Creative Critical Reflection

 

Our Spooky Film

I am so happy that we have finished this film and I am so proud of the final product. Adrian and Adriana have worked really hard on this and I am appreciative of all the time and commitment they put into it.

Finishing Up

Right now we are in the final stages of finishing our film. We have gone through many trials and tribulations, but we are almost to the finish line. I am so glad I was able to work with new people and build our relationships. Adrian just finished up the final product and now is awaiting for me and Adriana to review it. We had to post it on YouTube in order to embed it into the blog later. I forgot how to do this process but I was able to figure it out after a couple of attempts. Once I gained access to the film I was a little nervous to see it. I was questioning whether we did a good job on it or not. However, I was reassured by my group mates on how much time and effort we put into this. After reflecting on this I knew that we did a great job and worked very hard on our project. When I began viewing it I felt very nervous because of the creepy music. I thought at first something that there was going to be a jump scare. As I continued I enjoyed all the scenes when I started getting dressed. The close up of me doing my hair and makeup was my favorite because it highlighted all of the details on my face. Although watching these scenes was not new to me seeing it altogether was very interesting. Seeing myself acting in a film made me feel like it was a real introduction to a movie. Once I reached the end of the video I noticed the problem we had with seeing the blood in the cup. However, with the addition of the new scene of the blood splashing on the plate it made it more understandable to me.  If we had not gotten the film review we would have the audience questioning the situation. This process of viewing it made it very fun for me and I would enjoy doing this process again someday. I am looking forward to taking the next level of this class. 

Editing: Making Changes from our Film Review

Today we decided to make some more edits to our film due to the critiques that our teacher gave us. Since our over the shoulder shot could not show the fake blood inside of the cup I was drinking, we needed to make a change. Our goal was to make the blood more visible so that the audience could comprehend the situation. At first we began to pour the blood onto the table to reveal the blood dripping from my mouth. However, this method did not look like real-life blood, so we needed to develop a new plan. I then got the red food coloring bottle and began to drip it onto plate while Adrian recorded this scene at a high angle. This action looked way more convincing because of the way the blood splattered as it fell. It also looked better because it was way darker compared to the fake blood we made inside of the cup. The blood made in the cup was very watery and light which did not give off the blood consistency that I wanted. After completing this segment, we created another idea. Adrian spelled Tea Time out of the blood we splattered onto the plate. This chilling drip of dark red blood spelled out made it very attractive to the audience. This idea was perfect because it could present the name of the film to the audience if it was placed at the beginning of the film. After filming these actions, I reviewed the scenes to make sure they came out good. Since there were no issues Adrian applied the scene where Tea Time is spelled out at the beginning of the video. The dripping of the food coloring (the blood) was placed at the end of the video to create a scare. I was very happy with how the creation of the scenes were quick and efficient. We were all able to critically think in the eyes of our audience to please them. Once the new scenes were added to the title design we all viewed the film for a final time to see if we were all happy with it. Since we were all happy with our creation, we posted it onto YouTube. 

Film Review

For our film we wanted a outside perspective on how it looked before submitting our final piece. We did not want any friends or family reviewing it because we didn't want any bias to be portrayed in the review. Instead we wanted one of instructors to evaluate our piece because they are very experienced in that field. Utilizing our teachers is very convenient because they are very accessible to us. Since we see them everyday for classes finding the time to talk to them would not be an issue. Deciding which teacher would review our film was the difficult part. All of our relationships with our teachers are different. We really wanted to make sure that no bias was present. Since we all have Ms. Moran as our American history teacher we all agreed to ask her. When she agreed to review our media she first complimented my acting. She said that I portrayed horror emotions really well. She also really enjoyed the child like theme we incorporated. She pointed out the Disney cups that we had at the tea table as well as the room. Although we did a lot of great things, she did have a couple of critiques. In the film when I began to drink out of my tea cup she could not really tell it was blood because of the lightning. It left our teacher confused on why I was making confused faces when I was drinking. In order to fix this issue we decided to add a scene that would make the blood more visible so that the audience could understand. Overall she really enjoyed the film. She believes if we make those minimal changes that the film will be even better. I am glad we received an outside perspective and I am looking forward to making those edits. 

Editing: Day One

 After filming on the second day we all got together to clean up the mess we created from filming. After we went outside to start editing our film. We gathered all of the clips that we filmed and imported them into the editing platform. Adrian put all of the clips in order of which we filmed and waited for it load as the connection was very slow. I then viewed all of the clips to decide which ones I should eliminate and keep. Fortunately most of the clips came out very clear and the lightning was great. If the clips came out bad, we had our backup film that we took just in case of issues like those. Next, I began to decided which font I wanted to include on our title design scene. We all had drafted an idea earlier in the month but we needed to make a final decision. I decided to incorporate the original font that the title design provided to continue the spooky theme that we had. Additionally we needed to have the titles for the title sequence. So as Adrian continued to work on the project, Adriana and I began constructing some ideas for our titles. First I put Adriana's last name for the production name and then put my name under who was starring. We then decided to add our friends Kameron and Dru as the additional starring actors. Since Adrian was doing most of the editing we implemented his name under the editing by section. Since Adriana who had the original idea for this film I put her name under the Story by and Written by section. Since I was not sure which name to include for guest starring I put a random name, Bob Hickens. However, Adriana wanted to make changes to that and include another name cause it sounded a little weird. We then chose the name Virginia Marvel and then I inserted that name into the title design. We placed Adrian's name as the director so Adriana's name would not show up multiple times on the video. I then reviewed the storyboard that we created earlier in the month to make sure it matched with the film. This review ensured that we did not miss any essential clips that we wanted to originally include. Although we only did a few things that day, it set us up in a great position to be productive on the next editing day.