Portfolio Project

Here is our Portfolio Project titled, Kicking It. We hope you enjoy it just as much as we did making it. 

 

Editing Update 2 (Again)

I do not think this post published even though it says it did so I am going to try to post it again.

Our editing is not completely finished, but we are 99% done with it. Julia texted Gabriel and I in our group chat last night to let us know the editing is basically done. The one main issue that we had was that we need to shorten our video down by five seconds in order to get in into the time limit. During class today, Julia worked hard while I did some blogging in order to do just that. 

In order to do this we obviously had to cut out some parts. During class we discussed that cutting out the part of Gabriel sitting in his room is kind of pointless. First things first, this is actually kind of ironic because when I filmed this I thought that it was a little pointless. Getting rid of this helped give us a little bit of a boost for getting our film timing right. We think that it is insignificant because there is only one  line said in there and it is just Gabriel sitting on his bed looking at his computer for a few seconds. Instead of that now it is Gabriel running to his room, slamming the door, and then it cuts to the mom answering the phone call from the college coach. 

Another choice we had to make was when to put the credits. We chose to put these credits in the beginning sequence of Gabriel and Daniel playing soccer. We made this choice because that beginning part is more of a montage type sequence and there is no dialogue going on while we showcase the credits. 

Let me now provide you guys with my overall impressions of the film opening. It is definitely better than I expected. For some parts, especially in the beginning, I think that it is extremely high quality with despite the resources we used. I do think though that it is definitely not a high level project. I tend to look down upon myself so maybe that is why, but I do think that is project is just average. We didn't have crazy good acting or crazy good equipment, but I would say that we worked hard and tried our best to make this a high level film opening. For a group of three average teenagers in a class with other people that work for our school's TV production program, I think we handled the challenge great.

Creative Critical Reflection (Backup)

 Here is a backup just in case the link didn't work. 

Creative Critical Reflection

 Here is my Creative Critical Reflection for our project. I hope you enjoy it!

https://youtu.be/WEntbzAMHGg 

Quick Recap

 Wow! I can't believe this is my final blog. This is just going to be a quick recap of some of the major changes that we made. I am going to list them and just elaborate a little more on each of the changes and other significant moments. 

- We switched characters: Gabe and I chose to switch characters in order to make things more convenient. Originally I was supposed to play Daniel and Gabe was supposed to play Gabriel. We switched this because my parents agreed to act in it and by having me play Gabriel I could film the second part by myself. 

- We cut out the dad: We cut out this character of the dad because the dad only had one line and was insignificant. 

- No foley sounds: This may make us loose some points on our project, but after listening to the sounds and thinking about it, it is too difficult for us to incorporate these into our project.

On top of these changes I would also like to write about some of my favorite parts of this experience. 

- Brainstorming our ideas: What made this part fun was because we had a lot of funny and silly ideas that we wanted to do. This made it a funny and memorable experience. 

- Filming the soccer scenes: I had a great time filming these clips and being able to be outside in beautiful weather and play some soccer. 

Hope you enjoyed reading some of these quick points and I hope you enjoy watching the our final product which will be posted after by Creative Critical Reflection. 

Foley Sound Creation

 Yesterday Gabe shared over the foley sounds that he created. He sent us the sounds in our group chat for footsteps, shuffling a bag, carrying a bag, kicking the soccer ball. These sounds may seem insignificant to the viewer, but through learning about foley we understand that these sounds put together the piece and make it sound more realistic. Everywhere you go there is a very small chance that there will not be a fuse of multiple sounds. I am going to describe each sound and what we will use it for.

Footsteps: We used dress shoes to help illustrate the sounds of steps. The sounds of the dress shoes I feel is much louder and distinct so we can clearly illustrate through that the sound of someone walking. 

Shuffling a bag and moving a bag: We used a school backpack to help create this sound. When I did a foley project a few months ago, we realized that a back pack can make multiple different sounds. By shaking it and moving around the materials we will able to make the sounds of moving around a back pack and also carrying one. 

Kicking a soccer ball: We used the shoes again to help make this sound, but instead of using them walking on the ground, we had them colloid with each other and other objects around the room to sound like the shoes are hitting a soccer ball. 

We had our recordings sent in on our group chat and were able to save them to Julia's iPad and drag and drop them as needed. I think these sounds will be the most useful in the parts that are in the house since at the soccer scene it is in an outside settings so natural sounds are more common and it is harder for someone to hear the minor sounds when outside in real life. 

Editing Update

Yesterday we are over halfway done with putting together our final production and will be finishing it all by tomorrow if not tonight. I am not going to show you any videos, but just trust me, we are making progress. At the end of class yesterday I got a mini sneak peak and it looks pretty good. We chose to include a variety of shots in the beginning part that I saw which makes it more engaging. I am honestly still surprised by how good the quality looks since we shot it all on an iPhone.  

*For some reason my computer is not letting me put a picture, but I am hoping this works.

Anyways, there were some issues that took place during the editing process with the first setting of our film opening. Julia said that since we filmed at a public field it took a while for her to find the perfect placement of clips where there aren't random people in the background. She said though that by cropping or stopping the clips at certain spots this issue was avoided. 

Another problem was that since we did not have professional high quality movie equipment it was difficult to figure out how to line up the certain clips. Just by constantly watching the clips she was able to figure out which parts were good and stable and which ones weren't. 

In terms of what's next, the rest of the film opening will be finished by the end of tonight. She did say that time may be an issue, but tomorrow in class we will all work together in order to get the perfect timing. We will also possibly add in some foley sounds, which I am going to write about in my next article, to make our film opening even more higher quality. We aren't officially done yet, but this is starting to feel like the beginning of the end to this creative journey for me and my group.