Creative Critical Reflection

 Introduction

It has been such a long journey to get here, I'm so grateful for all these new learning opportunities that I have had. It all really means a lot to me, but regardless of that here are my finished CCR questions. I hope you enjoy them and take time to appreciate the time and dedication I put into them.

CCR Question 1 "Directors Commentary" (WIP)

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

CCR Question 2 "Magazine"

How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

CCR Question 3 "Short Film"

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

CCR Question 4 "Gameplay Voice Overlay"

How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

Final Brief Submission

    I'm so proud to finally be able to show off our masterpiece which we call "Brutal Sentencing". The video is posted on YouTube for those who want to watch in a higher resolution as blogger doesn't offer the best quality. In the end despite some issues with camera quality I'm happy my group and I were able to get it done in such orderly fashion. If it wasn't for my awesome group members and cast we wouldn't be were we are today. During this entire journey I learned more than just how to make a film, I learned what a film is supposed to be. The beauty of film is the message conveyed through visuals and sounds and when I talk about the message I look deeper. I intend to look now at how the director may portray issues of their own life. The way someone else may see the world, it only adds to what film making should mostly be about. Then you also have the average films which have great story telling but they don't reach into my heart or give me a new perspective on life and even though I wasn't able to do that in this film. I can still say that I learned the difficult process directors, editors, and the cinematographers have to endure just to be happy with a final product. Now, using my newfound abilities we present to you our film opening. I hope you enjoy what we were able to come up with.

Name of production: Brutal Sentencing

•  Adam Alberti

• Angelina Lasalle

• Kevin Gutierrez

Others who assisted:

• Chloe Alberti- Voiceover

• Sontee Szauer- Cast Member

• @ErikMMusic- Soundtrack

Production: Editing 2nd Day

 Introduction

Here we were already almost done we just needed the graphic design for the title card and opening credits. Along with the fact that a few effects were missing to make it really come to life. There isn't really much to say this time, except for the fact that today marks the day that we finished editing meaning the final brief is done. Its been such a long journey and I am definitely going to remember all the fun times I had with my friends doing this. During this path, I learned many valuable skills which I will keep with me for the times to come. All this learning about audio structure, editing skills, and cinematography. The process  for editing today was really straight forward but that just says how far we've gone and that the journey is reaching its end finally.

Reflection

In the end, this all turned out really well, the whole way went really quickly. We are now ready to post our brief and finish this once and for all. Luckily no research needed to be done or any planning for this my group and I just used our previous resources and methods of working together to get this done as soon as possible before the brief.

Production: Filming 2nd Day

Introduction

Day 2 was a lot more demanding in terms of workload, we had all outdoor shoots in warm humid air along with the fact that it was already dark outside which was essential but a bit frustrating. The good thing is that we were all there and everyone knew what had to be done. The shot reverse shot between Derek and the bush built pretty good tension along with the long shot from the road which was fun to film then the killer steps out from the shadows like batman which is what we were building towards. which all those clips in total lasted a good while. In total I ended up spending around 5-6 hours at Adams house filming along with editing at the end a bit while we had the chance before getting picked up. I really liked the ending to the confrontation with the killer and Derek and how we plan on transitioning it to the title card.

Behind the Scenes:

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Reflection

Unfortunately day two ended much later than anticipated, but it was still a very successful day of filming as we got what we wanted. Once again this day was just as fun as the last but still much more demanding and definitely more serious. This day had the most repeats of one single scene which was the confrontation scene, and the sequence with all the walking took so much time and we even wanted to redo an old scene with the time we had. Once we had what we wanted though, we felt very satisfied with what we had. This whole experience has shaken me awake and made realize we need to hurry to get this brief finished or soon we might not even finish.

Production: Editing 1st Day

 Introduction

When we finished editing on film day 1 we actually decided in the moment that it was a great idea to take advantage of time and edit together. So we got on it together and in one sitting we were able to establish most cuts together and organize the whole sequence. With my past experience in TV Production I already have a feel for Premiere Pro especially since I used to edit many short films so I have a wide understanding for it all, and with this knowledge I used to give Adam some help like basic command such as c to cut and v to select, he was already getting the hang of it and then I showed him how to access the effects tab and the audio essentials tab which is crucial for editing but for some reason wasn't working for an annoying amount of time which frustrated me on a whole other level while Adam was laughing at me since he didn't know what to do. Then when we both got home is when we realized we couldn't both access the montage we had set up. So we then we began investigating and apparently the answer was in built in team project feature. It would link our sequences we both worked on. To transfer files over we both shared a google drive file and had most clips located on there which we then imported into Premiere Pro. When the team project feature had bugs which had begun to arise we then realized we could use TeamViewer to monitor what the other person is doing and work remotely from the other persons desktop. This solution was key to finishing day 1 of editing. 

Us adding and importing our files

End of day 1 timeline

Production: Filming 1st Day

Introduction

After many weeks of preparations which includes rewrites, costume decisions, location scouting, and looking through the shot list over and over again. We were finally reaching a pace that we enjoyed during the first day of filming. We were able to knock out the first three scenes including all indoor shots taking place during the night which also had Derek in them. Despite being the slower paced scenes of the film they were also the most important for creating the atmosphere we aimed to portray to the audience. Most shots that we did with Derek came up well like the close ups of Derek writing and where he was opening the fridge. Those scenes were very well done by our actor Sontee. Some shots we were unsure of we repeated multiple times to ensure we had done a good job so that when editing day came by we wouldn't have to risk having to re-film scenes that turned out bad or a way we didn't like. The body bag we had in the beginning was very subtle but gave the idea that Derek wasn't a good guy or the main victim but it was also not noticeable to most which made the plot not obvious immediately, but still showing that he is some sort of degenerate to society in a way.

           

Reflection

Day one was definitely much smoother than any of us would have thought. However we did get delayed for a while. The initial setup to even begin filming took forever to begin but it was honestly okay not because I cared that much about how good it looked even though I thought it was great regarding what we had to our disposal I cared more about how much fun it was to mess around with friends to make a film. This isn't something everyone gets to experience whether its filming something serious or not, I forgot how much joy it brought me to mess around and yell at each other, but no matter how much we had fun we eventually always ended up on task and successfully finished filming for day one. At the end of the day, we got what we came for, we were able to set our atmosphere, tone, and the build into the final scene was just as we expected. Now we are ready for the next and hopefully final 1-2 days of filming left.

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