Creative Critical Reflection Rough Draft #4

How did you integrate technologies in this project?

Throughout the process of editing our film, we were allowed to use our teacher's camera, a Cannon DSLR, to film. This was extremely helpful as the camera was very nice and captured clear, well developed pictures and scenes. After filming, we used several editing sources in order create all the post production effects. For our first submission, we used a movie editing software program called Movavi, which was really simple and easy to use for our project, something vital to two young directors having no experience in editing whatsoever. On this program, we were able to piece together our footage, incorporate sounds and music, and add text to the beginning scenes. We added the title, "A Not So Lovely Love Story", the main two actors, the rest of the cast, and Marin and I's names within the opening credits.  However, when it came time to submit our first draft, we realized that there was a large watermark covering the middle of the film. This was ultimately distracting to the audience and caused us to change our editing program. We switched to the editing cite iMovie to erase the watermark. This meant we had to save all the footage we had shot to a flash-drive from my computer, downloading it onto Marin's computer, going through and picking out the footage used in our film, downloading it onto iMovie, piecing it together on the new cite, finding new music and sound effects, and recreating the opening credits where we chose a font that would appear fun and playful as well as colors to brighten the mood. After a later reevaluation, we also used my iPhone to record voice over audio and iMovie to edit onto the film. 

Creative Critical Reflection Rough Draft #3

How did your production skills develop with this project?

Throughout the filming process of our extract, we encountered a series of difficulties during the process. To begin with, initially Marin and I were in a predicament about what genre of film we would produce. Marin was favorable of a comedic film, as she enjoys silly movies that make her laugh. Now, while I didn't completely hate this idea, I did not want to make a comedy film as I knew that sometimes teen actors trying to be funny and teen audiences do not mix well. While Marin agreed with my reasoning, however she argued that while some comedy films are viewed as "trying to hard", ours would portray natural comedy and cause our audiences to laugh and relate to the film. I then suggested we do a romantic film because I believe that everyone can enjoy a cute love story about high school sweethearts. By following a conventional story of a high school cheerleader and the football star, we could get our audiences to relate to the teen aspect  of the film as well as get a cute reaction. Unfortunately, Marin was not a huge supporter of this idea, mainly due to the fact that she felt it would lack interest and bore our audiences.  However, after a small discussion of arguing our reasoning that our film idea was the better option, we decided to combine the two ideas, creating a popular movie genre: a romantic comedy. By doing this, we could incorporate the comedic aspect and appeal to our audiences humorous side, appeasing Marin, also employing a romantic aspect to add to the quaint pleasantness of the film, compromising with my ideas as well. Additionally, this issue aided in Marin and I's problem solving and collaboration skills which is important when two or more people are working together to create a film.

While beginning the filming process, Marin and I quickly discovered the difficulties within deciding film times that would accommodate everyone within the cast as well as Marin and I's schedules. As many of the cast members were part of our at the time school production, Radium Girls, where Andrew, Pipa, Lily, Liam, and myself has major roles and had to commit large amounts of time to rehearsals, we struggled to find times where we could film with everyone there. Not only this, Mary Margaret is a cheerleader for our school and their practices are just as demanding as ours. This resulted in lots of frustration from Marin and I. However, as I have a class with a few of my cast members, I did a majority of the filming there and saved the rest for the short time window right after school and before rehearsal. This advanced my time management skills and directors need to be flexible with their actors and their availability and know how to work around their schedules while still being productive.

Additionally, within the process of film making, I had many opportunities to gain experience with using a camera and film editing. When we began, I little to no experience with either of those. However, this quickly changed as Andrew, a lead role in our film, is very interested in art and photography. He helped me figure out the best angles to go with lighting as well as some useful editing techniques such as how to increase the volume within the film and much more. On our finalized film version, this was especially helpful as we recorded voice overs on certain lines that  were not easily heard and making sure they could be. This along with everything else I learned truly gave me an appreciation and understanding of what goes into the filming process. While filming on location, I discovered how cast members build their characters without a live audience which looked difficult yet was fascinating to me as that is all I know how to do.  Overall, during the production of our film, I strengthened and further developed my skills as a director and actor during the process. 

Creative Critical Reflection Rough Draft #2

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

During the cast process of our film, we wanted the cast to be a group of close-knit friends who could be comfortable acting as they naturally would at school with each other and bickering and being mean without it being awkward. Marin and I decided to cast Mary Margaret and Andrew and four of their closest friends who are involved in our school's theater program. Therefore, this ensures the cast will be comfortable and be able to have fun on set with their fellow cast members while being able to employ the experience they have acting to make the movie as great as it can be. Katie was cast as Mrs. Headle mainly for her ability to portray "over the top" characters in a natural and confident way. She is one of my close friends and is also extremely familiar with the rest of the cast, making it easier for the scene to flow as normally as possible. This normalcy portrayed on screen will hopefully reflect onto the audience and relax them so they and enjoy the film as much as possible. By casting people who have already formed relationships, Marin and I ensured that as our characters have a natural, friendly, and comedic relation shown within our movie, and as a result this will impression onto the audience.

As a real media text, our film would be distributed through independent film companies and displayed at small scale film festivals, where there will fluid audiences who are open and interested in any type of films. Our film incorporates the idea of a romantic comedy of a high school love story, but with a twist. This will hopefully excite the audience to attend these festivals and watch online through independent film company websites. For example, websites such as IndieReign and YouTube would also be extremely beneficial to widening our audiences and gaining the attention needed to attract them. With this start, positive advertising from audiences who watch it on these websites could result in even more increased awareness. Likewise, Sarasota hosts an annual film festival open to anyone wanting to submit a film. The Sarasota Film Festival runs from April 5 through April 14 this year. My town also has a Sarasota Film Society, which is a nonprofit, member-supported organization, dedicated to providing the highest levels of entertainment and education to the public from all areas of the film industry. This company has two locations in Burns Court and Lakewood Ranch Cinemas. Additionally, the Sarasota Film Society holds the Cine-World Film Festival each year which Marin and I could submit our film and audiences could attend and view or film. This year, it runs November 1 through November 10. Like other film festivals or websites, this could gain an audience or at least some popularity for our film.

Creative Critical Reflection Rough Draft #1

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

After re-recording the audio and re-editing the footage together, Marin and I became more focused on the comedy aspect of our film. As the film we are trying to create is a romantic comedy, we realized we needed to resemble our film to represent a entertaining situation through a comedic relationship between two characters. We wanted to portray the affect of petty disputes and use their actions, words, and relationship to convey a comedic mood to the audience. By employing the use of bright colors, sunlit scenes, playful music, and hilarious and flamboyant characters we can encourage the audience the laugh thus fulfilling our goal.

Throughout our film, Marin and I attempted to use popular conventions and techniques employed in other romantic comedy films. We had done research to gather the ideas needed in order to recreate those certain techniques by finding popular romantic comedies and high speed scrubbing through the film and picking apart scenes to find specific elements we wanted to incorporate into ours. For example, within the movie The Kissing Booth we see two main characters, Elle and Noah, sharing a long anticipated romantic moment and sealing it with a passionate kiss. To demonstrate the importance with this union, the camera begins to spin around the pair. As the kiss grows in intensity, the camera rotates faster and faster, singling them out, making it seem they are the only people in the world. Sparks literally fly as the big, illuminated "KISS" sign behind them shatters and bursts its bulbs. We decided to employ this technique in a slightly simpler form to use within our film. As our two protagonists come together in a forced although comedic romantic moment, we filmed as the camera spins around them, symbolizing the union and intimacy as they finally meet in a more peaceful way. By using this tactic, we the filmmakers can communicate to the audience that there is great significance in the kiss between the two.

Overall, our film challenged few conventions. However, the main challenge was the twist at the end. After our two bickering protagonists share a sweet and fleeting kiss while rehearsing a scene for the upcoming school play, Romeo and Juliet, there seems to be a moment of peace between the pair as the two gaze into each others eyes. They seem to find some common ground and maybe even a spark of romance between them. This tactic of using opposing characters who are forced to be civil due to a certain situation and, conventionally, will eventually fall in love or at least become close friends. However, within our film we decided that we would employ an unconventional technique by having the characters continue their dispute as a final twist. This surprise leaves the audiences wondering what happens to the two. This then has captured the audience's attention and will encourage them to watch the film to find out what happens.

Within the our film, the social groups that we chose to represent consists of high school youth and teachers in a humorous light. By incorporating these two groups, we created a silly tone over an comedic dispute as well as being inclusive in representing more than one social group. This not only appeals to teens who enjoy comedy and seeing other teens on the big screen, but older people who also find romantic comedies entertaining and wish to view their social group in a dramatic and humorous way. We hope this joining of two groups will encourage parents to bring their children and vice versa to enjoy a comedic film with characters who can relate to the them as well as connect with their family/friends.

Quarter Three Final Submission