Reshooting scenes from peer review

My group had received our peer review, and they were happy with what he had so far. However, they did say that some scenes were too long and that there was no audio. I was aware of the fact of not having audio besides some dialogue, and we said that we had to find the song and analyze what sounds would be important for the final task. Since I finally memorized my lines, my group had an easier time reshooting the scene of Carolina answering a phone call. Emily only had to do a few takes, since I would only mess up with the position of the phone. That wasn’t a major inconvenience to what I thought about the final product. I realized that on both filming days, we used 2 different colored cars because the first one wasn’t available. So in the establishing shot, there was a white car instead of a black car. I was in charge of taking the camera back out across the street and filming my house for 20 seconds. Before this, I had to reposition the cars that were already in my driveway. The 3 other cars that were parked had to be driven onto the street, while the black car was parked in reverse on the driveway. I needed an eye-level shot of just that one car, so I tried not to get the other cars that were parked on the street. I finished filming and headed back inside to find Darwin, or Kenneth, to record him brushing his teeth. The peer group reviewed that Kenneth’s scene of him shaving was too slow, and we made that accordingly for the camera to focus. However, I did agree with this and decided to take another approach that involved water. We needed to keep the element of an action match, so it was either for Darwin to wash his face or brush his teeth. I gathered toothpaste and a new toothbrush and had “Kenneth” do the same actions for the scene. I had a few takes with this, but it finally worked on the last recording. And it was under 15 seconds which was very exciting. Every other scene did not have to be re-filmed because it would be edited to fit into the final video. Below is a picture of me discussing with Darwin about what he should be doing.

I've Been in Quarantine for Too Long (Update on Film and Edit process)

Classes have been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That means I am stuck at home figuring out what to do, and my only form of communication is through video chatting. My group and I still have yet to finish this assignment, so we are continuing our portfolio at home. We have been doing this for a week now. This isolation is going to be until April 15th, but some of my teachers want to start class online. However, I wish I did not have to worry about upcoming work assignments and more on the Creative Critical Reflection that comes along with this final task. I find this more important than anything else because AICE has been one of my main priorities. Therefore, it is better not to procrastinate. I want to be able to meet up with my group so that we could help each other, but I do not know when that will be. Luckily, we finished filming before school was closed, and no physical work was actually present at school. We were able to film and edit everything we needed for our final task. Spring Break is during this quarantine, but it still does not feel normal. It feels like this vacation has been elongated, however, I still have to complete work before going back to school. Online school starts in the meantime and I have to learn how to manage my activities. Although it is great being out of school, I have found myself to procrastinate more because I am home all the time. But I do like being able to type blogs from the comfort of my own bed. Usually, I would go out and see friends, or at least join my mom with grocery shopping. It has been enforced to practice a lot of social distancing, so I just keep thinking that it is better to stay home. This will be the norm for now, and hopefully, we can go back to school soon.

Editing: Incorporating sound and the song

It took a moment to look for the royalty-free song for our opening sequence. My group had multiple options before we chose a chill song called Summertime. When planning for this video, we anticipated that the sound would not be loud enough. For example, the diegetic of the car keys and the engine of a car turning on. We were afraid that the audience would not be able to hear these sounds. While filming, we recorded some of the objects making noises in order to edit it into the final product. Then when we finally edited the scenes together, we clipped the sound audios and added them to the track. We isolated the audio from the original videos, inserted them, and placed them under the correct scene. By the correct scene, I mean where the audio was supposed to meet up with the video. I watched Rafael isolate all of the sound effects while I placed them under the scenes. While doing this, my group was looking for music options. We searched for many websites with royalty-free music. We had an idea of having a relaxing song for the opening sequence. We played it out loud amongst ourselves every time we found a possible selection. We went through 7 songs, and 3 of them came from me. However, none of the ones I chose were planned on being used. That is when my group finally chose a song by the artist Egozi. It was from someone I have never heard of before, but that is why royalty-free music exists. We downloaded the song from the website and applied it to the music track in the diting software. We then realized that the sound effects sounded weird along with the music, so we had to get rid of them.

Editing: Combining all the scenes

I previously blogged about editing the clips together, that we had recorded so far. However, my group and I had a couple of film days to gather all of the scenes. I knew for a fact I had to edit twice because I needed to add all of the videos together to see how long the final product would be. These days are both in February and March. I used a different editing software as I did the first time I edited it. Because the software used first was not going to be the official one that my group will use for the actual video. Every time we collect footage, I sort it out before putting it in the software. That means I delete any takes that would not be used. On that Friday night, when we finished filming, I got the SD card and I started to delete any unused footage. That was a huge mistake on my part because I accidentally deleted the scene of the actor getting in the car, to transition him actually leaving the house. Instead, I should've put the takes that would be used into a folder, instead of deleting the ones that would not be used. I started to freak out once I deleted the scene, and I did not know what to do. At first, I tried all of these websites that claimed to restore erased data on an SD card. However, they all charged a price for a year-long membership, and I knew it was not worth it if I just wanted to recover one video. While panicking, I decided to talk to Emily and ask her what I should do. In the end, we asked everyone, and apparently, that scene was not as important as we thought it was. To prevent me from making any other mistakes, I let Rafael edit the rest of the scenes together. With this, we still have not edited the sound or soundtrack yet. This would be discussed later in another blog about editing.

Helping A Friend Film

Every film day, we have had a lone wolf group join us, in order to utilize my group as actors. Macy was another classmate that collaborated with us for her to film her final product. She was also doing a thriller, which was the right setting for us to work together. Her main characters were Emily and Darwin, and I provided a location for her. Along with the location, I gave her some props, like a white board, a knife, and some pictures printed out. Any costume she needed, I was able to give to her so that she could have a perfect video. The first scene needed was with Emily and I set up the bathroom to look messy, as if someone was just getting ready. I put makeup products over the counter and got a hairbrush for Emily to use as a prop. I basically provided a location, because next Macy had to go outside to film a few more scenes with Emily. Also, to prepare for a scene that involved Rafael and I, Macy had to take mugshots of Darwin and Emily, for their “spy” characters. I needed to give Darwin a black leather jacket from my brother’s closet to complete the look. Once those pictures were taken, I had to paste them to a google doc, to make it seem like an assistant was looking for a target. Then my part as an actor came in; I was assistant #1. I sat at a desk, with a computer in front of me, and I had to say a few lines. I didn’t have time to memorize them, so I wrote the dialogue on a small white board and read them out loud. Since I play video games, I had a headset with a microphone, to have the full costume as an assistant. There were a few takes, since I did not know how to read and kept stumbling over my words. Once we finished with that, Macy had to end her film day with a scene of Darwin and Emily dropping a picture. I printed out the picture for her to use, and she used the scraps to make a paper gun. I was very glad to work with Macy, because she helped my group, and in return, we helped her.

Film Day: Recording the last scenes

My group and I got together after the peer review, to actually complete what we did not finish. We had to work on the last scenes, that involved another setting and being in a car. I was the one that had to drive 4 of my peers to the other house, and we were sort of in a rush because we had at least an hour or two before the sun went down. This was very stressful for me because I know I am very serious about this assignment. So I want to get work done, but the other members like to fool around and waste time. I followed the rest of the storyboard, which included the dialogue between the main characters, Carolina and Kenneth. That means that I was not behind the camera in any of these shots, I was mainly an actor that day. However, I would tell Emily, the director, how some shots would be set up and what the camera would be doing in that scene. The first clip we recorded was of me scrolling through my phone and looking up to an approaching car and when it stopped, I would walk up to it. Carolina was then supposed to open the door and ask if the driver was her uber. I was aware that Emily needed to record an extreme close up of the phone being used as a mirror for Carolina to look at herself, but I knew we would have no time for it in the final product. I consulted the other members, and they agreed to cut it out overall, instead of deciding later while editing. I believed that it would have taken too much patience to get the camera to focus correctly, and I just wanted to get straight to the point for our video. With these car scenes, I always had to direct Darwin, or Kenneth, to drive back to the spot where he begins driving from, in order to reset. We had to take multiple takes because my head was in the shot instead of it being over the shoulder, or you could see Emily's reflection in the car. Emily then got into the backseat of the car, to get the shot-reverse-shot in one take. So I would technically be saying my lines in one video, but it would be cut while editing and placed in between the scene of Kenneth responding to the question. Darwin also had a couple "one takes". This was more clever than just recording other separate clips that would be 2 seconds long. Lastly, the final shot was an eye-level angle of the car driving off. We only had 2 takes with this, and once we gathered all our footage, we went back to my house to begin editing.

Peer Review

On Monday, everyone walked into class to read the list of groups and who was assigned to who. I approached my classmate, Ambi, and she airdropped me her video. First thing I noticed was that the length was longer than the original time; 22 seconds more than the limit. If I had to choose one thing that I liked about the film, it would be the beginning scene. This is where it went from a zoom into a close up of the 2 actors’ faces. The group decided to start their final task with an eye-line match. The example is where the kidnappers were looking through the bookcase and the camera cuts to reveal that they were looking at a girl. It leaves the audience wondering what these boys are looking at, and then the camera is in their perspective to later show them. This helps develop a mysterious mood for the rest of the opening sequence. One thing I would suggest to the group is to edit the clips so that transitions are more smooth. Also, they might need to re shoot some scenes because the audio does not match the video. The reason for editing is because there will be a shot of a setting and followed up by another clip of the same shot. It is not very easy to explain, but at the end of one scene,  the girl will be entering her car and closing the door behind her. Then in the next scene, she is in the car closing her door. This could be edited better, by cutting the scene before at the right time, and it leads to her closing the door in the scene after. In order to shorten time, the group may need to cut the scenes shorter, for example, the multiple long shots of the actors walking. That is unnecessary time used of just people walking for 20 seconds. Also the dialogue is very quiet, it needs to be louder for the audience to hear. The question was to make one suggestion, but I needed to make more in order for them to get a good score on their assignment. The rest of my review can be seen in the pictures below.