Category: Reflections

This is my last reflection. I write this post sadly, but with pride. I’ve worked too hard on this project to not write one last and final goodbye to this giant ball of stress. I have loved, hated, adored, loathed, enjoyed, and disliked many different parts of our project. This was an amazing learning experience, and I hope to gain more than just knowledge and experience from this. And to those at Cambridge, y’all are awesome. Thanks for putting up with this blog, I apologize for literally everything. Take care.

All of my posts are completely out of order because I basically can’t be as organized as I should, but it’s fine I’m totally okay, you know?

Struggles

As I just mentioned, I’ve been in a rush to get all of the blog posts that I need without dying or being too stressed out with everything else I have going on in my life (other AICE exams, life, sports, etc.). This reflection is even being written before the 7th one because I don’t remember what happened that week besides that I slept 5 hours one of those nights doing all of this and everything else, but it’s fine I am. Fine. I’ve been editing our title sequence for a good two weeks and still have to include titles within the thing, so I have to do all that to be able to actually finish and then brush up on some sound leveling with ambient sound and the dialogue, which has proven to be an annoying thing just hanging over me and taunting me. I also have been struggling to actually keep up with posting since I have been simply editing for so long and creating the best thing I can when editing our sequence. But, I can get things done yknow, eventually. I’ve struggled with uploading some videos to YouTube and them constantly getting taken down, but it’s alright since I can just upload them as “unlisted” thanks to Becca showing me how. Very creative in that aspect.

Accomplishments

I feel like there’s not much to say here besides that I got a lot of editing done and talked things out with Sitara. We still have yet to figure out the title fonts, but through some quick research it should be alright for us to establish it.

Well, that’s it. This is the last week and I have yet to start a director’s cut or a CCR. This is fine.

Wow this week went way better than last that’s for sure.

Last weekend, we re-shot our office scene that was absolutely awful from our first rough cut, so that was a success. We had a lot more time to get ourselves organized and get all of the shots that we need, and even get a little experimental with some of our shots and getting out of our comfort zone. For example, the drawer shot from when Becca takes the newspaper out of it. We had thought of that shot almost on the spot since we wanted variety and wanted to see how it might’ve looked in editing and it turned out pretty great. It also made for a lot better continuity than we originally had since our first session was so rushed and overall just awful in general. Seeing the time-frame some directors have to work with is really tough and I’m glad that I don’t have to deal with an actual budget with real money, I think I would cry. But I can definitely understand the struggle of time constraints.

Struggles

While shooting went well, that didn’t change the fact that we definitely struggled in some parts of it. The most prominent thing, our newspaper, literally the most important prop, I left at home. While I go more into detail on how I miraculously recreated this, I really learned that forgetting a prop or making it incorrectly can really ruin the meaning and tone of the sequence if not implemented correctly. Some other struggles we might have in the future is the recording of the dialogue. I haven’t listened to all of it yet, but I hope it sounds okay and can be synced correctly with the certain shots and other ambient sound in the back. Plus, taping the singular airpod to the inside of Tommy’s collar wasn’t exactly easy as it kept falling out. Hiding those sorts of things proved to be pretty difficult. We also had some trouble with blocking and putting the camera in the correct place for the sort of angles we want, but it didn’t hinder too much of our shooting. Becca was also taller than Sitara, so getting any shot from over her shoulder was difficult for Sitara, but not completely impossible.

Accomplishments

We did end up having an amazing rough cut in the end, thank goodness. We also got a lot of work done plus good blog posts out of this weekend and last week when we planned for the re-shooting of our office scene. I’m busy the next few weekends, so the fact that we got everything done this weekend was really good for me and Sitara both. I also managed to recreate our newspaper and even something better with the supplies there. The black and white aspects of the newspaper creates a feeling of old-fasion and not completely modern (despite the setting but it’s fine), so it still nearly follows our proposal from before.

Five weeks in and my days are numbered with this project.

So last week wasn’t too eventful, but I felt like I didn’t get a lot done when I should’ve, even though our rough cut was done and we couldn’t shoot anything else, so I mostly felt like I wasted last week. I did end up getting a location that I wasn’t able to use anyway because of some other complications that’s making me kind of irritated, but that’s whatever. We now have a shooting schedule down, and we are able to actually have the time to be able to get the shots we need.

I feel like I have to manage my time better, since I have many other things going on at the same time and it’s just a lot at the moment, but once everything starts settling down, this project should be the least of my worries. It’s just a lot. Either way, I need to put more focus on this so it can be the best project it can be.

I also just want this to be over so I can edit it and make it look super cool and stuff, but that’ll have to wait. I can’t wait for that part though.

Okay also WordPress hates me and suddenly won’t let me embed my rough cut so I might have to link it. I highly dislike this website.

Update- 3/5/19:

Suddenly, the YouTube video is working again and I didn’t even do anything to fix it. I have no words. What even is technology anymore.

I’m going to cry my eyes out, but its fine I’m fine everything’s fine.

Struggles, so many struggles…

Shooting was awful, but it wasn’t all our fault, but still it was so bad. We were given half an hour to shoot a 30 second scene, which doesn’t leave nearly enough time to actually do it, but we did our best. It was just… awful. We didn’t know our location well enough, we didn’t prepare a set dialogue, our shots were off, our continuity is so… I could go on but with out time constraint it was so awful I can’t even begin to describe how upsetting it is. Ugh.

We also struggled to establish our shot-by-shot for our film since we, again, weren’t familiar with our location. We had a idea of what we wanted, but it wasn’t a clear cut idea. Plus, being in a rush took away from our focus on what are shots were going to be used and how they would be implemented. With a better idea of our location and with waaaaay more time, we will have a much better outcome than what we have right now.

Accomplishments

We did, however, have plenty of time to shoot our evidence scene very well and had an amazing outcome. We spent an hour and a half setting up, a half an hour for snacks, and the rest of the time for shooting. We tried a few different shots such as a long take, taking closeups and tracking shots and having them fade into one another, and different variations of those different shots. Having the ability to test different shots allows us to see what different angles and shots gives us the best ideal vision that we have for our sequence.

We also got a lot of planning done and gaining a much better understanding of how our camera works. Our better understanding of new technology is bettering us to become good at shooting out shots quickly and efficiently. Of course, the shots would have to be better and to our liking, but it’ll give us a better chance of shooting well when we are familiar with our technology.

Goals

For our title sequence to not suck :>

Okay, jokes aside, I do want a better outcome and to be able to maybe find a better location for the mise en scene we want. It would also give us a little more wiggle room for what we can accomplish.

what is even going on

I’m a little more behind schedule than I would like to be, but I think we can make it work if we start filming this weekend with some rushed, but thorough planning throughout the week. We already have some progress on some shooting aspects (location, angles, etc.), so getting the rest done this week shouldn’t be too difficult.

Struggles

I have a problem going a little too in depth on some of my subjects (including these reflections…) and that can sometimes put me behind, but I know going in depth will get me more points than not, so hopefully I don’t regret it. I’m also finished with my pre-production phase of script writing and funding, so that’s a plus. I’m also going to be in another student’s title sequence, so that will also cut into my production time a little, but it should be doable… hopefully.

Accomplishments

With all this planning and research done and over with, I can finally really start seeing how this project is coming together. Figuring out what will work and what won’t work for our project gives us a good lead for planning and doing what we need to do for our project quickly. Finishing on schedule will be extremely important and crucial to doing well on this project. Well, for me at least. Figuring out when to post and giving myself a schedule is good too, since I can figure out when I can go more in depth and when I can’t.

Goals

This week we are going to get filming done, we don’t have a choice just based on our schedule. And doing that will allow us to have a rough cut of our film and we will be able to test the angles and different dialogue instances. Once we get that done, everything will fall into place.

Struggles

So basically, I’m behind schedule.

I was supposed to be done with the early stages of pre-production yesterday, but that obviously didn’t happen. Considering the week i have ahead of me, I really need to get things rolling so I can still stay on track for the shooting schedule. Luckily, some stages involve two weeks to complete, so cutting into that time shouldn’t be too much of a problem if I just manage my time well enough. Hopefully, Sitara can be on the same schedule as I am so we can really work through script writing and planning our sequence.

Accomplishments

With the more analysis and research, I found what a mystery title sequence was really meant to convey. So, our idea originally is completely scrapped, which is a good thing we didn’t stick to it since the plot and conventions of mystery would be off. Planning a much better representation of what mystery movies are supposed to be and convey would benefit us greatly instead of trying to twist our original idea.

Another somewhat good thing, yet just as challenging, is the representation of our female detective. Since there’s maybe one mystery movie with the lead of a female detective (Murder At the Gallop), we have almost free range of what we can do to represent women well. This will also be a great way to challenge the stigma of the Sherlock Holmes era of mystery movies, since men are typically the lead and shown in a good light compared to how women are shown in these sorts of movies, either as the victim or not as great and grand as the male detective. And although TV shows have shown better representation of women, movies are lagging behind in this kind of trail. This could be due to the mass media surrounding movies rather than TV shows (considering Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, etc.).

Goals

This week I’m really aiming to finish a case study of a movie in the mystery genre (most likely Murder On the Orient Express) and a few other things related to the pre-production of our title sequence to be able to get a good feel of how we should go about this. Doing this will lead to a much more smooth process for our film pitch to our intended studio to get our movie to be able to be shot. Finishing the film pitch by Sunday or next Monday would be ideal to mostly stay on schedule.

So this week has been stressful and hectic since my blog was a little difficult to get started, but once I got the hang of it, I really got my blog rolling.

Struggles

I wasn’t really sure how to format the pictures correctly so that it would be exactly right next to the text, so the first day (Tuesday) I had to spend some of my research time trying to find out how to really format those pictures in the best way I could so the formatting wasn’t completely ruined.

Research was another difficult part since mystery films aren’t that prominent in the industry anymore and mostly came out in the early to mid 1900s. There have been remakes in the present, but the genres may have been a bit skewed or changed so it wouldn’t exactly fit the genre I really needed. Our film also had many different genres combined into them just to mostly fit the timeline of 1990s, so combining all the research of mystery, crime, drama, and thriller became a bit of a struggle since many different components in those genres easily overlap and add to one another in different ways.

The most concerning thing that comes with this project is the time management aspect since each blog post really takes up a lot of time, and then being able to implement the best style and information into one post and also make it look the best can be strenuous at times if I have other priorities going on at the same time (aka. sports, other classes, family, etc.). Because of these reasons, I’m already falling a little behind schedule, but it shouldn’t be too much of a problem if I keep working enough to get everything done in the next few weeks with the planning stages and pre-production stages.

Accomplishments

While I did struggle with a few things here and there and my scheduling seems to be a big problem at the moment, I did get some really good information out of my research.

The genre conventions for the mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing, and sound for both genres (mystery and thriller) have really allowed me to be able to challenge them in certain ways and be able to develop the best kind of story for a mystery-thriller story. Talking with Sitara about all of our genres combined, making a more in-depth and though out story with all of the genres we looked at will be able to give us a better understanding of what our title sequence should look like. Once I really look into certain title sequences instead of mystery movies as a whole, I’ll have a much better idea of what our story should end up looking like. I ran out of time this week to try and complete a true in-depth analysis of a sequence, but once I get that done, I should be able to move on to the preproduction stage.

I was also able to figure out how to navigate WordPress easily and even be able to organize my posts by the certain category they are (research, pre-production, production, post-production, and reflections). In doing this, I can look at whatever posts I need to to remember when I planned it and how I imagined it to look before without needing to scroll through every single blog post that I’ve ever uploaded. I also learned how to link movies just by clicking on a word and inserting a link in those words, such as Murder On the Orient Express. This allows me to immediately see what movie I was talking about and to see the specific plot line, genres, actors, directors, etc.

With everything I’ve learned this past week in mind, I have to start off this week quickly and get all the research that I need to get done so I can start planning out the script and being able to truly envision the movie that I want it to be.