CCR (first two questions)

So, this week I started working in the first two questions of my CCR, since I already did the last two. For this one, I am doing something similar to the vogue questions and I want to have a script for it so that when my cousin comes over to my house, the recording process would be easier and we can just go straight into editing. But before I make a script, but this two questions, I have to make some research. 

One if the questions is about how my film opening would be distributed. I was planning in distributing my project in a film festival and on Youtube, butI had to be careful with this one because there is no way I am going to distribute my film opening on the biggest festival in the world, which I think one of them takes  place in Venice. I am just starting out, and I am far away from an Oscar. So, I had to keep in mind that I am not making money yet, but also how to read my target audience. I tried to find a drama festival, and I thought I found the right one until it said that it took place in Greece. I just started looking for something local, and I found the right one. Well, I think. It is called the Miami Short Film Festival and although the festival doesn't only focus in the drama genre, meaning that people can do a variety on genres, it is a local festival and I won't have to spend a lot if money and I think it is a good start, for someone who is taking baby steps in the film world.

My second method of distribution would be Youtube, and the reason why is because of the amount of users they have and because it reaches my target audience, which is females between the ages of 17-20. YouTube reaches has a wide range of audience and this would be good for the project because it would help by getting more exposure. I went on the internet and made some research, and I found that 77% of the people that use Youtube are from ages 15-35 and although it is wide, it works for my target audience. After I made all the research, I started working on my script. 

GROUP MEETING AND REFLECTION

Today we had another group meeting and I think it went pretty good. I got to hear some of my group member's perspective and where they are at in the project. Based on some of my group member's answers, I think I've kept a pretty good pacing throughout this whole entire project with my blog, and how I've been managing my time working in this project and school work and other activities I do.

I got feedback from one of the group members on my film opening. I was a bit scared that it just wasn't going to be as good because of the whole section that had to be cut off. She watched my film opening and she said it was good and that she really liked it. She also gave me feedback in the part where I said that all the dialogue had to be cut off because the whole footage was 6 minutes. She said that it was completely fine and that ti makes sense to only put the opening of the graduation party and cut to the next day and I also think it makes sense since the whole plot is in the rejection letters scene.

We also spoke about our recording process which went different from everyone. One of my group members said that her filming process only took an hour and well, I wished that's how mine went but it obviously was going to take longer, since I recorded day and night. And my video has dialogue in it so it took more time to record. My friend didn't have any dialogue in it but I still liked her video a lot and I also gave her feedback on it. We talked about the editing app we used and how it suited both of us.

Overall, I had fun making this project and to be honest, I've done nothing like this before so this was definitely something that was out of my comfort zone, and I got to be the main character on my own film opening. Something I really enjoyed was writing this blogs. I love writing I mean I've been journaling every week for the past three years ad I loved that I had the freedom to just express myself, like when I wrote about the World Baseball Classic, but I still kept that balance and not try to be distracted on a different topic too much, since this was not a project about how Venezuela was literally dominating until US came, or the, well, "interesting" jersey design Great Britain came up with. Anyways,  I liked the challenge of having to use my time wisely, making blogs while making process on the project and school work. Plus doing activities like outside the whole. By those activities I mean going to baseball games. Of course I was going to manage my time wisely, now more than ever. Something that I wished I've done was make a script. It would have made the recording process so much easier.

FINAL CCR

Once I was done with my powerpoint slides, I was going over them and the pictures to make sure that I didn't put any wrong information on the slides, or that I put the wrong picture on the wrong slide. After I did this, I started making a script on a word document and going over it so that it would explain everything on the slides, without saying too much or too little. I also deleted some slides that were unnecessary because I was going to talk about the same topic on a different slide so why have an extra slide? 

After I was done with the script, I went over it again because I wanted to make sure that I wouldn't get stuck on any words and like I said before, that it explained the slides well. After looking at the script like 20 times, I finally decided that it was time to do the voice over. Considering the fact that this team I did have a script, the voice over went smoothly, but I still had to record each one like a maximum of two times, sometimes three times but it was as bad as the graduation party. I don't know what went over my head when I said I didn't need a script, but I feel like it would have been worse if we did have a script because my family members pour their hearts out on that graduation party, jut to find out that we had to cut all of it. If you're thinking of not doing a script, please think again. Anyways, one I was done with the voice over, I did hear every single one of them, making sure that I wasn't mispronouncing a word and stuff like that. I sent all the voice recording to my email and put them on the power point slides. And the last two questions of my CCR are done.

CCR PROCESS

Honestly, I've been procrastinating this whole entire spring break. I literally don't want to do anything I mean it is supposed to be a break for me but I guess it's really not. So, because I know if I keep procrastinating, I won't get to finished my CCR questions and I do not want to turn in a project that is unfinished there's just no way I worked so hard on this. I decided that well although it is spring break, that I need to work on this project if I want bright futures so I literally have no choice but to do this. Okay I am exaggerating. 

Anyways, I started working on the last two questions of the CCR. I did my research and after I did that, then I started making the Powerpoint. I chose the design to be simple but not to the point where it is boring but also not too flashy to the point where you don't know where to look in the Powerpoint. I also want the slides to have enough information and so far, I've only put pictures in the slides because I am going to be explaining them with a VoiceOver. I think my powerpoint slides are good and are simple but entertaining at the same time, in a way that it won't be boring and I think it would also have to do with how I do my VoiceOver for example if I sound tired, or exited etc. 

This is one of the slides for the third questions and as you guys can see, it is mostly pictures and one bullet point basically saying some of the sources that I looked at while doing my research. I am still finishing the fourth question, but this is what almost all the slides look like. Now, my only job is to do a voice over. The only thing would be getting it to be a short presentation, since I want to make more time for the first two questions in which I said before, I want to make something similar to the vogue 73 questions, and I also think the first two question need more explanation since they are more "complex" in a way. So I want to make sure that I have time to make the video for the first two questions.

I also have to make a script for this. Although the last questions are pretty easy, I don't want to be struggling on what I am going to say or twist anything up, to the point where I don't even know what I am going to say, or that the people don't understand what I am trying to say. Even worse, that the video would be too long and I won't have time to make the first two questions or that I would have to do a bunch if takes and record my voice over, and over again because I don't have anything written down. So to not cause any issues and to make the VoiceOver process a bit faster, I am going to do a script for all the questions,

CCR PLANNING

 Before I talk about my CCR, you guys yesterday was insane 

I went to a World Baseball Classic semifinal. I can't believe it is the next day and I still can't get over it. This game was so good and although I am hispanic and I was supposed to somewhat root for Mexico, I wanted Japan to win. And they did. Easily, one of the best baseball games I've ever been to in my whole life, and I've been to a lot. Energy was insane and I got to see Shohei Ohtani and my life is now complete. 

Okay back to the CCR. So, I've been really thinking about doing the four questions and breaking it up in two videos, The first two questions would be answered in a "creative" way, which I'll explain later, and the last two I'll answer them in a slide show. So for the first two questions, I was thinking of doing the thing that vogue does with the 73 questions, which is when someone is recording a person and they are just asking them questions and the person is in their house or somewhere else. I think this is really easy and can be done quick, but I will need to have a script because then I won't know what I am going to say and then it would be harder to record. I was thinking of maybe doing the script this week and then start recording next week just because I want my cousin to record me and right now on spring break, he is really busy because he already had spring break.

So instead of recording the first two questions this week, I'll work on the last two questions, which I can do myself because it is going to be a powerpoint slide. I just need the cites and know what I am going to say but in my opinion, it wont be as hard as recording the first two question. So I can work on the powerpoint slides this week, work on the script for both and then record the first two questions next week and I am done with my project. What I don't want to do is wait until the last minute, especially because the deadline is close and I want to be done with my project as soon as possible so that I can have time to see all the videos and make any changes if necessary. Bu ti really want to use this week to get ahead on my project and have at least two questions done and hopefully by next week, I'll be recording the first two questions.

EDITING PROCESS

This day finally came. I just wanted to see the finished product and how it would hopefully turn out to be better than what we recorded because like I have said on my past blogs, I wasn't so sure about the shots that we got and the recording was rushed so I was afraid that the video would be sloppy and not good enough. 

Because my cousin lives far, he suggested that he could go to my house with his friend that knows how to edit to teach me how to do the stuff. But it was too complicated because his friend already planned out a schedule and he was going to be busy all week so my cousin suggested to do it another day. But, I told him his friend could just go to my cousin's house and we could FaceTime because I had to get this video edited as soon as possible to start working on my CCR. My cousin also suggested that I could sleepover at his house but that wouldn't be possible, since my brother had baseball games Thursday and Friday and I have to be there, since I score the games and besides, my parents couldn't take me all the way to Miami, since they work.

So on Friday, we decided to FaceTime at like 11 so that we would have time to plan things out and it is not too late because I had two go to a baseball game. The day before, I sent my cousin all the videos so that he could sent it to his friend. When they were going over the footage, the videos weren't in order so we had to go through them one by one, which was a bit annoying since I sent my cousin the footage in order but for some reason, my cousin's friend didn't have it that way. After all the footage was finally in order, his friend then started to cut out all the unnecessary stuff or like when now of my family members messed up, or when I messed up. The videos of getting the rejection letters were already done, since when I was looking at each one of them I cut the things we didn't need, but I didn't do it with the graduation party. The editing app that my cousin's friend was using was DaVinci Resolve. 

And I thought I wasn't going to have any footage. After we finished cutting out the videos, the total of minutes we had was 6 minutes. I was dying because I really thought that with all the footage we had, we would only have like a minute and fifty seconds but holy. I did not expect to have 6 minutes. So I was freaking out and I was like "Well what are we going to do now like I can't have 6 minutes on my film opening my teacher would have a heart attack and my Cambridge examiners wouldn't even bother to look at it, especially because of the comments I've made about Great Britain at the WBC" My cousin's friend told me that it will all be okay and they would figure it out. And then, to make me even more anxious, my cousin told me that he would call me back when they cut down the footage. I died on the inside.

Like an hour an a half later my cousin calls me and he says he has good news and bad news. Oh my god. He says the good news was that the minutes went down and now it was two minutes and fifteen seconds. I freaked out, but not really. Well I did but at least it wasn't 6 minutes. I still told them we had to get down to at least two minutes and five seconds. He then tells me the bad news. He said that the interactions at the party were all cut off because it just wouldn't fit and that was my second hard attack of the day. Now I was really freaking out. I was like ''Well, wait until my family finds out that they really didn't have to memorize a whole graduation party speech" and what sucked is that they were actually really good at acting. So, my cousin's friend shows me the beginning of the video and I thought it was not going to be good, but basically the opening is me saying that I am grateful for everyone coming to my graduation party and it just cuts to the next day, which is me getting my letters.

I was a bit more relaxed that the idea actually worked and that we got it down to two minutes and five seconds. Now, we had to add the background music, credits and subtitles. We went to YouTube and found uncopyrighted music for the graduation party. It wasn't hard to find and I think it actually matches the party. One of them suggested to add music to the rejection letter scene and I wasn't too sure about it because I thought that it just didn't need music. But after finding one that matched the scene, I actually really liked it because I think it puts more emotion to it. This one was very hard and annoying to find, because most of the options were copyrighted and at this point in the project, I was not going to send an email to Olivia Rodrigo. We then added the credits and came up with a title.

The video was ready but my cousin had to airdrop it to me. So yesterday we came down to his house not only for him to send me the video, but to watch the Venezuela and USA baseball game. Yesterday was a sad day for us Venezuelans. The United States wants to take everything from us. Miss Universe, now the World Baseball Classic I mean we just can't take a break. What else is next? Are they taking arepas now from us? This is Trea Turner's fault for hitting a grand slam. Okay, all jokes aside, this was a very good baseball games, one of the best game I've ever seen in my life. They both fought hard but I really wanted that Cuba and Venezuela match but we'll get them next time. 

OBSTACLES WHILE SHOOTING

On the last blog I did say some of the issues that my cousin and I had while recording but I didn't go in-depth into them.I think it is important for me to speak about this because I can learn from this issues so that later on I won't make the same mistake or just try to avoid it, especially because I think the scenes that we recorded, especially the graduation party was just not up to my expectations, or maybe it was because I didn't plan on what each family member was going to do or say. But hopefully, this is just me being hard on myself and the end result much better when the editing process is done. 

The first thing I'll say that was an issue was communication. I mean my dad literally thought it was a whole barbecue party like what. And I specifically told him that it was for a project and the only reason why my cousin and his family came all the way from Miami was to do a project. But I guess he only understood the party thing of it and decode to add the word barbecue. And the fact that I really wanted him to be on my project, but he couldn't because he was too busy making the barbecue and talking to the friend that he invited. Yes, while we were recordings he was in fact making a barbecue and I each time I was recording in the living room, I would worry that he would just go in and interrupt the shooting process and that was one of the things that was stressing me out. And I was already upset because he was not going to be in it.

Another thing was that we didn't plan well was the graduation party. I struggled a little saying my lines, since I decided not to have a script because I thought it would be easy. But it wasn't as hard, it was just the reason why we had to start recording over, and over again. But it wasn't like a big issues. But I think for next time, even though I think in my opinion could be done without a script, writing like a rough draft or an idea of what the character were going to say would have been so much easier and the recording process would have gone more smoothly, as this was one of the reasons why I was getting frustrated so much, especially with myself because I just thought that I could go out there and say whatever I wanted to say and when it came t the dialogue, it's like I didn't know what I was doing. But like I said, later on, I go the hang of it.

The process was completely rushed when recording for the graduation party. My step-sister had to go at a certain time with my cousin because they were going to like some Saint Patrick's parade, so they wanted to just be done so that they could leave but I was just glad they came and actually helped me on my project because I wanted them to be in it, and they also gave me like last minute ideas that I thought they were pretty cool that I would get more into when I talk about the editing process. Also, because I thought it was being too rushed, I think that we didn't get enough techniques of like shots and angles, which worries me because for the rejection scenes, which was recorded at noon in the same day, I think my cousin and I utilized various shots and angles and I am afraid that the party scene would just look bad in comparison. We were also waiting to watch the Dominican Republic and Venezuela baseball game which was also the reason why we were king of rushing.

People wouldn't collaborate while I was recording the rejection letters scene. This was the worst one and everyone got on my nerves. I told them to be quiet, but they wouldn't listen. They were sometimes quiet but not all the time and because of this, my cousin and I had to shoot over, and over again. And the funny thing is I knew that there was just no way they would stay quiet, and I knew this way before I started recording. And at almost at the end of the shooting, my family decided to go out because they realized that they just couldn't collaborate. Great timing. Actually, there is this one video of me being in the middle of saying something and I hear one of my family members and I just get so mad and start walking towards the living room.

Overall, I think my recording process for the rejection letters was went way better than the recording for the graduation party, as I think that in the rejection letters we used more shots and angles and in my opinion, it looks way better than the party scene, even thought people wouldn't shut up but we got through it. Like I said before, I really, really hope that it all comes together when we start editing, as I am also afraid that that we recorded, won't be enough and it wouldn't even hit a minute and fifty seconds. Also, all the videos and shots would be shown more in the editing process.