Film Opening & CCR

 The day has come!! Click the link below to watch my film opening and the CCR. I hope everyone enjoys it! Goodbye Blog!!

 

Film Opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RNgBOxAwHE

 

 

CCR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRXam1NtME8

Reflection

             As the project comes to an end, so does my blogging.  This will be my second to last blogging post :(( It’s crazy how this project has finally come to an end and that I will be posting my film and CCR tomorrow!  I feel like time went by so fast.  As I reflect on this process, I would like to discuss some last things on my blog.  

         To start with, something that I have learned from this project is that researching is so important!!  When I began to film, I researched how to use my camera, what are the best angles, and how to film.  Research is so beneficial to you even if you don’t realize it.  I learned so much by watching YouTube videos and reading articles on editing; this basic information will benefit you a lot.  Another thing I learned is that I am not that bad at editing or filming!  Going into this, I was so worried about having to edit since I had never really done anything like this before, but I was entirely shocked by my skills.  I did a pretty good job, even if sometimes I had to watch a couple of YouTube videos, but I have still come a long way.  I first started not even knowing how to edit a video or do anything.  I was mainly only comfortable in the sound element part of editing since I had done a project on it before. 

         Overall, I have learned a lot from this project, whether it was learning how to edit or film, but I also learned from the blog posting.  I felt like I had a place where I could always go to put my thoughts and ideas and could discuss any part of my project that I wanted.  Writing four times a week is always a good practice, whether for school or not. I think this project taught me a lot!  Sad to say that this will be my second to last blog post…I will miss writing here every week!  See you tomorrow when I will be posting my film and CCR!!

Editing CCR

 As I begin the editing process for my CCR I want to make sure it looks like an interviewer.  So, the seats will be set up next to each other and we will be acting is if it was a real interview.  I am also going to be including a lot of different pictures within my CCR, so I must gather every piece so I can add it to my media.  I am going to be including short clips of my own film in the CCR because I want the audience to understand what I am talking about.  I will also be adding pictures of other movies, and maybe even some short clips.  I am going to add a chart or create a chart of the demographics for people that watch drama films while I am explaining my target audience for my film.  in the background of the CCR I am putting a low music just to make it seem less awkward…. Overall, I am just working on editing my CCR and I will be basically finished with everything!! Crazy. It feels like I have been working on this project for so long and now I can’t  believe it’s already done. 

 

CCR Transcript

          Ok, so I know I said in my previous blog post that I was going to be the interviewer and that my main character  was going to be the star, but…. I changed my mind.  I thought it would it make much more sense if I was the one that was being interviewed.  I am now going to be creating my transcript, so I stay on track and don’t ramble during the video. I will leave below the rough draft for the transcript!!!

 

 

 

Joseph: Hello everybody, today we are here with Jessie Schiller! She is the writer, director, and the camera operator  of ,“The Advocate”!

 

Jessie: Hello! Thanks for having me, everyone! I am so excited to discuss my new film.

 

Joseph: Ok, let’s get into this! I wanted to start by asking you, how does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

 

Jessie: Wow! Ok, well, to answer the second part of the question first, my film represents and focuses on  the Jewish religion and people. My whole film is based on a kid that moved from Israel to Miami. During this move, he experiences a lot of differences. Miami is a melting pot! It is filled with all different kinds of people of races, religions, cultures, and ethnicities; it has every type of group. But with the amount of diversity it has, it also comes with hate. And this is what Eitan (my main character) experiences on his first day of school. 

 

Joseph: Yes, I can confirm that! I was born and raised in Miami, and I’m as diverse as they come! I speak Spanish, English, and Hebrew! No one ever expects a Spanish person to be Jewish!

 

Jessie: Exactly, there is a lot of diversity in Miami which is a great thing. It allows everybody to be themselves, but it comes with different beliefs from all these different cultures. These beliefs can cause fights and comments, which is what Eitan experiences. As he is walking to school, a boy rolls down his window and asks him, “what is on your head?” and he responds with, “a kippah” he tells him to “take it off” and that he is a “dirty Jew .” This represents the prejudice that many people have against Jews. In my film, I don’t want people to pity the Jews; I want them to honor them. Honor them for sticking up to the hate and being strong.

 

Joseph: Wow, that is great! I love that you want to honor instead, of creating the theme of remorse. Let’s get onto the next question, how does your product engage with audiences, and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

 

Jessie: So, my target audience is mainly young adults and adults. Thirteen plus is what I think should be the starting point for people wanting to watch. I believe that schools and parents should educate young kids on anti-Semitism and prejudice. Still, I think young kids wouldn’t necessarily understand the concept of this film if they have not been educated on the topic yet…. It considers the prominent people that will draw attention to this movie will be minorities. These are the people that understand on another level. They have experienced it first-hand. Since my film is about prejudice, many people who have experienced any type of it, will relate to this and support this film. The main goal is to show how to stand up to those who try to oppress you and how by doing so can change the outcome.

 

Joseph: How do you plan to make your film available to this audience or any audience?

 

Jessie: Well, I will post my film on YouTube. Many famous stars such as Justin Bieber, Zac Efron, Russel Brand, and Gordan Ramsay all got famous on YouTube. So, just posting it to get any attention would be great. I will also be playing it at film festivals, specifically Miami International Film Festival, Miami Jewish Film Festival, etc.

 

Joseph: OH, those film festivals are great!! I hear the artists do so well, they get so much feedback! My next question is, how did your production skills develop throughout this project?

 

Jessie: I am excited to talk about this one! When I was first creating this film, I had no idea what I wanted the film to be about.  I wanted my film to be able to represent something about me, personally. When I thought of my idea, I realized there weren’t that many of these types of films made, which is why I wanted to create something like this.  Many people have their own perceptions of people, but when people watch my film, I want them to realize the impact that words have on others. I also want people to understand the power of standing up for something or someone you believe in and how important it is to educate people.

 

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

 

Jessie: While filming this I had a lot of issues with cameras at first. When I was planning my production, I knew that I wanted to use a Canon camera instead do my iPhone. I thought this would be a much smarter choice, and it would come out with such good quality.  Well, that failed miserably. I had never used the camera before (which is my fault), but I had watched YouTube videos and done all my research. I felt like I was educated on how to use the camera and I thought to myself how hard could it possibly be? Once I figured out how to film a video, I only got it to record up to 8 seconds, so I switched to my phone. That was my best idea yet.

 

CCR Brainstorming/Creation

           Last class my teacher went over the CCR creation.  We took notes of her presentation that included everything that should be in the CCR creation.  We also watched some example videos of students from the past to give us idea of what was expected from us to do.  For the CCR my teacher mentioned how this project isn’t supposed to be very serious and to have fun with it.  She mentioned how in the past some kids made a documentary, or a talk show.  When she mentioned the talk show, I was very interested in doing something like this.  I thought that I could include my main character in the video and make it almost like a new movie screening interview.

         In the CCR, I would interview my main character, while also explaining everything that was involved within the film opening (answering the four questions).  It would represent a basic movie interview and ask the star how they felt during the film, what it was like to film something like this, and anything else that would be beneficial to my project.  The only thing I’m a little stressed about is time.  I feel like this could take a long time to film, and I only have until Monday. So, I’m a little stressed, but I know I will finish everything intime to do so. I included an example below of what I’m trying to represent for my CCR to give you an idea.  Below is in interview with all three of the previous actors that have played spiderman.  (By the way, mine wouldn’t be this long!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDvUI5O_b3k&t=65s

Editing Continued....

 Since I had to re-film all the last scenes of the film, it set me back a day.  But at least all my footage is  perfect now!  This is a great example of learning from my mistakes.  I learned to always make sure that the footage is perfect. and that nothing is blocking the camera. After I filmed everything, I then added everything to my computer to be able to move it into iMovie. 

         After moving everything into iMovie, I began editing everything and making sure the footage is perfect.  Now that everything is prepared and ready, I am going to try and finish editing everything by the end of the week to make sure I stay on track.

Bump In The Filming Process

         Today when I was editing, I realized I made a mistake when I was filming. During the filming process, my phone case was covering part of the camera, so the footage was not able to be used.  So, today I will be filming all the ending of my footage.  Thankfully I filmed it at m y friend’s house, so it wasn’t a big deal to go and must refilm because everything is in the same exact place as it was when I started filming.  I mainly only had to film the last scenes of the opening, so I am very thankful that everything from the beginning was useable footage.

         After I filmed everything, I felt at ease because I only knew that I had to edit, and I had no filming left.  I was honestly very stressed at the beginning of the day because I didn’t think I would have enough time to film everything, and if it would look different, but I just pushed through my worries and continued filming.

Goals of the Week

     This week I am mainly focusing on finishing up all the editing for my film, to make sure everything is done by April fourth.  I know I said before that I was a little worried about doing the editing, but I honestly found everything that I had to do very simple.  I know from the past that iMovie is the one editing app that I feel most comfortable with.  When I tried using DaVinci I was lost.  There were so many different tools, I just found it so overwhelming to learn how to use every single button.  But since I’m using iMovie, I have no stress about editing.                                          

    One of the things that I really enjoy doing when editing it adding all the sounds on top of each other.  I think it ends up sound very realistic once all the sounds are playing at the same time. Since I’m focusing on finishing all my editing this week, I am confident that I will be able to finish it this week (hopefully).  It’s been kind of hard because its spring break, but there are deadlines, so I must continue working! But I am excited to be finished with the project just to be able to watch my film come to life.  I have had so many different ideas for this film so I’m just excited to see how its hoping to come out!

Creating Production & Film

         I created my production, my film, and my soundtrack.  I went on canvas to create different kinds of short clips make these videos.  I am between multiple different themes or layouts you could say.  I think the darker theme looks a little more professional, but I also really like the clouds as a background (I will link the videos below).

         Creating different kinds of layouts will give me options to decide what to choose from.  Coming up with a name was kind of hard at first.  I wasn’t sure of what to pick, or how to create a name.  for my production company, I chose the name, “Bromo Productions”.  creating a filming production was a little different.  I wanted to create something that was unique but still sounded professional, so I named it, “Passion Films”.  for the soundtrack, I went on many different copy right free websites to look for the perfect song.  After going through various of the songs on the website, I found the one. I made sure to add everything to my project, and it looks like its al starting to come together.  Below I listed some of the videos I made with the different layouts if anyone wants to check them out.

      

Editing Process

 

            This week I have started the editing process.  I was defiantly a little nervous to start the editing process because I have never done anything like this before.  I used iMovie to edit everything.  I started off by adding all the videos into the project so I could decide where I wanted everything to go.   Once all the videos were there, I went through putting them all in order.  I went for each of the videos and cut out any unnecessary parts of the clip that didn’t add anything to the film.  even though I just started editing, I feel like I still have made a lot of progress in the video. 

            I still need to add my song in the beginning, and any type of background noises that would amplify the noises in the back.  I am not worried for having to put in songs and noises because I am very comfortable with the tools on iMovie.  I also need to add all my credits to the film, and the title. I have decided that I am going to have the title at the end of the opening.  I think that this will look the best and will wrap it all together.  Tomorrow I am going to be looking into some songs to add in the beginning, and make sure everything looks good.

Class Meeting!

 

         Today in class, we met in groups to discuss our projects.  We went over our whole project, things that we needed a second opinion on, and anything that we wanted to share.  I thought this was a very productive way of getting feedback on my project and hearing about everyone’s ideas.  I needed some extra help with the ending of my film and my group helped me decide what to do.  

         I explained how I wanted the ending to have this solution on how my main character did something to stand up to the bully.  My group liked the idea of doing a live video of him streaming what happened to him on the way to school and standing up to this kid.  They thought this was a perfect way to go into the film, and that it would look cool.  The only thing is that it may be kind of hard to try and edit the whole thing together and include the live stream.  When I include the live stream in it, I want to include comments of what people are saying, the viewers going up, to show that his story is getting spread fast.  Other than that, we all just discussed our on individual things that we are trying to work on or fix for our project.