Make progress

 After editing the last post, I learned how to splice clips. I needed to do that very badly with the clips I put together and cleaned up the best I could. After editing a second round I had a random peer look over my project for the first time and help point out the awkward moments - this is where I did the splicing. 

this was before

this is after reviewing clips and editing

While I have begun editing, I also am getting the remaining film clips. I was able to shoot the morning scene and start with the print aspect of my project. I took photos with Antonio that I will photoshop for the postcard. 

Here's one of the photos taken:

I have planned to get the remaining shots on a Tuesday. Until then I can edit and do print aspects and begins my Critical Reflection.

stay tuned...

Editing!!!

 I am so happy to have started editing! I know I do not have all of the scenes filmed but I saved space in the program to insert and begin editing what I can. It is difficult to match some of the scenes but I am working with what I have and planning for the next.

working on multiple devices
- I edited the clip that I knew I needed splicing and resent to my laptop and was able to easily import the file to continue editing efficiently.

For a specific shot, I needed to splice it and I was having difficulty doing so on Premiere. It has been a while since my last experience on Premiere, so I decided to work from my phone because I knew how I needed to do what I wanted. I am so glad in my investment in buying a computer before this product that works along with my phone in production. 

I organized all of the clips I recorded on my phone into favorites (which would be useful clips) and then combined them into an album and then sent the album to my computer. From that, I was able to start editing in sections. 

For later choices in Instagram uploads, I know there are quite a few bloopers (which I would like to upload) and I can sort through these favorite videos to find the actual clips. 

I do know from editing today that I would need to reshoot those night shots I took previously with TJ because there is music that is interfering with the car audio. Planning to film tomorrow the morning scene and just carefully maneuvering the lighting to configure an early morning, because there really are no more opportunities to film in the morning. If there is extra time tomorrow, I will try to get some film time with Sofia before there are scheduling mishaps. 

stay tuned...

Starting editing process

 I am talking to Sofia about the final shot I need with her. I need the morning scene with TJ still and the blackout scene. Sofia and I will work with the needed voices and lines after I finish all of the shots and start editing. 

I just got very sick and have been unable to do much on the front of shooting or editing. I have been trying all day between the times I am resting to upload all of the content I created. My Icloud did not have enough storage to just sync the content from my phone. I upgraded my storage and have been trying many facets all day to upload the scenes I recorded. 

In the meantime, I have been able to make an Instagram post. By tomorrow I should be feeling better and will be able to get more of my content uploaded. If I did it manually, it would take quite some time to upload one video let alone the almost 100 shots I have. Included there are bloopers that I would like to edit on Adobe Premiere for Instagram.

I am now at 8 posts on Instagram and this is how it is looking: 

stay tuned...

good progress

 Thursday we were able to film the required scenes for TJ and Sofia. There was a strain on filming Thursday morning for the morning scene in the film. TJ asked to reschedule and we almost had to reschedule the Thursday night shooting. 

I talked with Sofia on Wednesday about filming the additional shot we need at the end of the film when we find out that TJ got into a car accident. She agreed to do it and we can plan to film that simple scene soon. I had an idea to film it like those films where the 50s housewife who killed her husband gets told her husband died and has to act surprised. A little malicious in intent for the scene. We also agreed to change the Voiceover work for the sins to be Sofia's voice. She can record three different voices and I will modify them post-production. 

Here are some shots I grabbed of the shooting on Thursday:

The week goes on

 Tomorrow I will be filming the morning scene for the film with TJ in the morning. Hopefully, I can take some camera shots for Instagram when I finish those shots. As always I will look through the footage for clips I can post or other stills that look interesting. I am waiting to post more on Instagram until I get a new source of different shots. I could post more shots from the gym, but I don't want to overcrowd Instagram with the same look. 

My most recent post was a character name announcement:

On my iPhone I can see the insights of my account and how the hashtags are reaching other accounts:

           

Of the images I captured and included in my last blog post, I think I may do a quick post including them to create a surrounding theme of my posts. Following 1-2-1 where the ones represent the same scenes and the 2 follow a different theme. 

I am reaching out to Sofia to film tomorrow night and I hope she is back in town. I made a plan for the voices to be represented with her voice but modified in editing. This idea stemmed from creating a deeper infliction on Antonio where the viewer would realize that the voices were her and the revealed plot twist at the end would then support her character build-up. 

stay tuned...

keeping it going

 I went through the shots I filmed of Tj and took some screenshots for the Instagram. The shots work well for the voices in his head to be added in post-production. The sound of the car on the speeding shots isn't quite loud but I think I can manipulate the audio in post-production to increase the volume. If I need more car sounds I can even ask TJ to shoot his car again or other coworkers with their loud cars.

Here are some looks of the shots:

 

I will be seeing TJ later today or tomorrow so we can talk more about the needed morning clips. When Sofia gets back, which I think is before Thursday, we can work out the scenes we need her in.

stay tuned...

Production progresses

 My production has been progressing both on social media and in filming. Thursday I was able to begin filming and friday I was able to begin to looking over the footage and utilizing what was filmed into what I can create with it. I'll show those posts I have done.

second post

third post

I then began filming and added a behind the scenes clip of my filming on my Instagram.

 

4th post

Thankfully the filming I was able to accomplish happened. TJ had a very limited availability that day and I was able to get all the shots we needed for the gym scene and a couple of driving shots in that time. TJ went out of town for the weekend, so I am going through my shots and maybe even start editing those shots. If I edit now then I will have the clips done when I need to go through other footage.

I am already working on my next instagram posts and figuring out what I can post later. 

stay tuned

ideas

I planned to film this week but scheduling has been quite difficult in that process. I was reaching out to TJ for possible times to film this week but he had agreed to a spontaneous weekend trip. Luckily, the date for the 24th to film is set but I did recently realize I will need to film Sofia one more time after that. To have Sofia address the simulation death, I thought of a scene:

 We see surrounding shots of nature or around an empty house. We see a phone on a kitchen countertop and see it light up after making a weird notification sound. We watch Sofia walk in casually and peer at the screen. She reads the screen, "subject 82155 is no longer active" we watch her response to this casually, "I thought he would've lasted longer" then "on to the next."

Working on the logo took quite some time but I am happy with how it turned out. I took multiple screenshots before the final product to include.

Before posting the final image I included - I want to run some edits over it but the design itself is finished. I enjoy the chaotic triangles that are all linked to create one that resembles a perfect shape. This idea I made stems from the three sins taking over TJ's mind and how they hold a grasp over the regular configurations. His mind is filled with negative influences that are slowly corrupting him. The logo will become my icon on Instagram and I will have a post with the title of the short film (as seen above).

stay tuned...

group meeting

Today, we broke the classroom into three groups and got to discuss our pieces. It was surprising how many other students were also doing short films. We were able to discuss our projects and receive support for our ideas. Similarly, we all have not gotten far in the filming process but are planning to do so quite soon. 

I discussed my project sequence and how I recently realized there is a gap I needed to create a scene for because my plans for shooting would not accurately equate from early morning to late night in the original plan I had. So my plan was to film really early in the morning and end my project late at night. However, going to the gym early and leaving for a run at night need a bridging scene for continuity. I was able to discuss this error of planning and an idea was able to be produced to help this sequence error. 

The idea was to create that shot I originally thought in planning a surrounding shot of Anthony having a mental rush of voices where it makes him break down. I could have this scene when he gets home and then he blacks out. When he eventually wakes up he would take a run to clear his mind. 

I am almost finished with my logo on the production side of social media and even posted my first post. 

Creating my logo has taken quite a bit of work to create the idea I envisioned. I am almost done and my new medium to produce the logo is https://www.canva.com

In my next blog post, I will show the finished product after all of the difficulties. 

stay tuned...

Designing

 

I have been trying to create a logo I envisioned but the tools of Adobe Illustrator are not so easy. I created the perfect shape I wanted however I cannot figure out how to color it and have been struggling. I looked up phrases and other ways to articulate my issue however there has been no help. Apparently, the lines I created into a shape are not a shape themselves but I don't know how to make it a shape.  want my logo to be my first post but it is not working.

My needs for my social media page are an ominous photoshoot with TJ and figuring out how to create illustrations. I tried switching my canvas to google slides for their shaping tools but I was no better helped on either software. 

slides

adobe

I may be able to see TJ later in the day if we work together so I am hoping I can pull him aside to take some quick photos for the social media page. I think Sofia works today so I can try to get a photo of her as well to follow later on the social media page. I am envisioning a serious-looking off pose so there is mystery as to who the characters are but audiences are enticed. I will do more research into my issue on Adobe Illustrator to see if I can still use the software for my logo or maybe there is a better application for that. 

Takeaways: I begin filming next week and finish filming the next. I will work towards my social media page this week and get posts going. (Of the accounts I found on Instagram I received a follow back). I need to get a day TJ doesn't work to begin filming and do a photoshoot. Either Tuesday or Thursday will be successful to work with TJ. I am going to try to get the beginnings of my photos today if I see either of my characters. Researching how to Illustrate and make my logo. Maybe get the shots I pictured for the poster and start photoshopping my idea. 

stay tuned...

Putting the pieces together

 To start this blog post I want to discuss what is going on in my production process. I have been struggling this week to continue with my production process because of timing. Unfortunately, my time has been restricted by another class requiring me to be at school 5-9 every night for 4 days. I signed up to take a theater tech class and my grade requires I be after school every day 3-6 for a week and a half, then be at the showtimes 5-9 for 4 days. Having this requirement for these past two weeks has limited my production process.

 I did have one day where I wasn't obligated after school and that is when I discussed my story with TJ and went location scouting. Before one of the showtimes also this week I was able to meet up with Sofia to talk to her about the story and planning days for availability. TJ has a practice schedule for tennis and also does work, like Sofia. With my own limited availability to shoot I am still planning for my production.

During last night's show, I was able to meet and talk with people. As a joke to one of our campus security guards, someone told him he should do voice-acting. He responded that he would love to branch into that field and then I asked him if he would be interested in doing voice-acting for the sins in my piece. He agreed and said let me know what you need. So, while I was struggling to further my production, I found a key facet to my production that I was struggling to find. 

Based on the timing of this month, spring break is soon to occur and availability from the two peers I am filming opens. This week was not in the books to film but by next week I see myself having the majority of my piece finished and I will get that final piece on the 24th when I can film with TJ and Sofia.

Beginning my social media page I am struggling to decide what my first post should be. I downloaded photoshop and illustrator off of the creative cloud and I am going to try to graphic design some images that fit my piece. I have one idea and I hope I can create it, but I just need to learn how to use the software and if my idea is even possible on those applications. 

My plan for my social media page is to keep the sin colors I chose previously and even tint regular photos to display this. My idea for my first graphic design post is almost a kaleidoscope figure of the three sin colors I chose. My description lacks detail but I hope I can create the design to do all of the descriptions for me.

stay tuned...

Getting more done

After filming with TJ at spots and putting together the story we have a good physical idea of production. 

Today I started my Instagram page and decided the name of my short film: Mindfull Mindset

I wanted to create an idea for the short film to establish either sin or mental issues occurring within the piece. The incorrect spelling of Mindfull is purposeful to say that TJ's character has his 'mind full.'

Right after creating my account, I set out to find connections with other short filmmakers.

Unfortunately, I can only search under hashtags to find any possible interests before my social media begins to create a cultivated feed for me. 

I have a few ideas on how I want to brand my feed and what decisions I will make about posting. While writing my piece, it was decided that only three sins so far would rapidly occur in ideas. Those sins include greed, pride, and envy/wrath. I want to decide the colors posted on my social media will consist of black, white, green, yellow, and red. Red- wrath/envy; Green- greed; Pride- Yellow

Another idea that occurred for my piece is deciding character names. I was thinking to go with the original names of my peers but I think I wanna search if there are any subliminal names I could use.

I looked through a lot of websites for names I could possibly use but most seemed to be over the top for a regular name. 

TJ- His name in real life is Antonio and gets nicknamed Anthony which I think I am going to name his character

Sofia- For her character, I was searching for a name but I haven't found one that I particularly like. My ideas for her so far were either Katherine or Veronica but they don't feel right. Later thinking and talking with Sofia we decided on Vee.

Luckily, I was able to meet up with Sophia and talk with her about the plan for shooting and the film premise. We were able to discuss what happened with location scouting on Tuesday. We made a plan for filming to happen on the 24th which is a Thursday after all of our work together. Sofia will only be included in one scene of the film so that time is the only real-time that all 3 of us need to be together to film. I am going to talk with TJ to figure out other dates we can film since he is the main character of the short film.

stay tuned...

Getting the pieces

 The past couple of days have been quite a lot of communication with my subjects and their availability to film. My male subject does have a complex schedule but we can work around it and he is more than happy to arrange moments to film. Today we utilized that we did not work and went around our town to location scout and put together the piece.

I gave him a rundown of the story and how it will be chronologically sequenced. We discussed the varieties of shots we will need and the shots we will need to create for an illusion because of legal limits. 

outside shot of the car

outside looking into car

front of car

beginning window shot idea

where the transition from the window to alarm creating light would take place.

an outlet where the AirPods would not be charging

transitioning outside of the bedroom

switch to other room for shot transition

the character himself

park gazebo where the female character can be coming from

bench for the conversation to occur

facial closeup for driving

driving perspective for speed increase

outside the house for beginning shots/where we start hearing multiple voices

driving on a street

Today was productive to physically visualize the piece and see if my ideas would work. Planning to film will happen in the next week. Thankfully, the availability of my male subject is more open than my female because I can film him more independently. I will most likely only need the female for one day of filming but I would like to tell her the premise beforehand and what is somewhat expected. 

stay tuned...