Creative Critical Reflection

After long anticipation, I've finally finished my CCRs. They took lots of work, but I'm very pleased with the way they all came out!

CCR#1

CCR#2​

CCR# 3

CCR#4

CCR Planning- Part 1

 Now that I have finished my film, I have to start planning out my response to the CCRs. I have about a week to get them done, and ironically, I just now checked to see what the questions are. My mom gave me the idea of first starting out by answering each question in a brief paragraph or 2 first, and then figuring out what creative approach I want to use to answer them. 

The questions for the CCRs are 

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

• How does your product engage with audiences, and how would it be distributed as a real media text?
• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?
• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?

Now im going to roughly answer these questions before creating the actual scripts.

For the first question: My film represents the social group of dysfunctional families. I tried to use the absence of the parents to show how the brother has developed his overprotectiveness of his little sister. Also, mental illness is another thing I've represented in this film. Ethan has Antisocial Personality Disorder, which can be seen in him disregarding the bullies' rights as a person, and having no remorse over killing them. This is paired up with his pathological attachment coming from trauma of having a dysfunctional family, creating an altogether unstable personality.

My film challenges conventions by using very unique camera techniques. At the beginning of my film, I basically made my camera into a pair of eyes. I set the camera to first-person view, positioning it at eye level as I walked into the school. Doing so gave the impression that the audience was walking through the hallways.  This being the opening to my film may be startling or even confusing at first, which I feel isn't very conventional. 

For the second question: My product engages with the audience by using visual techniques with the camera, the sound, and the lighting. 

-first-person camera angle

- sound pops and setting appropriate music to give horror vibes

-lighting set low and pale to give the audience that suspenseful feeling

- transitioning titles

As a media text, trailers would be promoted on YouTube, social media like TikTok and Instagram. The actors would promote on their personal accounts, and our actual production company would have their own social media accounts where they also post trailers and things like polls about their favorite characters in the movie, which ties into interacting with the audience.  

I would then put the actual production out on a special premiere, about 3 months later, release it in theatres, and a month later, have it available for streaming.

For the third question, my production skills improved a lot. I didn't have time to film during the brief, so I couldn't make any immediate improvements. But thanks to this project, I was able to identify major ways in my filming part of the production can be improved. 

I noticed that many of my clips were very short and rushed. This was because, during the conversation, I would immediately shut the camera off right after one person said their part, instead of having a gap in between responses to make the conversation seem more natural. 

Also, I learned just how important the ISO feature and the white balance can be in how a film is. When I first began recording, the iso was off, and the film came out very grainy and had black lines running laterally across the screen. I was confused as to why that only showed up in clips filmed in a certain location in the house, but I soon realized it was because the ISO wasn't correctly set to accommodate that area's lighting. 

When using Premiere Pro I learned a few things about how to animate titles and make my productions seem more professional. This included using color corrections. I learned how to match my films visuals with the actual content. Specifically, how to make my scene have a more horror look to it by almost completely draining the color from it and adding dark vignettes to the sides of my film. I could use these skills in future projects; not only in those of horror but also those that are not. This is becuase if im trying to create a film thats very happy and gleeful, which is the opposite of my psychological film, I could just do the opposite of what I did. in this project, giving more life and vibrance to my film, without overdoing it. 

Time management was also key to this prject as when I did sumbmitt it, I did so 5 minutes before it was due. this cuased mounds of unnecessary stress that I definetely have learned from.

I also learned how to correctly export my projects. I have to make sure that I have a folder organized in my files specifically for the film so that it has enough room in the destination to fully save. Also, I must make sure that I save it regularly throughout my project to ensure that if the computer malfunctions, all my work will be saved. I learned this the hard way, as I had multiple times where almost all my work would be deleted, and I would have to start from scratch. Another thing that this project taught me was to make sure that my film is saved as an MP4. I could make sure that it is saved this way if, before I save it, it says that it is being saved as an H.264. If it is not saved this way, then I won't be able to access my project as a file to share with Blogger or any platform.

For the fourth question, • How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?

 I used multiple different pieces of hardware to create this film's opening. The first and most obvious would be the camera and the mic that I used. I used a professional camera from my TV production class and a mic that came with a muffler. I also used a phone to film the first minute of the film due to a lack of time to get a camera. 

Though not intentionally, I used a close-up lens on my camera for the scene that follows the title sequence. To use this to my advantage, I used a variety of close-up shots, and it helped the film come out very clear and polished-looking. 

I used Premiere Pro to edit my full brief and used external features, like Adobe fonts for the title sequence. Though not directly linked to my film, I used YouTube to further my knowledge on how to edit on the Premiere Pro software. 

The Final Brief

 After many complications, I've finished my final film opening sequence. I'm not as proud of it as I could've been, but it was the best I could do with the schedules I had to work around.

The Blood Between Us

Editing- Slowing down clips

 After doing all the color corrections that I wanted, I had an idea on how to get more time for brief: Slowing down each clip. 

I did this by double-clicking on the clip and selecting speed/duration.

After that, I changed the speed from 100% to either 95% or 90%. I made it 95% when there was talking involved. This is because when I made it 90%, it distorted the voices of the actors, making them sound very unnaturally deep. 

This only added about 8 seconds to my film however but something is better than nothing.

Production- Editing- Color Correction

After doing all of the basic editing (which did take a lot longer than I expected), I moved on to making my film seem as "horror coded" as possible.

To do this, I modified the overall coloring and vibrancy of my film. I changed my Premiere Pro layout from Editing to Color- that means that instead of my screen looking like this:

It instead looks like this: 

This allowed me to see the highs and lows of my scene's brightness, adjust the hues, alter the contrast, etc.

Since I didn't have much experience in color correction, I mostly played around with all the different functions and controls until I got the look I wanted. I did have to change the setting based on the general brightness of the scene that was shot, but most of them were the same.

 The setting that I used most frequently was faded film bar to 43, sharpen to 100, vibrance to -63, the saturation to 93.3, then I set the vignance to -1.3. These controls made the scene go from this:

To this:

As you can see, the liveliness of the film was almost completely stripped away from it, giving a very monotone/ slightly eerie feeling to it. The dark edges of the screen gave the scene a traditional spooky look, while also insinuating that this happened in the past.

I only applied these setting to the first section of the film( right before the title sequence) because the rest of the opening was meant to seem like a regular day for the siblings. Contrasting with the scene that just took place.

Production- Editing -Times

 After I came to the conclusion that I only had enough raw film to get about a 45-second opening, I was very anxious. I thought that there was absolutely no way for me to turn a less-than-a-minute film into a 2-minute one without adding more clips. And unfortunately, I already knew that none of my actors were going to be able to help me get the rest of the time I needed for my brief, meaning that I had to work with what I had.

After putting all my clips in the order that I desired, I started to cut some clips shorter. I hated that I had to do this; however, some clips had my voice in them, saying "1, 2, 3, go", and obviously, I can't have that in my film, so that action I took was definitely necessary. 

Production- Editing

To edit, I used Premiere Pro since that's the platform that I have the most experience with. When I first started editing, I knew I wouldn't have a lot of time because that same day I had to catch a flight out of state, and I wasn't able to bring the device I edit on because it's my mom's. 

However, when I imported the clips onto Premiere Pro I instantly knew: I didnt have enough film to reach the 2 minute mark. I talked with my mom about what I should do and the only thing she could come up with at the time was to try and get more film. Seeing as this was my last resort, I asked my actors if they were able to act once more and waited for their response.

Production- Day Two

Other problems that occurred during filming is that the crowded environment of the classroom couldn't be controlled, and therefore, there was a LOT of background noise. I plan to fix this somehow during the editing because when I played back the recording of the scenes on the camera, the actors' voices were nearly drowned out by the other students in the class. 

Also, I got constantly interrupted throughout the process of filming, making it difficult to keep the rule of continuous pros and maintain the actors' flow from scene to scene. Thankfully, I had enough time to film in that class since it was a very easy day that day and I had about an hour or so to get everything done.

Production- Day two

 During my second day of filming, many things were changed. 

The actor who was supposed to be the victim of Ethan was not very good at acting. She messed up many, many times, and I just couldn't take it anymore, so I asked one of my friends, Amaya, to act for me. She did a pretty decent job at acting; however, she talked briefly and fast, which is one of the reasons why I had a little amount of film. My other actor, Deklan, was very bland and didn't really give me an "obsessed-crazy-killer brother" vibes. Nevertheless, since he already acted in day one of filming, I had no other choice than to just use him. 

Production- Day Two Filming

 Today was the second day of filming. This day was definitely a bit chaotic. My main concern is whether or not I got enough footage to have a two minute brief. I was trying to make sure that I didnt go over the limit but I might have not got enough film. 

Production- Day Two Plan

For my second day of filming, I had to change a good amount of the opening scene. This is because the girl, Elyssa, who was supposed to play the sister (Zoe) in the film wasn't able to come to the Day 1 of filming. The resulted in me and the rest of the actors having to film "The Brother" scene on Monday. I was stressing out a LOT about doing this because I didn't know when I would have time to film the "The Murder" scene because I had no time after school this entire week. 

Elyssa and I talked about it and figured out that we should just film in school on Tuesday. This was a perfect plan as I had TV production on that day and so did all of my actors I needed for the Opening film.

However, because this scene was originally supposed to be filmed in my house in a garage or something of the sort, I had to find out how to change my script so that it would fit with the being in a classroom. I knew that when I actually did start to film, I was going to film the actual murder scene in one of the smaller, dark rooms inside the classroom. 

Production- Day 1

 Yesterday was my first day filming. My group and I decided to do it right after school, so no time is wasted. We filmed at my house, next to my bathroom.

The process of filming this wasn't as smooth as I would've wanted it to be, however. After I got my camera from my TV production class, I realized that the lens on the camera was made specifically for close-up shots. Nevertheless, I only had that day to film

Production- Day 1 Filming Plan

 Today is supposed to be the first day of filming and I was able to get people to act at the last minute, thankfully. One of my good friends, Deklan, decided to act as the older brother in my film after schools. My other friend, Elyssa Orozco will act as the younger sister and Taeya stays as the victim in the opening scene.

Today after school I have to make sure I get the camera from my TV production class in order for my film to have to visual quality I desire. Because this week is very hectic for me, I might have to move the editing dates until the 18th because I come back from a trip on the 17th.  I plan to film every scene In order and in one day would be the ultimate goal. 

Production- Actors

 So I still have not gotten actors to work with. I've asked many people, and a lot of them either couldn't make it or didn't want to act. Because of this, if I don't get actors by Friday, I will have to settle with using my family members. That may cause a change in the script, but I'm not adamant on it staying the same. I've already made changes to the gender of the supposed boy getting murdered because my closest friend is able to play that part, but she's a girl.

I've talked it over with my parents, and they said to just call and ask family members to do it so that I'm not doing everything so late minute. Though this project is due AFTER we come back from spring break, I'm not going to be in-state the whole week, so I won't be able to work on it then.