Creative Critical Reflection

Here's my CCR!

ALONE

Attached below is my film opening, ALONE. Enjoy!

Finally...

Guys. It is done! All of it!

Jorge made a brilliant piece for my film and the second I heard it, I started laughing because of how perfect it is for my film.

He emailed it to me earlier this morning, along with an email in which he gave me his permission to use this piece. I spent about an hour or so, adding the crescendo part to my film because I wanted to make sure it sounded perfect.

The audio starts the second Cynthia gets up to (verbally) fight Danny. I wanted to put emphasis on the severity of the situation, from Kyle's perspective, and I figured the best way to do that is to start the music at that part. As the video gets closer to the climax, I increased the volume of the music clip so kind of put my audience on edge. The audio stops right when Sydney enters the scene. I used this part to end the audio clip because I wanted to show that her entering the scene drags him out of his state. He comes back to reality, AKA his dominant identity.

Although I don't know much about the technical aspect of music, I think this clip goes perfectly with the feel of my film. My biggest worry was that I wouldn't be entirely satisfied with this composed music, and therefore would not use it and have to find something online. But, this is great.

I cannot explain to you guys how happy I am with how this whole project turned out! 😊

Looking back at the process..

This has definitely been the most interesting project we've done in this class! I started out not having any clue about what I want to do and now I have an almost finished project that I'm very proud of.

Creating a psych thriller most definitely proved to be a challenge because although I've watched lots and lots of psych thrillers, I had not created my own, original film. I chose a film opening because I thought it would be easier than a magazine, but just starting my film was so challenging or me that I wished I had picked a magazine. Even during most of the script writing and editing part of it, I wished I'd chosen the magazine. But, I actually modeled for one of my friends' magazines and watching her made me realize how hard magazine making is. Anyway, right now I'm very satisfied with myself and my project an I'm glad I chose this.

Also, here's a picture of Taylor Barton, who plays Sydney in the film. She is Kyle's sister in the film.

Below are some of the major issues that I faced during this process. 

The Beginning

Right when I started this project I realized just how hard script writing can be. I had no clue what I was doing, or what my movie was going to be about. It took me almost two weeks to have a proper plot in my head that I could turn into words. Without Taylor's help, I might not have finished the plot until much later.

The Middle

The filming was extremely stressful. I thought I was past the hard part when I had developed a plot and a script but boy, I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, my actors were great! But, on the first day of filming, due to problems with individual schedules, we couldn't finish filming. We had to meet again. But, we couldn't finalize dates until Jose (who plays Danny) gave us one. Then, on the day of filming Diego (Kyle) lost the shirt that he wore on the first day of filming, so we had to refilm the whole thing. Luckily, I had already edited and compiled the parts that we filmed on day one, so I only filmed from the shots and angles that I needed. After that, my friend who was originally supposed to act as Sydney couldn't do it anymore due to some problems so I had to ask Taylor to fill in for her.

The End

The editing went much quicker than I thought. But the cutting-down-to-two-minutes part was harder than I imagined. The introductory audio sounded pretty good too. The only thing I'm worried about now is the crescendo that my friend, Jorge, is making for me. I don't know when he will be done with it, but hopefully soon because I need to sort of blend it into my video and make sure it gels well with the rest of the video. I will have him write me an email, formally giving me permission to use his music, and when that happens, I'll post a screenshot of it! 

That's all I had to say about this journey! It's been a good time, and a very interesting one too. I'm going to work on and finish my CCR tomorrow so I don't have to worry about that the last moment (because I have the crescendo to worry about ha!). Thank you for following me in this long process!

Target Audience

One of the most important elements of film making is knowing what your target audience is.

When I started making this film opening, I made it so that it appealed to viewers of about my age. I wanted to make it exciting and fast paced. I even added the job part to make it seem relatable and I hope I succeeded.

The general target audience for these films include people that are 18+ years old, because some of the content in these films, like serial killings and psychological disorders, is very graphic for young children. This also appeals more to females than males because of the lack of physical violence- fighting scenes, battles, etc- that is portrayed in action films.

I also found out that thrillers often bring out emotional and mental conflicts, which often attracts less males.

Most films' target audiences vary from film to film. Films like the Scream series (1996 dir. by Wes Craven) may be more appealing and interesting for people between the ages 18-25 because the protagonists are young and go to high school and college which makes it easy for the audience to relate to them. Films that are more intellectually demanding have an audience range from 35-45 years such as Memento (2000 dir. by Christopher Nolan).

Out of all the different types of thriller I researched, psych thrillers proved to be the most intellectually demanding ones because of the complex disorders and mental workings of the protagonists. The mature themes and twists may be hard for a younger audience to understand.

Although my film is a psych thriller, it is more suited towards a younger audience of 18-22 years old because I made it so that it attracts people my age.

Hopefully, it'll be received by viewers the way I want it to be.

Sounds of my Film 2.0

(I know, I'm not very creative when it comes to blog titles)

Okay, so my film is nearly complete! woooo!! 😄

I talked to my teacher and she made it very clear that it cannot be over two minutes, but we settled on cutting it down 2:03 minutes. Hopefully, the additional three seconds won't negatively affect my grade.

I now need to focus on the music part. I talked about using an audio clip called Ectoplasm in one of my initial blogs. Initially, when I started putting together all the shots, I didn't think it would sound good but when I added it, I felt that it really went well with the vibe of the film. I still haven't figured out how to upload an audio clip here, but if I do, I'll definitely post it here. I like the way Ectoplasm sounds and I'm glad I found that music early on in this process so I didn't have to worry too much about music.

The only thing remaining now is the crescendo foreshadowing the climax of my film. Two of my highly musically talented friends have agreed to compose that part for me! Since I finished my video last night, I'm going to send it to them today. The thing that worries me about this is that my video is due in exactly a week and I'm not sure if they have enough time to create something. Preferably, I'd want the music ready by Friday (04/07) so I have some buffering time between that and the day the project is due. I'm going to leave some room for error, although I really hope I don't need it.


I'm also going to try and find some audio clips of crescendos online, just to be safe. If things don't go the way I've planned, I want to be able to have a backup. I found two websites (one and two) that seem pretty good and have royalty-free music and I will got through them all, when I get home tonight.

The Ectoplasm part gels really well with the entire video but I'm afraid the crescendo part might not. My friends are going to watch my video and then create something. They will be making something more personalized for me, but finding the right audio online will be a challenge. Let's hope they have enough time to make something brilliant for me so I don't have to worry too much about it!

I need to start thinking about my creative critical reflection (CCR) now!

Continuation of the Editing Process

Guys, I'm almost done with the editing!

I spent most of my weekend editing and compiling all of the videos and the different takes that we did. I really like how everything's come out.

The only part that I still have left to film is the last part where a friend/sibling opens the door to check on Kyle, although I'm not too worried about getting that part right because it's very short.

This is all of what I have left to record and I plan on getting it done on Monday. My friend is coming over then and we'll film this one part. I don't need any of the other actors for this because Sydney is not in the frame with Kyle.

While editing, my biggest problem was cutting the clips down because my video is currently at (without the last short scene) 2:24 minutes. When I was making my storyboard, I wanted to add a lot of jump cuts and sharp cuts at the end but when I was first compiling the videos, I didn't incorporate any jump cuts. I took a 180 degree shot of the two alters fighting followed by zooming in on Kyle as he got more and more upset. I really liked the way it looked but as I started cutting down on the unnecessary parts, I realized that that part would need to be cut short. So, to sort of combine the sharp cuts and the 180 degree shot, I cut out the few seconds between each dialogue. I feel like this gives it a rushed and panicky sort of vibe. It didn't help much with the cutting-down-time part but now I like the way it looks. Next class, I'm going to show it to a couple of my friends and get some critiques.

I also decided on the film title! It's called "Alone". Diego suggested it the other day and I kind of like it. It's not the most original or exciting title, but until I can come up with something better, I'm sticking with "Alone". I feel like this suits the film because the whole time, Kyle is alone. He thinks that there's people around him and that he's having real conversations but it's actually just him, by himself. He's alone.

My friend sent me the link to the video attached below, a few days ago. I was talking to her about my film and how it's loosely based on MPD when she told me about a video that she found online. It has nothing to do with my video besides its concept of MPD but I thought the video was amazing and so spooky. I just wanted to share it with you guys so here it is-

Also, here are some bloopers from day 2 of filming!