Final- Creative Critical Reflection

Here's the link to my Creative Critical Reflection! 

https://voicethread.com/share/7744914/

Information writhin reflection:

 "Movie Genres by Box Office Revenue in North America 2016 | Statistic." Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. 

 "UOCD: Facts& Statistics on OCD." UOCD: Facts& Statistics on OCD. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.

 "Favorite Movie Genre in the U.S. 2013 | Survey." Statista. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016

 "Drama(genre)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 12 Mar. 2016.

What Is OCD?" International OCD Foundation. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.

Final- Film

Here's the link to the final opening of our film, I hope you enjoy! 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_d1UeccEiX8dTFIZzk4YjgwQzA/view


Music :www.bensound.com "Memories | Royalty Free Music." Memories | Royalty Free Music. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

That's A Wrap!

We have finally reached the end to our portfolio project and I can proudly say that I am relieved. First and foremost, I would like to thank my partner, Catalina for assisting in creating this product and for being an incredibly cooperative partner throughout this whole project. I would also like to thank everyone who gave me critiques and comments as we created this piece, which allowed me to improve this project to the best of my ability. Looking back to the beginning of this project, I would have never imagined how much I truly enjoyed creating this project. During the duration of this project I have also learned a variety of new skills that I will now utilize for further references. I genuinely believe that maintaining this blog has been the best part of this whole process. This blog has been an outlet for me to mix my personal perspectives with the product I was creating. Overall, I’m sad to say that the end has come for this portfolio project, but I am more than happy for the outcome!! 

Finishing Up

FORMATION   

   We have finally chosen the name for our film and it is Formation! Going all the way back to the beginning of this project, Catalina and I had both established that we wanted our title to have relation to the young female's Obsessive-compulsive disorder while at the same time, having the capability to correlate with the male towards the end of the opening. I think that this is important because it is a lot more clear for the viewer to understand that if this were a full-length movie, it would not solely be about her dealing with her disorder but also about him inspiring her to realize that she is more than this classification. The word formation is a noun that means "the action of forming or process of being formed". This is relevant to our film because almost every action our character completes is based off of wanting everything to be in perfect form and having a fear that fear that things will deviate from her control. In relation to the male character, this title is also appropriate because it signifies the film in its entirety, not just the opening, because it signifies his efforts to try to get her out of her obsession with things  being perfect, and simply forming into a new and improved individual. 

   

   This is a sneak peek of the clip in which I was talking about the male characters appearance in our film. We have decided to make this this the final scene in our film because we wanted to establish the significance that it has in within the film, while at the same time making the audience want to continue to watch more and become curious about his relation to the main character. Overall, I am beyond excited about the progress we have made and cannot wait to make the completed film available! 

Sounds Of Music

   In a few of my earlier blogs I have mentioned that while on the search for copyright free music, I found a song on the website Bensound (specifically under the cinematic category) that I really enjoyed and instantly knew it could work well with our opening.  I showed the song to Catalina and she felt that the song really had the potential to be incorporated into our opening. With that being said although we really liked it, we knew that before we made any decisions about the music, we had to test it out with our scenes to determine if they were a good fit. Prior to filming we did a test run of our scenes and had come to the realization that this song, also called "Memories",  works great with our opening!

    "Memories" really captured my attention because it fit a lot of the qualities we were looking for when on the hunt for the perfect song. For starters, Catalina and I both agreed that we wanted a more laid back style of song. Given that our opening takes place in the early hours of the day as a young female completes her morning routine, it would only make sense to have a song that is relatively relaxed and not too chaotic. This song first begins with a few, soft beats and a quite a lot of piano sounds that are overlapped. Right when the song begins, is when the opening truly begins and the audience will be able to interpret her actions of getting out of bed and completing other tasks. "Memories" also met the standards of what we were looking for in a song. Although, we did want a song that was more relaxed with softer beats and no lyrics, we did not want a song that was almost gloomy and depressing. This song is the perfect mixture of of relaxed and a bit of liveliness that we aimed to utilize within our opening.

Here's the song! http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music/cinematic

The End Is Near

   This week officially marks the last week of working on our portfolio projects. Words cannot even begin to explain how fast time went and looking back how much was done in the course of these last few weeks. I am beyond excited to finally complete our opening, and as a result of this Catalina and I have been working really hard this week finish up last minute details and perfect our production to the best of our abilities!

   Monday was the day where we sat down and situated the things we had in our opening thus far and the things that needed to be added or modified. Due to the fact that we filmed this past weekend, we had access to all of the clips during class. Over the weekend, I simply compiled all of the clips into one larger video on iMovie, and not editing it with the intentions of analyzing it on Monday with my partner. I believe that in doing this, we were making the process a little bit more easier and more efficient when the time came to edit. During class Catalina and I  took the time to review each clip and decided which ones we felt were vital in our opening, which ones could be eliminated, and how much time we wanted for each shot. I would say that Monday was an overall successful first day for us because it allowed us to organize and create a solid basis for the rest of the week.

   The following day, Tuesday, Catalina and I began editing our opening. We uploaded the video compilation of all the clips onto iMovie and began editing. Meanwhile we edited, we had come to the realization that we filmed a lot of our clips for a pretty long time and therefore needed to cut them down as much as possible, for the sake of our time restriction. This appeared to be a bit of a hassle for us because in each of our shots, our main character is doing several actions that correlate with OCD and therefore cannot be cut because they play an important role. On Tuesday we also spent a large portion of our time determining which shots require a voice over and established what those voice overs would say. Once we both agreed on what should be said, we went into the hallway of our school(because it was more quiet) and recorded them. Tuesday evening Catalina finished up almost everything else we needed for the editing, including the music, credits and transitions.

   Today we reviewed the almost complete opening with details and analyzed what we liked and disliked about it. We both loved how it turned out, despite a few modifications that need to be made. For instance, our most updated/ edited project is about 1 minute and 55 seconds and we still need to film the last part of our film. We haven't filmed this shot yet because it requires a male individual to be in it and we had scheduled to film with him this Thursday directly after school. Because we still need to include this portion into our film, Catalina and I are reviewing all aspects of our opening to see if there are any clips that we can cut down to leave some time for us. The other half of the day we showed our opening to our peers and asked them to critique and give advice. Overall, everyone seemed to really enjoy our film and said that our cuts were very fluid and smooth. Today we also brainstormed more ideas for the title of our film and we keep coming up with words such as "formation", "precision", etc... I do like these titles but I'm not totally convinced that they're a good fit so we are still searching for a title.

Behind The Scenes

   As I mentioned in my most recent posting, Catalina and I filmed our opening today and I wanted to share some of my thoughts and behind the scenes footage!
 
   For starters, I am a little concerned because we do not have the title of our film yet. We have spoken about it several times and today we were sharing some of our ideas but we simply can't come up with one that speaks to us. We have come to the realization that we are really interested in one-word titles that will represent out film but we seem to be having a bit of a struggle. I'm contributing to think and I know Catalina is as well, so I shall you keep you updated if anything great comes to mind.   In terms of filming, I can easily say that Catalina and I did tried our best to make sure that the shots portrayed an individual with OCD and that the audience has the capability of understanding of perceptions. Although we did film almost everything today, we still have to include a few significant parts to our film. We still have to include voice overs that will represent out main characters thoughts as she completes her routinely tasks.

For instance, this is a shot that we filmed today. Keep in mind that we still need to edit and add the music and voice overs for this scene! In this clip, our main character is in the process of completing her everyday routine, specifically after she completes that task of intensely washing her hands. This shot will work as a transition between her tasks and thoughts. While she finishes washing her hands,  she is interpreted by the imperfect positioning of the soap and toothbrush holder and is frustrated when it's not the way she'd like it and therefore changes it. She then looks at her mirror and sighs due to her contemplation. It is at this moment that we will edit in vice overs that will signify her thoughts and her talking to herself in the mirror. An example of these thoughts will be "Don't make any mistakes today" repeatedly, in addition to other comments and counting.

This is only a small portion of our film but will play an important role in the overall product. I simply just wanted to share an example of what we did today as well as our plans for when we edit!

The Long Awaited Filming Day

   Today Catalina and I are beyond  excited because we finally filmed our opening! We met earlier in the day and spent about theree hours working on everything. We first began our filming process by preparing  the room in which we filmed. Due to the fact that our film is about a female who is suffering from Obsessive-compulsive disorder, we want to ensure that her room was not chatoic and rather really organized. Catalina and I dedicated some of our time to rearranging  the room to be quite bare and clean. We then took the time to review our storyboard and discuss the plans we had already established prior to meeting todoy. Personally, I think this really helped us out because it allowed us to make sure we began the filming process on the right terms and understood each other's perspectives. Discussion was also beneficial to us because it allowed us to make any modifications needed before and during filming.

   Once we finished reviewing our storyboard we finally began filming. Catalina and I established a filming plan and I think it was very efficient for us to say the least! The way our process worked was that we first broke our opening up into scenes and sections. This pretty much means that we separated the content into smaller, more doable tasks. By doing this, it had reassured us that we were covering every detail while at the same time giving us a path to follow throughout the whole time. . For instance, because we broke our film down into sections we verified not to move onto further scenes unless we completed those before. Then we began actually filming... We began each scene by doing a quick run over what was going to occur, this is where we would make sure that everything looked good, whether it be lighting, position, or even acting. Once we approved of the practice round we began shooting the shots that we had written in our storyboard. After this, we would find a different way of filming that scene to give us variety to choose from and have back up. Lastly, we would look over the shots we filmed and discussed what we liked and disliked before moving onto the next scene.

   Overall,  I'm very satisfied with what we have created this far! We still have one part that does need to be filmed but that's only because we need another male character, and we did not have one available at the time. From this point, Catalina and I need to upload the clips, edit them, and than add the credits. This past week I was roaming throu copyright free music and came across one I really liked. I showed it to Catalina and she loved it, we ended up playinf it today in the background when filming to make sure everything added up, and it worked really well. I feel a lot more relieved knowing that we got a large portion of our project completed. Stay tuned to see the rest of our progress!