CCR

Here is my Creative Critical Reflection for my film "Valid"

Watch it HERE

Finished Opening!

I am extremely happy to present my group's finished film opening, "Valid"

Click HERE to watch it!

Project Reflection

My project has taken a couple of unexpected turns since my group first started. When we first had our opening concept and ideas we didn't know it yet but we were way in over our heads. We started with the concept of a schizophrenic girl who uses art to control her illness. We were really into this idea and even had a little storyboard down but after receiving input from our peers and teacher we knew we were thinking way too big and representation would be extremely hard for us. After a couple of hours of thinking of new ideas we came up with something we have all experienced to a certain degree or know someone who has, this idea is "Social Media Addiction" we spent a bit polishing the idea and went into pre-production thinking more realistic than we would have if we had not thought of the schizophrenia idea first. We spent a lot of time trying to make an empty room in Oliver's house look natural and like a real bedroom but to no avail. Katherine spent a considerable amount of time setting her room up and killed it with mise-en-scene so we switched our setting to her room. During this time The Coronavirus scare was beginning, this led to not being able to buy more props and perfect our set, even with all the problems Corona caused we were still able to find a day to film and Katherine absolutely nailed the set and acting even though we were not able to buy any of the props we wanted. After this, I set up a station in my office at home where Oliver and I could edit the opening. When Corona got worse both Oliver and I were stuck in our houses so it was up to me to finish the edit. We were able to communicate online and Oliver was still able to help me edit from a distance. I have seen my production skills and creativity grow a ton during this project and it also helped me come up with solutions on the fly. I made sure to get some feedback from others before I sent out the opening to my partners and with that being finished I am extremely relieved and happy that our opening turned out the way it did. It was a nice change from the usual projects I am given in my school courses.

Our Final Edit

Hello! I am not sure if I mentioned it previously but I despise editing. I have learned through many projects that I like being behind the scenes and not in the spotlight. However, editing is the exception,  I love learning SFX and implementing them but I find line editing extremely monotonous and not fun in the slightest. Our group perfectly navigated this by deciding to have Oliver who is a great editor do all the line editing with my creative oversight. Due to The Coronavirus, this put us in a position where I would be the only one finishing the final edit that Oliver started. My main method of voice communication is an application called discord that I love using. One of the program's features allows somebody to stream their monitor and audio to someone else in a call while you are talking to them. Using this Oliver was able to guide me through the process and make the whole situation a little less painful. After we got it to a good point and Oliver had to go to work I called up my close friends Ryan Orejarena and Nick Ramos to get their opinions so the final product would be as polished as possible. Using their advice I was able to polish my color grading and audio to make our final edit. If anyone from discord is reading this please sponsor me.

The CCR

For my CCR I have decided to record a video of myself while bringing up relevant pictures and videos when they are necessary. I think this will be the most personal option while also not being boring as I am going to bring in pictures and videos so the viewer won't be tired of watching. For my equipment, I will be editing once again with my favorite software Premiere Pro 2019 and using my webcam which is a 1080p Logitech C920 for my main recording of me talking as I do not own a camera other than my phone.

Logitech C920

Premiere Pro 2019

CCR Review

For my CCR I plan to review some key points given to me by my teacher. I want to address them now so I can work them into my script.


How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

• My film opening takes on the issue of social media addiction and the effect it can have on people
• Our opening represents social media addiction as a bad thing as it can pull you in and stop you from having real interaction with those around you.

-How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

• Our opening engages with the audience by facing a very real and current issue that affects a large number of young adults and teens.
• Our film would be distributed by small film festivals and video sites like youtube.

-How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

• My production skills developed heavily with time management and filming in a short timeframe. 

-How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

• We used a DSLR for our hardware
• For other technologies we used Whatsapp to communicate, Blogger to document our progress, Premiere Pro to edit, and YouTube to find more information on the production.

A Talk About Editing

I realized I haven't gone in-depth yet about my editing process so I wanted to address that a little bit. The software I have been using for editing is Adobe Premiere Pro 2019. I chose to use the 2019 version over the 2020 version as the 2020 version is still relatively new and has its fair share of bugs. I have sufficient experience with Premiere Pro as I had been taking film and television programs for the last 4 years that allowed me to become more skilled at editing.

Our Premiere Timeline