Creative Critical Reflection

 Click here to watch my first creative critical reflection.

Click here to watch my second creative critical reflection.

My cited sources for both CCRs are here.

Enjoy!

Film Opening

Click here to watch the opening for my film, Lost in the Pages.

Enjoy! 

Project Reflection

 I am very sad to say that this project is coming to an end. I have had a lot of fun and have enjoyed the entire production process. Before I say goodbye to Lost in the Pages, I want to reflect on my project one last time. 

When I started the project, I was so nervous as to how everything would turn out, how I would be able to do everything, and how my process would go, but the more I worked on it, the more comfortable and confident I became. I learned how to have fun with a project which is something I had never done before. The creative freedom allowed me to expand my ideas, change what I needed to change, and really just do whatever I wanted with the project, which was one of the best parts about it. 

One of my favorite parts of working on the project was developing the mise-en-scene elements. Creating the set design, the makeup design, the prop design, and especially the costume design was so fun for me. Designing some sort of mise-en-scene element for a production, whether it be makeup, costumes, set, or props, is something I can see myself doing as a career in the future, so being able to do that for this project was a great way for me to get started with some experience. I also loved filming and seeing my creation being brought to life. The most fun I had while filming was going to the park to film Delilah being transported into the forest. My dad and I went and explored, trying to find a good place to film, and found someone getting married! That was really cool to see although, the music did disrupt my filming process a little bit. 

My dad and I looking for a place to film.

Me taking a break from filming, due to the wedding on the other side of the trees

I am also very proud of how my project turned out as a whole. Even though some parts of the process were stressful, I carried on and tried to make the best of what I could do. Although I keep saying it throughout my blog posts, I am really happy with how both my film opening and my CCR turned out. Things didn't necessarily go my way, especially with my CCR being a little bit too long, but I still think I made something great. I am going to miss creating these posts and working on my project but I can't wait for it to finally be shown online! Both my film opening and my CCR will be in the next two posts, I hope you enjoy watching them as I have enjoyed creating them. 

CCR Process

 I finally finished my CCR! It was a long, and kind of stressful process but I'm really happy with how it turned out. In this blog post, I will detail the entire process of creating my CCR. 

I first started by answering the given CCR questions. I answered the first two questions during my spring break to get a head start when I came back. On Monday, when I came back from my much-needed break, I reworked my schedule to fit what would work best in terms of working on and finishing my CCR. After I did that, I completed the script for my first CCR (linked here), then did my third CCR question (I meant to do them both but procrastination beat me). On Tuesday, I didn't do as much as I would've liked. I finished all of the assigned CCR questions by completing the fourth and final one (my CCR question answers can be found here). Wednesday was also not as productive as I would've liked it to be as I only filmed the first CCR and began writing the second CCR's script. Filming was not the smoothest process and took much longer than I anticipated. To read what I wrote on camera, I downloaded a teleprompter app that would record me talking to the camera while moving text appeared on the screen. This was incredibly useful because I no longer needed to memorize what I was going to say, I could just read it and it would appear the same on camera. My plan was to read everything at once and then decide what I was going to cut and edit later. This didn't work very well because it was hard to say everything coherently in one take. I then had to go back to my script and work out what I was going to do as a voiceover and what I was going to film. Once that was done, I began filming. After several takes of each line and struggling to correctly readjust the camera, I finished my talking heads and then recorded my voiceovers. Those were much easier and faster to record because I didn't have to worry about the camera angles or my facial expressions, I could just talk. As mentioned in a previous blog post about my CCR approach, I mentioned that my second CCR would be in a "talk show" format. I realized as I was writing the second script that this was going to be incredibly difficult to accomplish with the amount of time I had so, I decided to do a podcast interview instead. I asked the same friend if they were still willing to do the project in a different format, and they said yes so, I got to writing.

Thursday had to be my most productive day by far. I started by finishing the second CCR script (linked here) in class, and when I got home, I began to edit my first CCR. I put all of the clips on the Premiere Pro timeline in order and cut them accordingly. When finished, it was six minutes and twenty seconds long. I realized time might be an issue, but decided to wait to finish filming and editing my other CCR to balance the times to get to the recommended ten-minute time frame. As I put the clips and voiceovers on the timeline, my friend Natalia came over to film her parts of my second CCR. She did so and it went very well, only having to rerecord a few times. When she left, I recorded my lines, which went just as smoothly. After that, I continued to edit my first CCR for a little bit longer before continuing the next day. On Friday, I edited almost all of my second CCR and worked on cutting down the length of my first CCR. When I put all of the voiceovers on my timeline for the second CCR, it came to seven minutes and thirty seconds. I panicked a little bit knowing that was going to put me way over time, especially knowing my first CCR was six minutes and twenty seconds so I started to cut them down. I started on my second CCR by speeding up all of the clips because we both talked kind of slowly. This helped more than I anticipated, it got me to six minutes and thirty seconds. I then sped up the voiceovers on my first CCR and got to five minutes and fifty-eight seconds. That was all I did, for editing on Friday, but I finished the next day by picking up where I left off. I started on the second CCR, wanting to get that completely done. I made some cuts to parts I thought were unnecessary or times where I sounded repetitive. This got me to five minutes and fifty-three seconds. I felt there was nothing else I was able to cut or change, so I had to leave it as it was. I listened to it and exported it. One done! I moved on to my first CCR and upon viewing it, I realized I missed exporting an important clip which put me back close to where I had started with time so, I sped up the clips of me talking to the camera. After doing that and cutting unnecessary footage, I was at five minutes and fifty-two seconds. Again, I felt this was the best I could get without cutting anything important, so I left it as is. I then added the graphics and clips that go over the voice-overs, I found copyright-free music online and put it on the timeline, and completed the credits putting the project just under six minutes. I reviewed my finished CCR, and then I exported it. I was finally finished.

Although both of my CCRs combined became over the recommended ten minutes, I felt that I cut my projects to the bare minimum and only kept what was required to answer the questions fully and completely. I am very proud of my final products and am sad that this project is coming to a close. 

Final Group Meeting!

In class today we met with groups one final time before we were to submit our projects next week. In my group were Camila, Mari, Daniel, and Ace. If you recall, Daniel and Ace were in my group during our last meeting. We each took turns talking about each of our projects and where we were at with our progress. After that, I watched Camila and Ace’s projects. Both of which were fantastic. They were so cool, and engaging, and shot very well. I saw some of what Daniel did and it was pretty good. I wish I could’ve seen more of it, but it wasn’t complete. I wasn’t able to watch Mari’s because it was on her partner’s home computer but the clips she showed me were good. 

The Final Group! (Camila is on the left, Daniel is behind her, Mari is in the front, Ace is in the back and I’m on the right)

I then showed my film opening to everyone and got some feedback. Most of it was generally positive which was good, but I did get constructive criticism, which was honestly even better. A general critique was with the alarm sound. It was too loud and didn’t feel like it was the diegetic sound that I wanted it to come across as. Camila suggested recording an alarm sound with my phone and putting the sound a bit farther from the microphone to make it sound more realistic. Mari told me that the sound was a bit off when the alarm goes off and stops. Ace mentioned the cut when I grab the book that shows the title was a bit obvious and that I should maybe speed up the clip instead of doing a cut. Daniel mentioned that some of the credits were a bit hard to read because they were moving quickly. These are all good and fair critiques from my peers. I am going to incorporate them and fix what is necessary to make my project even better.

My entire project is almost complete. Once I make these changes, my film opening will be officially done and I am currently working on my CCR. Once I am done with that, I will be completely finished! I am really happy with the work I’ve created and I can’t wait to post the final product. 

CCR Approach

 Now that I have finished filming, editing, and reflecting on the opening for my film, Lost in the Pages, it is now time to focus on my CCR. 

The CCR, or Creative Critical Reflection, is, as the title states, a reflection of my project process through two different creative mediums by answering previously provided questions. The previously provided questions are as follows:

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

4. How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware, and online – in this project?

For my CCR, I am going to split these questions in half for my two different creative mediums. After looking at some examples provided by my teacher, I have decided how I am going to approach these split questions. The first two questions are going to be answered by me just talking about them in front of a camera, presenting research, and showing clips of not only my film but, others that have inspired it as well. I chose this method because it is simple, informative, and can allow me to provide my answers in a very clear and concise way. The last two questions are going to be answered in a talk show format. A friend of mine is going to be reading the questions and I am going to be answering them as if I were promoting the movie on TV. I chose this format because it's a fun way for me to answer my questions and incorporate my friends in the process. 

Creating the CCR is going to be a great way for me to summarize my thoughts and experiences of working on this project in a fun and experimental way.

Production Reflection

 My production process is complete! It was a long process but I really like what I have created. In this post, I am going to reflect on what I have done and highlight some of the key moments in my process. 

It started with an idea (that sounds so cheesy). I knew I wanted to create a fantasy film, so I began my research. One of the first blog posts I had done was research on the fantasy genre, so that became useful because I could build on it and elaborate further. As I was doing research, I realized what I wanted my film's opening to be about and how it wanted to be portrayed. I looked at some film openings for films I love that were in the same genre to have a good reference and sense of inspiration that I could use in my project. Once I knew exactly what I was going to do, It was time to plan everything out. 

When planning, I started with the plot. I developed what the plot for the entire movie would be if I was to film and write it all. As someone who loves creative writing, this was really fun. I also developed the main character, Delilah, which was just as fun. I love creating and developing characters, especially through mediums like Pinterest and Spotify. My favorite part of planning however was creating the mise-en-scene elements in my film opening. Although it was time-consuming, I thought it was so fun to create the little details that don't usually cross people's minds but are essential in making a film what it is. Although I'm upset I never got a response from the music artists I liked with permission to use their song, the song I chose ended up working perfectly with my opening, so I don't regret a thing. I did the screenplay, storyboard, and shot list to finish up my preparations and know exactly what I wanted to do shot by shot, then I was able to film. 

Filming, aside from the rough start, went very well. When I wasn't able to begin filming on the day I anticipated, I'm not going to lie, I panicked. After evaluating my options and dressing the set, I filmed with minimal issues the next day. I was able to finish filming everything in one day which was great because allowed me more time to edit. Editing was a bit different. Editing was a bit more stressful, mostly due to time constraints. I didn't have as much time as I thought. As mentioned in other posts, editing took longer than expected and was the part of the project where I made the most changes. I cut parts of my project down, added more footage to the end, and changed the main effects. I was surprised I changed anything but, I realized through the process that change was important and required for the project to meet certain requirements. 

I loved creating my film opening. It was cool having so much creative liberty over a big project like this and so cool to be able to dictate every single choice that was made. From creating the concept to research to filming to editing, it was awesome. I'll admit, at times working on this project was definitely stressful. Moments that come to my mind are being so busy I barely had time to sleep, filming complications, and editing time, but I was able to overcome all of them and come up with something amazing.