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.

Wishlist

 If Only...

Welcome back, everyone! Following the conclusion of our film, we can't help but think about what we could've done to boost our movie if we only had a massive Hollywood movie budget to work with. Though this post is totally theoretical, I will try to keep it as realistic and achievable as possible:

Actors

We would certainly hire some of the best actors for this prospect. Eugene, Edison, and Rayyan, in the nicest way possible, are quite disappointing actors. If we had a massive budget, we would hire someone like Daniel Craig to play our Agent Eugene, given his excellence in the James Bond role. 

Costumes

Certainly, we would invest in more agent-like costumes. Our current characters just wore casual hoodies and pants, and a baseball cap if needed. However, this does not truly bring out the "secret agent" feel. If we could, we would invest in full dark attire, including sunglasses, a large hat, and formal suit and pants. 

Setting/Location

If we did have a proper budget, our location would definitely change. For one, the woods that we used would be more congested and haunted-like. We would likely use a movie set to keep a dark theme while still capturing enough lighting, countering the issue we struggled with in our first movie idea.

Lighting/Sound/Editing

In my opinion, the most essential components of the movie are the sound and lighting. If we had a proper budget, we would IMMEDIATELY purchase various lighting, especially 3-point lighting and tungsten lights for the woods. As for sound, microphones would be essential. Boom mics and lava mics would be our go-to, especially because we  GREATLY struggled with capturing audio outside. Finally, we would hire professional editors to put together our film using their complex editing software and skills. CapCut did the job for us, but if we want a Hollywood movie, we would need heavy-duty software and highly advanced editors.

Specific Camera Shots/Angles

The Unseen Effects

Welcome back, everyone! A part of a movie director's job is to initiate certain camera shots and angles to bring out the most of the scenes and evoke the right emotions. This is no different with our movie. Though it is invisible to the typical audience, a movie-makers eye can easily notice it.

High Angle

This angle was quite a unique one in our film. Following getting knocked out by Agent Eugene, Agent Edison was unconscious on the floor. A high angle was used to further exaggerate his weakened state, and was also used complimentarily with a tilt to reveal his vulnerability for comedic purposes.

Full Shot

This camera shot, though fairly simple, was done purposely. It captures Eugene standing quite stealthily on the phone, while also showing the background behind him. His stance provides insight into his role in the movie (agent) and his hooded figure further stresses this. The tree he is leaned on as well as the deserted background tells the audience that he is in a hostile location, which the audience can infer is the woods from the sequence of clips that this is placed in.

Low Angle

Another iconic angle. The low angle was used here to elevate Agent Eugene's power and strength. After just knocking out Agent Edison, the audience can clearly see who is the more powerful of the two. Pairing this low angle of Eugene with its counterpart - the high angle of Edison, provides a direct distinction between the characters and their abilities.

Day 3 of Shooting

Bringing My Idea to Life

Welcome back, everyone! If you have been tracking my blog lately, you would know that we recently scrapped our previous movie idea when I took initiative over our groups project. With my vision, I planned out an introductory-like film to Rayyan's movie idea, forming a proper movie opener. After emergency planning, we finally got together after school to put my idea's text into motion picture:

After school, my group members and I walked to Eugene's neighborhood, which was selected given its close proximity to school and its various features that we can make the most of to extend the setting of our movie. In this neighborhood, we recorded most of our shots. We began just after the bridge, where we recorded our news scene in front of the eye-catching massive lake and jungle-like trees in the corner. We then journeyed towards the clubhouse, where we shot  our montage in the clubhouse gym and Eugene's preparation on a nice ground near the pool exhibit. 

At last, we went back to the woods near our school, recording our final few scenes with the agents and their director. Then, we displayed Agents Eugene and Edison walking into the forest together from a distance, revealing the huge forest and also making room for a title sequence. As for sounds, we also recorded a foley stage of a bag closing, glove Velcro stretching, sound effects of cars and phones, and took some voiceover recordings to lapse them over our video shots. 

These shots, though simplistic, are solid enough to be an exposition to a movie. We believe it narrates the opening plot quite well, allowing our audience to learn easily but stay intrigued by the film.

New Film Analysis

What's the Deal?

Welcome back, everyone! Like I mentioned in my prior post, I will now be going in depth of the new movie's plot and storyline. Despite having a complete different feel, it is important to know that on a broader basis, this new sequence takes place in the same timeline, ending right where our previous movie would have started (minus the character change). Anyways, let's get into it:

Our movie will open with a montage of our protagonist, Agent Eugene, working out in the gym intensively. Throughout the various clips of weight training and cardio, motivational music will be playing while Eugene narrates the conflict with the woods via voiceover.

The movie will have comedic relief when Agent Eugene knocks out his partner, Agent Edison, while training. Upon this, Eugene will reach for his phone to call for help, before noticing News Reporter Rayyan breaking another mysterious disappearance near the woods. Alerted, Eugene immediately stops what he is doing and leaves the facility, revealing an unconscious, twitching Edison below.

After packing his belongings, Agent Eugene is seen heading off to a new location. A faded black screen reveals the audio of a car reaching its destination, before opening back up to reveal a new setting: A forest. There, Agent Eugene will receive a call from Director Ahmad, followed by Agent Edison receiving a similar call from the Director. Finally, the pair will be seen walking into the forest, before panning up and revealing the title, "Forgotten Trails". Shortly after, a loud scream will be heard, echoing throughout, and the screen will immediately turn black as the scream continues to roar. This suspenseful cliffhanger would leave room for imagination for the rest of our movie, if we were to continue it one day.

Editing Again

 Back to Square One...

Welcome back, everyone! With our most recent changes made to our film, we were now required to halt all previous editing and start putting together our new scenes. Edison continues to take the leading role in editing, dealing with every aspect from elapsed time, transitions, sound and visual effects, etc. He is using CapCut throughout this process as we all have the most experience using this editing software.

Time Spent

Editing has been the hardest part of the film so far, even when we had to record our film three different times already. This is because all the magic happens during editing, so we need to be spot on with every decision. Also, we did have to scrap two previous movies midway through editing, so that extended our editing time a lot longer than it should've. Days of work have been thrown out the window as we learn things the hard way. Nonetheless, we stay dedicated to polishing a perfect movie opener, and Edison is leading the way once again, already hours into this film's editing process.

Editing Roles

While Edison is assuming the majority of responsibilities in editing, that doesn't mean the rest of us aren't involved. All four of us are contributing in deciding which takes we want to use, what order to place clips, how to maximize the suspense, and overall composition of the film. More specifically, Eugene and Rayyan have been involved in the pacing of the movie, ensuring the clips (especially the montage) are ideal lengths, and that we get as close to 2 minutes as possible. As for me, I have been involved in sound, trying my best to overlap sound files to sync up with the video clips. Also, I've been exploring how we can use sound elements such as J-cuts and L-cuts to make our movie more immersive.

Additional Filming

We recorded just about all of our scenes. We just need to record some of the voiceovers due to lack of audio quality in the original clips, and because we plan to use actual voiceovers to narrate as well. Further, we need to finalize some concluding shots, and we may even decide to use a clip or two from our previous shooting sessions. I will go more in depth about our new movie idea soon, and hopefully publish a post just about our film set in the near future. Stay tuned!

Representation

Representation...And Stereotypes

 Welcome back, everyone. As we all know, stereotypes exist in just about every aspect of life, and we see this very evidently with societal stereotypes in films.  In your typical Hollywood, social/personal stereotypes are prominently used as a form of characterization, helping to construct the personalities of different roles that would make it easily understandable to the viewer. In Forgotten Trails, we both oppose and give in to these stereotypes . Let's dive into this:

To refresh, our film's main representation lies in our protagonist - a secret agent in which we see his more personal side of life. Many things can be represented with this character (and the secondary actors) that are seemingly stereotypical, typical, or different.

Right off the bat, gender seems to be a stereotypical feature of representation in our film. Our protagonist is a male, and all the secret agents are also male. In Hollywood thrillers, the lead character is often a male figure as he offers a bolder, more prominent aura on screen. This character's supposed masculinity offers the protagonists and their allies with a strong force in their opposition to the antagonizing person or event. Evidently, our film's portrayal of male agents investigating disappearances means that these "stronger" individuals are willing to face danger, which would create a different level of comfort and safety with the audience had a women been the star of this role. While all these elements are true and valid, my group had no way to "oppose" this stereotype if we wanted to, because our group consists of 4 males in it. This may have been a setback for other ideas but it did not interfere with our movie.

Both supporting and opposing stereotypes, the characterization of our protagonist in relation to his ethnicity was also a key role of representation. Often, Asian-ethnic characters are broadcasted in two familiar roles. The first being the "nerd" who has high intelligence and more of a less intimidating character who has more brainpower than manpower. The second stereotype, which can be a direct opposite to this, is a martial arts fighter who's highly skilled on the physical side and has impressive athletic ability. These two extremes are sort of blended in our film in a lighter way. Eugene is depicted to be a strong, physical man who excels in boxing and fighting, complimenting the martial arts stereotype to a lower extent. His role as a secret agent also implies his high intelligence, though not directly mentioned. This compliments the "nerd" stereotype in a different light. Overall, the character merges these two Hollywood stereotypes to create this unique, new blend of a character, establishing a new representation while also allowing the audience to understand him.

A final contrast in stereotypes is costumes. A secret agent would typically wear suits, sunglasses, and an overall dark-clothed appearance. Surprisingly, our character, for most of the opening sequence, wears flexible, athletic clothing to work out. Even when he goes out in the field to carry on his career as an agent, he still only wears a hoodie at most, and one of the agents adds on to the costume with a baseball cap. This differing point of representation was not the best, but it had to be done. We had a limited budget and have already overspent on our previous movie idea for props and costumes, so we had to keep this new version simple. We tried our best to compliment an undercover outfit with the materials that we have, though it still is not as beautiful. With that in mind, it can still be seen as a good thing. Our basic costumes can seem to hint towards the age range of our characters. They are fairly young people, so their outfits being typical of a South-Floridian teenager/young adult can fit their respective demographic.

Rewinding

More Change - Going back in Time

Welcome back, everyone. I'm back with MORE changes to our movie (storyboard included). This was done due to plenty of errors and difficulties we had with the previous two sets. After trying twice to record our movie idea, we came to realization that the task was likely far too complex for a small group like us with a minimal budget. Also, our movie idea seemed more like a rising action/climax of a movie rather than an opener. So, we decided to keep our same storyline, but move BACK IN TIME!

Plot Shift

Our new movie takes place before our old movie would've started. It is the background to the reason why our characters go explore the forest. Rather than start the film with exploration, we begin it by characterizing our protagonist and showing his preparation for exploring the forest. We also provide background into the forest's significance and hostilities, making our movie more understandable. Finally, rather than stick with two casual people, we amplified their roles to be secret agents exploring the mystery in the woods to better fit our storyline.

Characters

Our group members each take on new roles in this film. Eugene plays the protagonist of the film, and Edison plays his co-partner and second agent. Rayyan takes on the role of news reporter, and my role is the director on the phone. I do not make a physical presence, only my voice is heard. This is because I am in charge of most of the off-camera, behind-the-scenes footage, so my screentime is limited. 

Setting

Our new movie takes on multiple settings, including the gym, an outdoor lounge, a lakeview, and the forest once again. This helps us create the exposition of our film that help explain the purpose of going into the forest, making our film a proper movie opener compared to our old, action-heavy idea.

Storyboard

Day 2 of Shooting

Action on Set: All the Takeaways

Welcome back, guys! Not too long ago, my group and I concluded our second day of filming. I mentioned the changes over the past few blogs, so I will focus more on the actual shooting day fluidity:

Summary of Plot Changes:

We got rid of the vlogger concept, using just two friend exploring the woods for simplicity to our audience. Eugene and Rayyan assumed those roles, while I was the secondary character and Edison played the antagonist. We also added a new extra to our film to increase the suspense. These MASSIVE changes were done mid-set, as we were previously recording our vlogger concept before I proposed a change and eventually earned unanimous support about 35 minutes in. 

Setting:

Like the previous shooting, we recorded in the woods behind our school. However, we did this during the daytime to avoid the lighting issues that we had on the previous filming day. We also changed up some of the shots on set, taking more shots inside the depths of the woods to grasp the mysterious aspect. 

Actors:

All members were able to attend this day of shooting, which boosted the recording ease and pace. During recording, we even encountered one of Rayyan's friends, who was quickly added to our film to improve the suspense. He played a dead corpse to represent the hostilities of the forest, replacing our previous idea of having a torn shirt hanging. Overall, this seemed to be a perfect addition.

Challenges:

We encountered MANY challenges that day. The most significant one being the weather. For one, it was extremely cold that day, so we were all practically suffering for the entirety of the film. It did not help that the weather was so cloudy that the sun was out of sight. Also, the wind was so strong that day. This obstructed many essentials of our film: The audio was often overshadowed by the wind, blocking out many lines that are essential to the plot. This means we are very likely to need to re-record some audio. Also, the strong wind and us shivering made keeping our camera quite hard to be steady. We did use a portable tripod, but all camera movements were far too shaky due to these environmental factors. Finally, our new idea was quite a significant change from the previous one, and given we decided the changes in less than an hour, our script may have seemed quite choppy and unprepared. Therefore, we have intentions on a third day of shooting...