Jose’s Mediastudy Blog

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 I learned that filming is really hard, and that almost nothing ever goes according to plan. Lighting is the area i feel like i learned about the most considering that problems it gave us all throughout. I feel revealed that i do not need to worry about deadlines for the project, but i feel although the video's potential was not really met. Probably due to the script being a little bare bones, or more likely due to me having really high expectations.  I might feel this way because the videos' concepts and ideas are really creative and i feel a little at fault for not representing them in a way that i feel is ideal. I tried and that's what really matters in the end anyway. It was a great experience working with my group however, so I can't really complain. 

 I spent about 2 days editing the movie in small amounts, and one day throughout editing the movie. So three days in total. This is a product of my ADHD and plain procrastination.  I was the one mostly involved in editing, with some minor editing done by Rachel for the text in the movie.  We did not consider doing any more filming. 

 The lighting of our movie is pretty dark. This wasn't really an intentional choice, more of a product of the camera's limited capabilities and the dim environment of the house we were filming in. In the end it services the movie's horror themes. I did go in and increase some scene's brightness in editing due to them being too dim to make out when watching. 

 Our group works very well. We have very defined roles, and each put in our parts while helping each other with our respective roles at the same time. Overall, a very efficient and supportive group. I felt the most challenged by filming due to the complications during filming that I've gone into detail about in previous posts.    the image below has no correlation to anything whatsoever; i mean i guess the 4 of them are a group just like the four of us are a group so it's kinda similar in a way idk

 I went onto YouTube and screen recorded classical and royalty free pieces of piano music to use in the background and beginning of the opener. Once i had the screen recordings of the videos with the music, i extracted the audio using Capcut's built in audio extraction features to get the music in the background of the video. I chose to add music because i felt the scenes felt a little awkward with how silent they were.

Throughout me editing the video i used fades to black as my transitions in and out of scenes. I didn't use many video effects except of overlaying different images and videos on top of each other. The main challenge that came from editing was a sequence where the TV was flickering the advertisement in and out.  It was challenging to get the static and advertisement to overlay onto the top of the TV in a way where it didn't look slanted. The video for the advertisement and the static were of two different sizes too, so getting them to switch in between each other without an unnatural increase in size from one clip to another was difficult.  My solution was just to try to get them as equal in size and orientation as possible, since it was impossible to get them just like how i wanted it to be. So i just settled on a compromise where it doesn't look too bad when viewed at a glace. You'd probably only notice the inconsistencies if you really analyze every detail.

 The red on the main character symbolizes that they are a target of the product. Black is also used throughout to symbolize mystery and death. A white flower is also present in the opener, representing the main character's innocence being lost.

 Our title sequence has white text on a background of spilled beauty products. There is also an extinguished candle emitting smoke. I like to interpret the candle as death or some other ominous foreshadowing. Rachel is the one who edited the text so I'm not entirely sure why she chose the text font / color. I assume its because it contrasts well with the background and is easy to read. Originally these shots were meant for the end of the opener, but I chose to put them in the beginning as establishing shots instead.

The main challenge for the filming process was the lighting. The camera (no disrespect to Flanagan's incredible equipment) was honestly terrible. The footage it captured often didn't capture enough light, leading to dim shots. Sofia had to hold a lamp and shine it at Mykayla to get her in the proper lighting. Unfortunately it didn't do much to help the lighting. The most egregious example is when the main character, played by Rachel is sitting on a couch. The lighting in those shots is simply awful and none of us could find a way to fix it sadly. So I'm going to fix that by increasing the brightness in editing. 

 Our group spent one day filming. Overall, the shooting process was pretty slow due to our actors messing up their lines pretty often, and complications with the shooting location.  We took about an hour before any actual footage was captured, and even when filming, the tripod the camera was set on was pretty unstable, leading me to having to hold the camera manually for most shots. And before filming we had to deal with Mya's dogs, who (although cute) were messing up our chance to film by barking for a majority of the beginning of the shoot.   in this image you can see me holding the camera steady on the tripod.  Once those issues were sorted out, it was pretty smooth sailing, not much in terms of complications aside from the occasional (read: often) misreading and forgetting of lines.   images:

 From my point of view our film represents society's harsh requirements for beauty that are place upon people in general. Always pushing products upon them to chase an idealized "perfect" look, often suppressing people into buying into this beauty standard. It's a criticism on the beauty industry and how people are looked down upon over their looks, and how that affects one's psyche. This is shown by the main character's anxious obsession over how "bad" or "ugly" they look, leading them further down a spiral of self destruction.

 Our opener doesn't have supporting characters as it has 2 main characters. The main reason for this is that the story is pretty small scale, focusing on the mental struggles of the main character and her being influenced by predatory marketing. Adding too many characters would bloat the story and take the focus away from the main character's arc. Our sets have many beauty products on display, always pushing the message that people should alter themselves to fit societal standards, and erase themselves in the process.

 The main character of our opener is one who is insecure of herself and her looks. She is desperate to 'fix' her body's image, letting her be easily influenced by the product being advertised. She's pretty low energy and unenthusiastic towards most things. Generally kinda depressed overall. Her main visual trait her red jacket.

 costume illustration by Sofia: The main character has a red jacket. She wears this due to the insecurity she feels about her looks and body, and it would draw attention to that. The second character, who is advertising the product, wears a black dress with roses on it. This shows a sense of mystery around the character, and shows how she was a victim of the product she's now selling

 Easy and Hard parts of filming: Probably the most difficult part of filming is coordinating where we're gonna meet up and when. Since we wanted to find a location with a red kitchen, and upon finding out that red kitchens are surprisingly rare (nobody in the class had a red kitchen in their house), we had to improvise and decided to go to friend's house.  Everything else such as the story / costuming is fairly straightforward as we planned out in class.     Actors: Mykayla Cambell will be the person selling the product in the commercial. Rachel Robinson will be the main character who sees the advertisement.    Costumes: The other people in my group will use clothes that they already have, so we won't have to shop for costumes.    Props: Again, the others in my group will bring their own props.  Locations: A friends house, for reasons explained on top Dates and Times: We decided to meet up on Sunday March 3rd at 2:30pm Scripts: Written a...

Opener 1: Rise What I noticed were multiple insert shots of things such as bags, and shoes from multiple perspectives such as P.O.V shots and zoom in shots. It also features montage editing of the main character playing soccer, showing that time has passed between shots.  Opener 2: Dear Lover Features multiple establishing shots of a pond in a forest. It also uses fade to black transitions in it's editing. It also features clips out of chronological order as flashbacks.  Opener 3: Dare to Thrill Has many insert shots showing different angles of the car and the group of people driving it. Uses dynamic editing with many cuts to add energy to make it feel like an action movie. At the end it uses a low angle shot from the perspective of the trunk of the car.  Opener 4: Always Watching The opener features lots of dialogue between the main character and the therapist. It cuts back and forth between scenes that aren't in chronological order. The music swells up and intensifies a...