My film opening, Creative Critical Reflection #1, and my Creative Critical Reflection #2

 Here is my film opening and both of my CCR productions!

this is the link to the google drive: My film opening and both of my CCRs

My Final Reflection

 It has certainly been a long journey creating this project and I just want to say as much as I am excited to finally be done, I had quite a lot of fun creating this and being able to do this project. I not only was able to improve my skills when it came to creating productions, it also gave me fun memories with my friends and was overall just so much fun to make.

Now onto the actual reflection portion of this post, I want to talk about both the good and the bad, along as some input I got from sharing this with my friends.

I'll start with the bad because I want to end this post with what I did good. I think the last shot in my opening was a little bad, as in the lighting was a little off and the shot was a little too close to my face, however I may just be critiquing myself too much because when I showed my friends none of them noticed or even mentioned the last shot. Actually one of them just mentioned some other stuff such as in one of my shots the lighting was far too dark and the room was difficult to see, which I did end up fixing and she said it looked good after that. 

I want to move on to the parts I think I did good now. I think I did the lighting very nicely and just as I planned where I would use my LED light stick and my computer and other LEDs in my room to add many different lights. At first I thought the lighting ended up not being low-key because it was kind of bright in the raw clips, however after some editing magic I was able to make it look like exactly how I wanted it. I also think the recordings and the quality turned out really nicely, thanks to my friend Leah M. recording and partially me setting up the tripods and cameras myself.

Here is a shot from my final product where I thought the low-key lighting and overwhelming blue went together very nicely, since the point of the opening was to establish he had lost his sense of self, given by the title, the blacked out figure, and the blue background lighting.

post-production of CCRs

I have now about finished editing the sound and video for the CCRs. For my first CCR where I answered CCR question number one and two I had to make many cuts since it was a vlog format. I fear I might lose points because of that but I watched multiple vlogs and they all followed this format where they had many many cuts between sentences so I decided to just follow them since that is what I was going off of. 

However for my second CCR, when it came to the sound, I had to try and silence the background noise a lot because there was a lot of wind that day and it would always start blowing whenever we had a good shot. However, thankfully, Imovie has a feature where I can remove background noise as well as make the main focus of sound go to our voices which worked out because there was nothing else to focus on when it comes to sound. My second CCR was actually quite fun to edit since I had to decide when to use one angle or another and I thought it was kinda fun to be able to switch in between, especially when I got it spot on. I also used this to my advantage to be able to add another clip where I added more onto one of the CCR questions without making it seem out of place or like a jump cut.

here is a screenshot of the shots and edits I made for my second CCR. (the shots are not that short I just shrunk them so I can fit them onto the screenshot!)

Production of CCRs

 The other day I recorded both of my CCRs, For one of them I ended up doing a vlog where I answered the questions in a Q&A format as if I was a youtuber answering comments, then for my second CCR I did something similar to Hot Ones where we had to eat chicken with hot sauce then answer questions. (no, we didn't spit up food I promise)

For the first CCR it was a pretty simple process as I just recorded a short 5 minute video answering the creative critical reflection questions. I was inspired to do the vlog by the youtube 3fs however I used this video to kind of base my own vlog off of so I had a basis of what to do for it.

For the hot ones idea I had my friend Tomas D. act as the host, me as the guest, and I had my friend Pietra P. help record. I had to set up two tripods and record on two phones at the same time for this shooting process because I wanted two angles but didn't know how else to go about it, so I just used their phones to record and my phone to make the script. We ended having to do the recording outside and it was kind of windy, however it's not an issue since you can't hear the wind in the final recording. For this idea I used the video where they interview Bad Bunny as a base of how to do this video.

Question number 4 for the CCR

 Question number four refers to what technology was used in order to create this project and how they were integrated.

This is question 4:

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

Of course one integration of technologies is the blog I've had been working on since before this project even began. I've used this blog to track and take note of any plans and anything I've learned throughout this entire year and for this project I've used it to discuss plans, show designs, and discuss ideas for my film opening.  The blog also serves as an explanation and a timeline for my production as I went week by week updating my progress on my project through this blog.

For editing I used a software that was new to me, the software was Imovie and honestly I enjoyed using it. Of course I used Imovie to edit and work on sound editing as well. Therefore I utilized and integrated Imovie into the production of my project.

I also had to use my phone camera to record and send all the shots that were taken to my laptop so that I can access and edit the shots, therefore I used both my phone and my laptop to produce this project as well.

Question number 3 for the CCR

 Question three discusses how I have grown through this project.

Question number 3 is:

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

I think one big thing that developed while I made this project was my skills to plan and realize the thought put into productions. At the beginning of the project and before this project I used to make plans but not really follow them, I also lacked putting much thought into them since I always felt I would change it anyway. However, now I realized how important it is to put thought into the plans.

For example, the butterflies I made for the set design of the project. I realized how much thought could be distributed throughout one production and planning to use something like this was something I think I've developed when making this project.

When it comes to technical development, I think I developed when considering what shots to take and recording pieces. I wasn't the one that was recording however I made the plans of what type of shots and angles to use and I think my consideration when it came to that has also developed when making this production.

Overall I think my planning skills has become better and actually sticking to the plans I've created and I think my skills when it comes to considering shots and angles and actually recording them has developed as well since the recording process was also partially me.

Question number two of CCR

Before I talk about how I'm going to answer question two, I feel I should break it down a little. Question two for the CCR goes over audience engagement and how the film keeps the audience engaged and interested and how the film will be distributed if it was a real piece.

Question two for the CCR is:

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

For the first part of this question, on how my product engages with audiences, my film opening was meant to create an immersive emotional impact with the audience. The main character is supposed to be relatable as my film goes over a topic that is difficult to explain, therefore seeing a character like the one I was going for can cause the audience to relate to him and engage with the film. My opening consists of contradicting colors when it comes to lighting and this also engages with the audience because the colors are meant to represent feelings in the film making the audience understand the underlying feelings behind his interactions and how he feels in each scene. 

If my film opening was a real media text I would most likely post a trailer of the film on a social media account that would be dedicated to my productions. The reason I would do this would be for the piece to get traction so when I release the film for people to watch at a film festival for example, it gains a larger audience. Also, I would want to release it at a film festival since I would be an amateur creator and would not be able to put the film in movies on my own.

This is an image from Cinema East 

Austin during one of their film festivals

Question one for my CCR

 Now that I have finished filming and mostly finished editing my project I think it's about time to start my creative critical reflection, A.K.A. the CCR. For some context the CCR is an addition to this project where we are challenged to reflect on our choices considering the project and explain why we made those decisions. the purpose of the CCR is to engage us in meta cognition and get us to think about what we've thought about. The CCR is comprised of four questions regarding our project.

The first of the four questions is:

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

Before I start just listing ways my piece follows or pushes my genre conventions, I feel it's important that I go over my genre and some conventions of the genre I ended up doing. 

Just to recap, I ended doing a psychodrama for my film opening which is a subgenre of drama that focuses on a flawed protagonist and is mainly about developing the protagonist in a dramatic way to invoke an emotional response from the audience.

Now that I explained that, here are some genre conventions of psychodramas:

• psychodramas typically deal with the psychological state of the main character and protagonist of the story.
• To invite the audience into the mindspace of the character in order to develop their mental state, films that are considered psychodramas utilize tight shots and many close-ups and 'subjective' camera angles in order to act as a window to the audience into the protagonist's mind.
  
• These camera angles may be paired with disjointed editing and surreal imagery in order to represent a fragmented state of mind, along with the many uses of symbolism through setting and objects and colors imbued with psychological importance.

• the main character is typically put through mental challenges and inner conflicts that lead to the character going through a psychological process and even metamorphosis in some cases.
• psychodramas are character-driven therefore of course the psychology of the characters are the main focus of the story in most pieces under this genre.

Some examples of psychodramas, as mentioned in previous blog posts include:

Perks of Being a Wallflower                              Steven Universe Future                  Manchester by the Sea

                                                                                                                                                                 

Now to answer the question, if my piece uses or challenges genre conventions, my film goes along and uses these genre conventions. 

My opening represents those dealing with depression with the use of lighting with significant psychological meaning, such as blue and other cooler hues, low-key lighting when Lucas is alone, and warmer colors and brighter lighting when around his friends, symbolism, in the shape of the origami butterflies around his room, foreshadowing upcoming metamorphosis, and of course, a character driven plot of a teen who struggles with strong feelings of loneliness and sadness even when he is having a good moment. 

References

                Psychological drama. (2023, April 24). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_drama

editing post number two

 I have now edited in my credits along with the last bit of clips!

For my credits I made it so that a song made by a friend of mine would play while the credits were going, and then when the song begins to fade out the title would show. I was inspired by Perks of Being a Wallflower and how they did their credit sequence. Therefore I wanted to put my credits in the very beginning of the film and then have a song play in the background and then continue with the opening as the credits end.

The credits for my film are as follows:

Main actors: Pietra Patrizi, Tomas Deschiave, Sebastian Arrechea

Editor: Sebastian Arrechea

Production Design: Sebastian Arrechea

Director of photography: Leah Moldauer

Producer: Sebastian Arrechea

Director: Sebastian Arrechea

Writer: Sebastian Arrechea