Audience and Institution Practice Essay

6. To what extent is digital distribution vital to the media area you have studied?

Digital distribution is to every extent a vital part of the current film industry. In past years, the digital distribution of films, like streaming, was important to the business but now it has become the life blood. The coronavirus safety restrictions were the main cause of this since (mid March) when movie theaters were closed, film festivals were rescheduled, and all current movie filming was canceled. This made the distribution of films almost entirely digital, as streaming services became the only way to view newly released movies.
The closing of movie theaters significantly impacted the amount of revenue the film industry made because there was nowhere to watch! However, the revenue made by the cinemas had already been affected by the streaming services. In 2018, U.S. Movie theaters made 10.35 billion dollars on movie ticket sales and 5.64 billion on concessions, making an estimated total of 15.99 billion dollars. Meanwhile, 50% Americans spend around 2.1 billion dollars on streaming services monthly, making that roughly 25.2 billion dollars per year, which is 9 billion dollars more than cinemas. This disparity is bound to grow in the coming years to show how streaming has become more lucrative, since it is one of the only remaining options to watch movies with. Clearly, this shows how important digital movie distribution is to the film industry’s economy.
Film festivals used to be the perfect way for indie films to gain popularity. One example of a film’s success is A Quiet Place. It premiered on March 9, 2018 at the South by Southwest Film Festival, then was re-released in theaters on April 6 by Paramount Pictures. Now, however, film festivals around the world have closed and as of March 6 this year, the South by Southwest Film Festival also closed because of the virus. Despite their small budgets and lesser popularity compared to their mainstream counterparts, indie films are still an integral part of the film industry. Indie producers don’t usually have the money or the prestige through brand recognition to start their films straight on a streaming service, which is where these services can fall short of supporting the industry in it’s time of need.
Starting in 2008, the popularity of DVD’s have decreased as the streaming service industry increased 1231% in the last 9 years. As DVD sales declined, so did it’s revenue stream that supported the industry. The streaming industry’s overwhelming success in the economy made it so the consumers didn’t feel the loss as strongly as they would have in other circumstances. Although the DVD’s popularity was already on the decline, they still brought in some revenue for the whole economy of the film industry. This limited amount of revenue was cut off abruptly once stores closed due to the outbreak. The option of streaming became more appealing and picked up the DVD sale’s slack because of the enforced social distancing measures. On the other hand, there are services like Redbox that act as a grey area. Services like that have some digital aspects where the films can be rented online, and these companies have also branched out into the streaming market like FandangoNow. Although these gray-area services are still open, despite the coronavirus, they greatly rely on digital means to get the films distributed.
Streaming services are the newest and most popular electronic film distribution method and as such there are many different services to choose from: Xfinity, Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, HBO, Amazon Prime Video and more. They have steadily grown in popularity; 50% of Americans are subscribed to at least one streaming service and similar things can be said about the rest of the world. For example, Disney+ and Netflix are set to see a 12% increase in usage because of social distancing. To accommodate these changes, the services are adapting. Specifically, the changes are a temporary convergence of the technologies used by cinemas and the services to make up for the lack of other options. For instance, movies that would have been released in theaters are now available on streaming services for an increased rental price. Trolls World Tour can be rented on Xfinity for $19.99. Additionally, it was available through Video on Demand for only about a month after it’s release date of March 11, 2020 then on April 10th the option to purchase it was introduced. This sell-through mimicked a cinema, presumably to make up for the lost revenue. These changes help the streaming services keep up with demand since they are being forced to be more relevant today than previously expected; what was a gradual convergence of streaming and cinema’s has now become instantaneous in the weeks since the closure of the cinemas. This forced  physical and mindset change was made easier by the earlier efforts of the Disney conglomerate with the creation of Disney+. They also synergized with their subsidiary, Hulu, to create an appealing package deal. The marketed subscriptions purchased by viewers unwittingly eased the switch from watching movies in theaters to streaming services because of the inherent prestige associated with the Disney brand. These subsequent changes have made these digital distribution services all the more vital to the film industry.
The solutions presented by the film industry must be stable to keep up with the changing landscape and unknown future created by the coronavirus. Already theaters around the world are planning to reopen, and some people might or might not attend; but, as life starts to resume as normal, the possibility of a resurgence looms. This means there must be permanent changes to the film industry, and they must stand prepared to defend their revenue. Currently and in the foreseeable future, digital distribution will prove vital to the film industry.

Essay Practice: Component II, Question II

The director of the extract was trying to convey the importance of staying calm and collected in a stressful situation. They make this clear by using camera movements, sound, mise en scene, and editing techniques to convey their meaning.

In the first scene, there is a zoom towards the woman’s face that sets the extract’s tone as suspenseful and anxious. The camera work sets this tone by keeping the rest of the shot’s throughout the extract a little close to the actor’s faces. Likewise, the hand held over-the-shoulder shot of the man and woman’s conversation parallels the emotions he feels. He is cornered and starts to panic; therefore, his surroundings during the shot are obscured by the back of the woman’s head. Moreover, the editing technique used to put the man and woman’s conversation together supports the director’s message as well. The shot-reverse shot of the conversation contrasts the man and woman, shedding light on how much he is struggling to control his frustration.

While the first scene lays the groundwork of tension for the extract, the second half makes meaning of it. Scene two is focused on driving home the importance of staying level headed under stress. The diegetic sound of the table being flipped over is proof of the consequences of almost losing one’s temper. The man’s composure is shown to be further testing by the shot-reverse shot when the actress smiles at him. This open display of her calm facade is in direct contrast to his growing frustration as she shows him what he knows he needs to be: clear headed. The fallout of him losing his temper is captured by a split screen between the cell and a tracking shot of the guards sent to calm him down. This agitation created by this technique drives home exactly how important it is to keep calm by highlighting the consequences of the man’s actions.

Throughout the extract, several techniques were also used intermittently. The purposeful lack of sound used after a flurry of noise puts the importance of keeping calm into perspective. For example, after the man flips the table, there is an ever so brief moment of silence that throws the loud clang into harsh relief. Furthermore, dark lighting is also used throughout the whole extract to represent building tensions. The most obvious use of light is right before the table is flipped. The man steps out from the shadows and is lit from above, right before he loses his thinly veiled control and the tension is released.

All of the shots that build tension are clearly emphasizing the importance of staying calm in extreme situations. The techniques of camera movements, sound, mise en scene, and editing used in the two scenes build on one another to portray this theme clearly.

Final Project: CCR

My previous practice doing a CCR barely helped me with this version, to be quite honest. The way I answered the questions before was shallow in comparison with how deeply I tried to explain myself in the practice version. Also, since the format was a video this time, almost none of the creative aspects in the practice version transferred over. I inserted clips of Eden as examples, and gave real time examples of how I changed the saturation and worked with the titles. Another thing the practice didn't prepare me for, was the time limit.5

 My teacher told our class that the video needed to be 12-15 minute long, and once I had done my first editing pass, I was only down to 17 minutes. This was a huge problem, because I hadn't even added the clips from Eden yet! So, I had work for another hour to cut down the time, adding the clips as I went. I came up with a way to add the clips with out increasing the time of the video. I made each clip have a voice over, and I inserted the new video clip into the space of the video clip that was originally attached to the voice over. I used this method a couple of times when it was most applicable, and it made things a lot easier.  Another trick I used was to show examples of my editing techniques in the actual CCR video, instead of inserting a clip. I did this with the titles and with changing the saturation. I thought that these would also engage my audience more than a clip as well!

Using all of my tricks, I got the time down to a reasonable 14 minutes and 52 seconds. That only left the problem of getting the file onto this blog, which proved to be another monster entirely.

The files for Eden and this CCR were huge, so I couldn't directly upload them to this blog. I then tried a couple different things. I tried to get the files onto a google slide that I could insert into this blog, but the files were too big again! After looking for a way to compress the files, but having no luck, I decided to put them into YouTube, as I saw that uploading a YouTube video was an option when I was trying to upload earlier. This actually worked! I succeeded in getting both files onto this blog directly, and by using a google slide. I chose to stick with uploading directly though, as it looks cleaner.

Final Project: Eden

Me and my group have been working on this project for around three months and it has certainly been an experience. We faced many challenges, the first of which was not being able to decide which pitch to choose, and the last was having trouble communicating after schools shut down.

I'll be glad when this project is finally done. Because of social distancing, I don't feel like my group got to finish working on the project until we really felt it was the best it could be. We could have made more tweaks to the audio and sound effects used, but we couldn't effectively work together from afar. Even though there could have been improvements, I do feel like this version is better than the first or second cut. My only fear concerning this project is if it is easily understandable plot wise. I hope that the audience can understand that the girl walking her dog earlier in the film had disappeared with the only trace of where she used to be highlighted in green. All in all, I'm proud of how my work turned out with the amount of work put into it, and I hope that my audience will enjoy it!

In these last couple of weeks, I've had to balance completing this project with the rest of my school work because of the new online school system. While this has been very difficult, I'm finding a way to do it. However, I'm not very good at it just yet. I've found that my time management and prioritization skills need to improve drastically. Thankfully, I already find my self getting better at managing by the day.

Now that I have some real filming experience under my belt, I can't wait to start another project with a new group sometime. I'm full of idea's and ready to role! I've listed AICE Media Studies A level on my course selection card for next year! I will hopefully get into the class and start filming as soon as possible! I feel like a new world of film was opened up to me this year. Now that I know about all these different shots and angles I see them everywhere in movies! I can't imagine how much I will learn next year!

Music Video: CCR

To prepare for the final project's creative critical reflection, I did a practice CCR of sorts for my music video. The main purpose of this was to give my self practice on the practical side of this reflection. I say, "the practical side," because the reflection is not only critical, it is also creative! Being a very creative person, I feel confident that I have the creative side down pat, but the critical side not so much. So, like I would do with an essay, I wanted to practice and see where I needed to improve.

The first thing I found my self struggling with was the style of the reflection. I was so used to writing in essay style, I found it hard to personalize it. But that changed once I got half way through. By then, I was writing freely and thinking more creatively. When I had to research the conventions of the music video, I took screen shots of the music video's I used and I inserted them into this presentation to make them more lively. While, this is not how I'm going to do my actual CCR, I felt that this was good practice.

Some things I knew I knew I needed to improve on even while writing this CCR. When it came to the question about representing social groups, felt unsure about my answer. I didn't know how controversial my response could be, and I did my best to keep my answer from broaching any charged topics. Now that I'm looking back on this project I think that I shouldn't have worried as much. Because I purposefully chose responses that I wasn't as invested in, I think my answers suffered. I resolved to speak directly in my next CCR, no mater how controversial they may be.

After rereading this presentation, I realized how difficult creating a video CCR would be. I would of course have to come up with adequate answers before filming, but I didn't want to read off a script. This meant there would be a lot of memorization involved, which was a necessary evil to have my CCR be decent in quality.

Music Video

When going into this project, the thing I didn't expect to have to improve was the accuracy and detail of the storyboard. In the commercial, the story board was very accurate and easy to follow. This was because the setting was already determined since we had to film at school. Since the setting was already determined, coupled with the fact that I was familiar with the setting, it was easy to keep the story board easy to follow.

This was not the case with the music video story board. Since the filming would be done in Wynwood, a place I had never been before, it was hard to create a storyboard that I knew we could realistically adhere too. Despite my efforts, when it came time to film, the storyboard was impossible to follow. So instead there was a lot of improvising.

 Now, improvising isn't necessarily a bad thing. If something goes wrong, you have to come up with a plan to work around it and knowing how to improvise would be especially helpful in that instance. But with this project, where nearly all of the shots taken that day were being improvised, improvisation could bring more harm than good. We needed our shots to flow, to be cohesive and improvising could get in the way of that.

Luckily, we had an experienced film producer in our group. He was my teammate's dad, so he accompanied us to Wynwood to film. From there, we could ask him questions about the correct ways to do things. He suggested taking variations of the same shot in different places. That way, if one of the shots looks bad then we can use another. This was amazingly helpful because these shots seemed to flow together during the editing process. I definitely intend on using his advice in my next project. I've learned that, no mater how much planning you do, something could always go wrong.

Looking back, I think that my improvisational skills greatly increased, so if such a thing were to happen with future projects I would be able to work with it better than I would have with out this experience.

Commercial

The main thing I felt I needed to improve on after this project was to make better use of the technology I had at my disposal. When making this project, my group didn't use a tripod for any of the shots at first. Then, as a fail safe measure, we re-shot with a tripod. This was a stupid decision to not use the tripod at the start because it compromised the quality of the film. Also, since it made us have to re-shoot everything, it wasted time that we didn't have to waste. I didn't want this casual wastage of time to become a habit, even though it only really happened once.

Now, because this was our first project, it wasn't complicated enough to really need that extra time we wasted. But, in the music video or the final project re-shoots, this wouldn't have been possible. For the music video, I had one day to shoot most of the shots and we couldn't afford to do take the time to re-shoot. This meant that every second counted, and we often didn't have time to do to many takes of each shot.

 For the Final project, my filming time fluctuated because of the weather some days, although there were days planned to re-shoot on. Moreover, we had an actress who wasn't in the group with her own schedule. We could only film with her on specific days, and I needed to make sure I got good enough shots with the time I had.  I needed to use the best equipment we had to maximize the efficiency of the project. In general, I feel like I have improved on this, but only recently. In the music video, my group filmed with a mono-pod instead of a tripod which made some of our footage shaky. Thankfully, the editing software I used had a stabilizer, so the shakier shots could be fixed.

In the Final project, I used a tripod with various tools built in to allow for the best pans and tilts, so I didn't have to go back and re-shoot for quality. Despite this, I still had to re-shoot because of timing, although this is a better reason to re-shoot, as it meant that I was making use of the time I had. Generally, I'd say that I improved on fully using every tool I had to my advantage.

Final Project: Wrapping it up

While working on setting up editing the CCR video footage, I decided to test out the editing software's capabilities. The software I decided to use was a free trial of Final Cut Pro, and I needed to check how it differed from the purchased version. How I decided to test it was to upload the file of the final project, even though that file didn't have exactly what I needed. But, to my surprise, when I uploaded the final project into Final Cut Pro the file had nothing missing! Before, the file was only audio but now the video was back! This meant that I could start working on the CCR immediately. But working on the CCR had already become more difficult with the start of a new online school week. Teachers have been assigning lots of work that's all due around the same time, so I've had less and less time to work on the CCR. 

This shows how my own time management skills need to improve. So far, I have three ways to improve my working habits: an e-calendar, a physical planner, and setting myself a schedule. The e-calendar is to help me organize when everything is due. The app I use sends me reminders the day something is due so I won't forget. The physical planner I use to prioritize my work so I can get the most important things done first. Lastly, I have made myself a school day schedule so I can stay on task. I wake up at 7 and work until 10 before taking a break. Because of the transition from school to online that means there will be a significant learning curve I'll have to work on overcoming. 

Additionally, I've gathered all past work I've completed in my AICE Media class to see how much I've improved. I will take these past projects and breakdown how I improved, and what areas I still see myself struggling in today. 

This picture is of the Final Project footage in my trial version of Final Cut Pro. 

Final Project: Past Difficulties and Fine Tuning

While the whole project had been assembled, there were still many things that could be improved. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of time to work on it. This is because I needed to have the project finished before I could start work on the CCR. So, I went to my teammates house to watch the final project and give my opinion of what could be adjusted. The only things I felt could be perfected in time was the volume of the white noise and ambient noise through out the two minutes. The ambient noise needed to be quieter and the white noise needed to be a tad louder to be heard over the music. After these parts were fixed, I took a copy of final project back home on a flash drive. I intended to use my final project in my CCR, so I needed a high quality file of the project to work with. To my surprise, when I opened the file in my flash drive it only had the audio. The video was completely black, which means I will have to get the file again and maybe compress it a little. 


The music, throughout the process of this project, was one of the things I had a hard time getting a hold of. First of all, the process of choosing a song was long and difficult process. The steps, however, are very simple. I had to pick a song with my group and email the song writer asking for permission to use their song in our project. Then, I would wait for a response. Unfortunately, the process was very lengthy, and most of the time I didn't have enough time to wait for a response. I repeated this process twice with two songs, only to never get responses from the artists. The third attempt was lead by one of my teammates, who's father personally knew the song writer. Because of this connection, we were able to secure permission to use the song "09 'what' is real" by Troy Westfield Experience. Bellow is a picture of my teammate correspondence with the song writer.

How the Corona Virus Has Affected My Life

With the threat of the Corona virus forcing all schools closed, me and my group have had to get creative to work together. Before school closed, we kept each other updated with texts and had a shared google doc to brainstorm. We used this google doc in class, as we were usually not free as a group to digitally brainstorm after school or on the weekends. This worked for us, but that was when we saw each other during school. This plan stopped working almost immediately when school was canceled. Our at-home work schedules didn't line up so it took much longer to get any work done. Additionally, one of my group member's weekend sleep schedule didn't align with mine, so getting in contact with her when the whole week was basically one long weekend was not the easiest. That being said, communication was the main challenge I needed to work on in order to finish the final project. The last time I met with my teammate to work on editing, the only thing left to complete was sound, which she said she would finish.

But, finishing the project was not the main problem, it was how to get it to each group member to use for the creative, critical reflection, or CCR. For this reflection we wanted to use clips of the final project to cite examples during our CCR video, so every group member needed access to the file of the final project. I had several ideas, but with the communication problems we were having nothing was going to work. Currently, I am still trying to find a better way for my group to communicate with social distancing in mind.

Online schooling started the week after spring break ended, which began the confusion that came with trying to work from home. Some of my teachers started hosting online lessons on Microsoft teams or zoom. Most of my teachers just assigned us homework to compete and turn in. Overall, each of my teachers are finding ways to continue school despite these strange conditions. Because it was my first week back to "school" everything was a little chaotic. I had a tough time keeping up with all of the new class work, so I made my self a chart of my assigned work. Fortunately, there wasn't too much work because the quarter was ending and teachers were finalizing grades. This at least gives me time to get acclimated to this new type of schooling.

My first concern when starting the school week was how I intended to stay on task during the regular school hours since I was home. This, while an important concern, didn't affect me as much as a thought it would. Over spring break, while still having to socially distance drove the fun out of my usually activities. For example, watching YouTube was becoming boring and none of my books seemed that interesting any more. So, the only thing that maintained my interest was school work! So, in a way, schools closing has made me want to learn more, despite this being a pretty bad time to renew my passion for learning. I'm hoping that learning won't loose my interest as quickly as reading, but I don't think it will. Ever since school closed, I started to go outside more often, like going for bike rides. Keeping active in something important to me, so I'm glad I'm going out more than I did earlier in the year.

Re-Editing

Re-editing was planned to be done as a group, though this didn't end up happening. One of my teammates wasn't allowed to come because his family was trying to implement social distancing. I still came to edit though, since I thought this would be one of the last times we could work as a group to finish this project. The first thing I thought we should do, was to sort through our new footage. We re-shot about eight shots, so we needed to compare each take to see if they were better than the originals. For the footage from inside the house, the re-shots were brighter than the originals, so I decided that we should use them for the final project. The shots I took in the driveway were questionably better than the originals. The shot I needed to retake also required that I re-shoot another shot to better blend it into the film. Both of these shots ended up being good, since the pan was smoother than the original, but they were too bright. I decided that we should keep them in the film, and just put a filter on them to make them match the other shots. The title screen re-shoots were not, though. I decided that we needed to re-shoot those to keep continuity with the other shots, since the streets were wet in the originals. The re-shoots didn't end up looking very good though, the pans were to fast and didn't align with the music, so I had to keep the original shots.

My teammate and I split up the editing work: I would edit the transitions, titles, and filters and she would edit the sounds and effects. The first thing I did was the transitions between the shots. When adding the new footage, the time for the project when down, so I tried to increase the length a little. I matched the actions from shot to shot so they flowed together. Then, I re-positioned the titles so they faded in on time. I also adjusted where they appeared on screen their size, and color in some cases. Inside, it was slightly lighter than before, so I changed the color from white to a grey so I was less out of place. The hardest part was the filters. I had to match every shot's saturation and exposure, which would be hard with the new shots, which were very different in exposure. I decided to make every shot outside be slightly unsaturated, so that the forest was even more different than the rest of the film. I think I went a bit overboard, looking back, on the saturation, though I am still happy with my work.

This image is from when I was inserting the new footage into the project. I came across a problem, where the original footage glitched out. The solution I came up with was to restart the program, and thankfully it worked.

Re-shooting

Even before the Peer review, I knew that we needed to re-shoot some shots. Since we split up the filming days, there were some differences in the setting. One of the days, the streets were wet because of rain while the other day was sunny. These continuity issues, while not the most glaring issue with our first project draft, were something I wanted to correct first. So, when I planed a day to re-shoot with the rest of my group, I wrote down what scenes we needed to shoot again. Two of the shots I put on the top of the re-shoot list were 4.5, 6, and 7.5. These shots included the supporting actress, Sydney, so I asked one of my teammates to contact her and see when she was free. The date we decided on was a Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Besides those three, there were quite a few other shots my other teammates wanted to re-shoot. The reasons for re-shooting them varied from wanting to perfect a pan or tilt, to getting a slighting different mood with the acting, and getting shots with better lighting. For a lot of our first takes, my camera work was shaky because it was the first time I had used that camera. This time, I knew how to keep the camera from jerking to a stop at the end of a pan. I also got better at adjusting the metal tripod's legs and using the various adjustments for setting the camera's angle, so the process was faster than our previous filming days. Re-shooting every shot we planned only took one and a half hours, leaving us with time to spare. While we could have used this time to edit, we decided that we were too tired from spending all that time filming in the hot sun. We took a well deserved water break and planned the date for when we wanted to edit. The Wednesday of this week seemed like a perfect time, since school was canceled due to the Corona Virus. This break in between filming and editing will also give me time to think over what other things I felt we needed to change or improve on the film.

This image is of the new footage replacing the old footage. This new shot was a lot brighter which created unique challenges to work against when editing it into the project.

Editing: Searching for Sound

When we were first given this project, the first thing my mind went to was music. For our commercial, we had to rush finding some music for it. This scrambled rush for music was partly caused because of the editing software we were using, which was IMovie. I knew that, because we were using Final Cut Pro, we probably wouldn't encounter similar problems that we did with IMovie. IMovie didn't allow us to upload any music, so we had to rush to find new music the day before the project was due. Despite these problems being unlikely to effect the project anymore, I still worried about what possible problems like this that could pop up for this project. My way of working against these problems was to start searching for music immediately. With my group in class started looking at different royalty free music that we could use maybe use in the film. Since the genre of our project was originally fantasy adventure, I looked for epic music. The site that I found the majority of the music we could use is called Fesliyan Studios. Besides epic music, they also had pop music! One of the requirements for the project was to have an actual song, so that was the next thing my group and I started to work on, after gathering a good amount of epic music to use later. The first song that I came across was called Shy, by the Local Natives. This song, unlike the one we had looked at so far, was copyrighted so we would have to contact the people who owned the song to get their permission to use it. Since I didn't want to email them, I kept looking for more songs. One of my team mates happened by another song, Sapphire by Grasshapa and Lo, and emailed the artists for permission. After two weeks, we gave up waiting for a response. Finally, I emailed the Local Native's Manager for permission. We waited two weeks again, and again there was no response. A teammate of mine found another song we might be able to use, and reached out to the artist. We have higher hope for a response because the teammate's father known the artist personally.

This is the email I sent to the Local Native's manager.

Editing: Improvising the Titles

In our previous projects, the teachers didn't require us to put in any titles so this was a new task. Though, we weren't entirely unprepared! During the planning process, we looked into the titles other movies used. The things we looked for included their font, order of appearance and when they came on screen. We then determined the format our own titles using those movies as a reference. When actually putting in the titles, we didn't really use much of the plan at all. The original font we had set wasn't available on the editing program I was using, so I had to search for one that was similar to the original one. I stopped trying to compare the fonts very early on, and just chose one that worked best for the project. The same method was used to determine the rest of the format for the other titles.

The font color I chose to use on most of the titles was black. This was because all of the shots were bright enough for it to be seen clearly. On some of the outdoor shots that were darker, I put the title in the sky to make it visible. The only place where I changed this color was during an indoor shot where it was very dark. In that shot I made the font white. We used a template for the titles to make them dissolve onto screen. This originally made some problems, as when the title appeared, there was a weird yellow glow around it despite the font being set to black. I had to fiddle with the setting a little, but I eventually found that the "glow" setting was turned to yellow. I then changed the glow to a light green, to match the background more.

Next, I had to decide when the titles should appear. At the beginning, I stuck to the storyboard, but then the titles started to look a little too crowded, fit into two or three second intervals. I then started to break the titles up, like having the words "edited by" and the names of the editors separate. I then staggered the times that they came on and faded off, which created a wonderful effect that me and a team mate perfected, and used on the other titles after that. I didn't apply it to all of them, wanting to keep some variation.

In this photo, the purple bars represent the titles. You can see how the ends and beginnings of them are staggered, which is the technique I was talking about.

Peer Review

We had a peer review on our final project, which is where we give our project to another group to review. My group and I will then use this review to improve our final project. We also had to review another groups project. The things we had to look for include all of the required shots, angles and camera movements, sound, lighting, and generally anything the film could improve on. The project that we got to review was unfinished. It had no titles and was only a minute and twenty seconds long. Obviously, these are things that need to be improved on, but when reviewing this project I wanted to give them other stuff to fix. One of the main things I noticed was their use of sound. Every cut had a different volume of white noise and during one of the clips, their dialogue was cut off! This simply couldn't do, and luckily there are ways to fix this! To fix the white noise, you can simply turn the volume down on the clips so they are all the same volume when you listen to it. For the cut off dialogue, there are several options to fix it with. You could separate the audio from the video clip and extend the audio clip so the dialogue carries over to the next clip. The second option is to record a voice over to put over the existing dialogue, which you would mute. My group and I used a combination of the two options in our project, so both options could work for the project I reviewed. One thing I liked about their sound was the music they used. The music picked up in key points and enhanced the action.

Another thing I think could be improved is the use of shot types to improve their story. At one point, one of the characters had to pick up a paper, and we never got to see what was on it. While normally this would heighten the suspense, but in this instance it only confused me. It is implied that the paper is a warning or wanted sign for a serial killer but in the film it's unclear enough that, when you only realize what is it when you see the serial killer. This ruins the suspense built up to this moment by distracting the audience. A way to fix this could be to have an over the shoulder shot of one of the actors holding the paper up, or a eye line match of the actors looking down at it and then a shot of the paper. Despite this confusion, there are still great uses of angles and editing in the film I reviewed. At one point there was a shot reverse shot that went from behind the serial killer, to an unsuspecting actor, back to the serial killer slowly approaching, then to the actor turning around, to then to where the killer used to be. The last shot was a wide shot of the actor, making him seem entirely alone. This sudden change from being closely pursued to being alone heightens the suspense in a new way that I wasn't expecting.

Editing: Cutting It down to size

When we filmed, we took lots of extra shots that weren't planned in the storyboard. This meant that, when we went through the SD card we used, there was plenty of shots and even more takes to choose from! This was something I thought we could have improved on from the previous projects, getting more shots to use. The only trouble was that with all of the extra shots we had meant that, when I uploaded all of our chosen shots into the editing software, the length of the film was outrageous. It had to be at least 5 minutes long! We had set ourselves three hours to get all of the editing done, which in hindsight, wasn't nearly enough time. In that time, we barely finished getting the movie to the right length! After the time was up, I decided to stay at my teammates house a little later to try and start working on inserting the titles.

The program we used was the same as the one we used for the music video: Final Cut Pro. We decided to stick with our software, rather than the provided one, again this time because of the problems other groups were experiencing with the last project. We didn't want any technical issues to compromise our final project, so we decided to play it safe. Final Cut pro is a blast to work with. Since I was just getting used to it, I kept discovering little tricks to manipulate the footage in new and surprising ways. I already knew how to stabilize a shot, but I figured out how to speed up footage and how to keep continuity of action through a transition. In these little things, Final Cut Pro really came through for me.

The first thing I had to do was get the footage down to a manageable size before I could work on transitions. This part was boring, because I was only getting rid of the beginning and end of each shot. The next step was choosing how each shot transitions into the next. When it came to transitions, Breanna was the person deciding where they should go, as she had the clearest vision for the project. I did have some chances to shine when it came to some transitions though! When the setting needed to change from inside a house to the forest, I had the idea to speed up the end of the footage as a way to blur the two places together. The effect was disorienting, which was exactly what I was looking for!

This picture is of the blurring of action i created for the transition of house to forest.

Filming: Finishing up

So far, the only shots we had taken were the ones that included Sydney. This meant that our next filming day, we had to take the shots with out her, which were the majority of them! We planned our next day of filming to be the following Sunday, from 11:00 to 3:00. The way we decided to film was to start at the top of the street, the furthest from the "house" Jane was running to, and work our way down. The first shot was the establishing shot of the street. Our original plan was to take the shot from the second floor of a house looking over the street, but this didn't end up working. Instead, I set up the camera in the middle of the street, I had someone watch out for cars, and take a slow plan from the sky, down to the street. Our director Breanna, and main actress for Jane, had the idea to have her run through the background of the establishing shot. I loved this addition because it made the shot look more natural, instead of it being a silent street. Through the next two hours, I took shots of Breanna running from various angles. We took lots of unplanned shots, just in case we need more footage when it comes to the editing process or if one of those shots came out better than the planned one.

One shot we had an especially hard time doing was an over the shoulder tracking shot. In order to achieve it, I had to angle the camera towards the ground on the tripod and face the viewing screen of the camera towards me as I held the camera, still attached to the tripod, up almost over my head! We had to take that shot over 7 times before I felt confident enough to say that at least one of them was a good shot! Even though it was very difficult, I think it will be a very cool shot when we stabilize it during editing. The next couple shots we had to take were of Breanna running down the street, and crossing it. One angle I tried when shooting her crossing the street was like the establishing shot. I centered the camera in the middle of the street, with someone watching for cars again, and did my best to make the street mimic how the street looked in the establishing shot. I'm hoping the two street shot will be similar enough that it makes the street and neighborhood look asleep and unimpressive, to further put into perspective how magical the forest will be. Although, I'm not the main editor for this project so there's no guarantee it will work out that way, but I can still hope!

This picture is a screen shot of one of the shots we took through the day. We wanted to have the soccer ball Joshua is holding to bounce, but to do that we had to time it correctly. In the picture, you can see Breanna pointing to where she should be when Joshua should drop the ball. This shot was hard to time, but was ultimately pretty simple to pull off with practice.

Filming: Getting it done

Our second day of filming was also a rainy day, but we still planned to film what we could despite it. First, I set up the camera on the tripod. The camera I was using to film was specifically used because it creates a depth of field. One of my main fears when using this camera was that, when filming the music video the same depth-of-field camera kept dying, even after the battery was charged and replaced, and that the camera would do the same thing when filming our final project. Despite my fears about the camera, we headed out to go pick up Sydney, our supporting actress who lived right down the street from where we met up. As soon as we got to her house, it started pouring. The group and I decided to take this time to completely fill Sydney in on the shots we would be doing. After the rain stopped, we manage to take around three shots with multiple takes before my fears about the camera were confirmed. When the camera died, we had to take a break and switch cameras. The camera we switched to was made to zoom and didn't have depth of field. This made it impossible to use to re-shoot one of the shots we had taken with the previous camera, so that might be something we have to re-shoot at a later date to maintain continuity.

Using the new camera, I re-took the shots I could take with the new camera and by then the sun had come out, although there were still rain clouds in the distance. After getting a good amount of takes for the shot's we planned, we got in the car and went to the park. Unfortunately, after the rain, the ground was still wet. This was bad because some of our shots required the main actress to lay down on the ground, and this might mess with the continuity. We decided to just keep filming, and the main actress toughed it out. When filming in the forest, I got to film a lot closer to the actors, which I found refreshing after filming across the street from them during the neighborhood scenes. When filming these scenes, I also decided to change some of what we had on the story board. For example, there was a shot of the main character laying of the ground that I decided to film upside down to make her look more disoriented. My new shot actually ended up looking better than the originally planned one! The last shot was originally supposed to be spinning, but due to the technical difficulties this created, we decided to go for a different shot that ended with a fast pan that we intend to cut at to make it look scarier.

This photo is when we are filming with the first camera. I was scouting out potential places to place the camera, which is where i took this picture from. Joshua is standing by the camera, keeping it dry from the potential rain, and Breanna is helping set Sydney and her dog Lily up for the next shot.

Filming: Rainy days

The first day we had planned to film turned out to be not the best day to choose for filming. I had failed to check the weather for the filming day when we had originally scheduled everything. This made a lovely surprise when the day planned for filming came up and it was already pouring rain. Despite the fact that I could not film anything, inside or outside, me and another teammate still got together to plan our next course of action. We went through different ideas. One idea was to wait until next week to film, as the rest of the weekend it was foretasted to rain. This plan was quickly shot down, as it had a high chance of raining next weekend too! After a couple more ideas, we decided on a final plan. We were going to keep the filming plan as scheduled, and extend filming to the day after, so we still had two days to film. We planed to film the next day, rain or shine.

We then talked to our adult supervisors about the new plan, since they needed to drive us to the park. Then we contacted our actor, to make sure they were still available with the new plan. Unfortunately, our actor was only free one of the two rescheduled days. So, we resigned ourselves to only be able to film one day. This was not good, because the longer it took us to film, the less time we would have to edit! If we were using the school provided editing software, this would be fine because we would have class time to edit. But, were using our own program and camera, so we have no way to edit in class! This fact only made me more determined to film the next day. After everything was scheduled, my teammate and I decided to block out the scenes that were inside. We established where the camera would be set up, the movement of the actor, lighting, and more.

Planning: Storyboard

This is our story board for our project. Each box is 3 seconds long, with 24 total boxes. At first we were going to have 6 seconds per box, but we decided to change it to capture more detail. The titles are in order, according to what we researched previously in title research. When doing the storyboard, we made a checklist of shots to use, as we progressed through we checked them off. In our storyboard, we have three characters, and 2 are featured: Jane and Rose. The two of them are set apart by their hair styles so we can know who is who when filming. The storyboard also describes where they are in relation to the streets we are filming on, so it is very clear. Additionally, camera angles, sound and acting cues are written into the note section for each box, to reference easily. The process of creating the storyboard was simple after doing it three times before this. We already had the scenes planned, so all we had to do was split them into 3 second intervals. First, Jane is shown to be jogging along, starting up her music. Then, passing a corner, she waves at her neighbor: Rose and her parent. The camera follows Jane across the street, but not without showing the neighbor disappearing, and tracks Jane to her house. Inside her house, Jane is then transported to a forest, where the two minutes end.