, we eventually all agreed on a song to be good enough to match the vibe and emotion of the scene. However, finding copyright free sound effects was a harder task. We decided we will do a quick search for certain sound effects, and if we can’t find an effect that meets our needs, we will commit to doing foley stages.

Changing Editors

Behind-the-Scenes Changes

Welcome back, everyone! Today, we encountered yet another shift in roles. This time, it was off-screen...

Previously, Edison was the main editor, possessing the in-progress file and handling most of the responsibilities with editing. However, due to scheduling conflicts and a division of responsibilities, it Rayyan decided to take on the role of Main Editor, replacing Edison. It was nothing personal. Edison was a great editor with creative ideas, but he began struggling to find time to edit. Rayyan, having stepped down as movie director with me replacing him, seemed to have much more time on his plate to work. So, it worked out quite well.

The rest of us still pitched in. Since this was my movie idea, I was indirectly obligated to be active in the entirety of the editing process, providing advice as Rayyan edits, and reiterating my vision for the movie. This was very handy as Rayyan did start moving off track sometimes due to personal creativity or just a confusion of my true visionary. With me on hand, we quickly cleared things up. As for Edison and Eugene, they were primarily just there to give insight into their own opinions, often making suggestions about clip length, transition choices, and sound layering. Overall, we had a smooth interaction and we hope to conclude the editing process within the next few days.