CCR

Ta-da! here she is, my Creative Critical Reflection.

This CCR has literally kept me up ALL night. After editing it FOR HOURS my hard drive decided it was so full that it would stop backing up my final cut pro progress. Basically, the entire day of editing I had done the day before(I worked form 3pm to 3am w/breaks) WAS GONE. In the least dramatic and intense way possible: a little part of me died when I found this out. And then, I had to delete all of the photos from my computer, uninstall GarageBand, and delete all of my unused render files to start editing everything... again. After a night of hysterical editing, I was actually able to piece everything together; my file was so big that the estimated time it would take to import was 44 hours. Thankfully, I was able to compress that video but had to sacrifice some image quality (it still took forever) However, I don't want to end this project on a bad note.

I want to express that I am very proud of my work in this project and loved the creative freedom that I was able to explore while making my opening and CCR. I have grown so much from this experience and will take the things I learned with me in future projects. Thanks for following my journey ❤️

Film Opening!

Annika:*Curtsies*
Nobody:*Cares*
Here she is! Ready to be watched (and hopefully enjoyed 😉) I am glad to announce that this project is #FINISHED!! The title of this blog entry is just a joke by the way, I am actually VERY PROUD right now.
☺︎☺︎☺︎
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UNTITLED by: Annika Mussell (Yes,  "untitled" is my title)

Genre: Drama

P.S. For an optimal experience listen at 3/4 volume

Backup link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o0MysQsdI_ZC0DOzUUtx7toY5w08caLF/view?usp=sharing

FONTS & FOLEY!

FONTS:
I went over to Dafont.com to download some new fonts for the credits. I was looking for something that looks handwritten and artistic, similar to the opening credits in Call Me By Your Name. Below are the major contendors that I downloaded and tried out.

The CHOSEN ones:
I have decided to go two-toned and duo-font. The titles (ie:director, writer, star, etc.)will be in a light neon yellow and in Scotties, while the actual names will be white in Rawk Brush.

Proof Below!!

FOLEY:
In order to further develop my story and maintain the interest of the viewer, I decided against simply having the music be the only sound to hear the entire two minutes. I feel like one would get audibly bored after a while. After 1 minute of no ambient sound, your ears would no longer be attentive and expect sounds apart form the music. For that reason, I decided that I wanted to add ambient, synchronous noises that match the actions being done on screen. The first thing I did was go through my videos including movement and checking to see if I could somehow enhance and increase their volume to make it more impactful. Next, I made the list below detailing certain scenes that had weird, anti-climatic, or too quiet audio.

Time in the video	Sound needed in the video at that time
1:19	Rhythmic scraping sound
1:27	Low buzz/ vibrating cell phone
1:39	Rag hits wall
1:42	Hand scrapes canvas vigorously

After, I got some props and searched on the Youtube library for new sounds. Below is a picture of some of the props I used.

https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/soundeffects?ar=1586784089090&nv=1

Brief Reflection

I know you guys (blog) have seen my whole journey, but here is a quick reflection + timeline refresh on my process for this project:

My portfolio project definitely did not end up as I had initially expected. My opening has gone through numerous stages these past two months; I changed my idea multiple times, ranging from horror to comedy. But, throughout the entire process, I always prioritized creativity and originality; it was really important for me that my project would be different and individual in its own way. I didn’t want to make something predictable or expected. 

Since the beginning of the academic school year, I was sure that I was going to make a suspense or horror film. I thought it could be easily executed and did not require much acting; however, I quickly found that picking something because you think it is easy will never get you results that you are proud of. I racked my brain thinking about a cool, unique idea for my horror movie: from cults to yoga zombies, but all of my suggestions were not very realistic or unique. I noticed that I never actually watch scary movies and that I tend to not enjoy horror as much as other genres. It came to me that I should probably pick comedy, a genre that I actually like and would be able to use my real-life experience by having watched those kinds of movies before. Off the bat, I already had many more concrete ideas. I landed on a specific idea that I really liked and immediately decided to start planning for it. I did my research, planned my entire storyboard, made the script, bought the necessary props, learned to use a DSLR, designed and put the costumes together, briefed my actress, and redecorated my entire room. Everything was ready and set for filming. And then, the very first day of filming was the day that the COVID-19 pandemic began affecting the United States. 

My opening was technique and dialogue-driven, so I needed an actress that I could no longer invite to my house and filming equipment that I was supposed to borrow from friends that were isolating themselves. From that point forward, I came to the realization that I was going to have to turn everything around and start over for I was to only use what there was in my house to film. Thankfully, my mother agreed to be my actress after the rest of my family members refused, but she did not want to speak or have any lines in the opening. Conveniently, my sister found an amazing classical song that was in the public domain called Zigeunerweisen by Pablo Saraste. It was originally 9 minutes long, but my sister and I were able to arrange it to 2 minutes. It is a very intense song and I got the idea of making my film opening about an artist experiencing an intense burst of inspiration. I thought it could be very unique but at the same time convenient since my mother is already an artist, I paint and am familiar with artistic practices, and we have all of the props needed in my house. This was by far the most passionate and excited I had been for one of my project ideas. I was absolutely sure that this was the one.

I split the filming into 2 days. One that required my actress and another for B-roll of the location. Filming took many hours, but we got very high-quality footage in the process. I spent about 3 whole days editing the project. Since the music I chose is so fast and energetic, the opening required a lot of footage, and a lot of editing; however, I think that in the end, this served me as a strength for I think it maintains the interest of the audience throughout the entire 2 minutes. I spent the next few days retouching some of the editing, creating some foley sounds, animating my production company logo and picking an appropriate font for the film. 

Overall, I think this experience has shown me how creativity is a process and that adapting to new challenges can actually make you a better creator. I would not have made the portfolio project that I made today, if I had not been faced with coronavirus limitations. I would not have created my opening the way I did, were it not for all of the worse ideas that I discarded or my failures while trying to execute them. I have noticed that many of the obstacles that I had to overcome while making this film opening, actually ended up making me a stronger camerawoman, director, and writer.

"Making" a Production Company

Since I kind of have complete freedom on the name and design of my production company, I started overthinking really hard and just decided to use a random word generator to find a word I might of like.

I used- https://randomword.com/ in my search.
Some of the best results:

Mantis Fountain Mood Philosophy Establishment Atmosphere Championship

Even after spending waaay to much time on this Random Word Generator, I still wasn't very excited about any of the words they came up. They didn't really seem personal enough so I gave up on the whole letting the internet pick for me. I started thinking of what is important to me and where my interest in film started. I first started making my own videos when I was about 7 years old just as I moved into a new house in Lima, Perú (where I am from). My house's street address was La Alameda del Corregidor. For that reason, I chose Alameda Productions as my production company. I like how the word sounds and it has sentimental meaning to me. In Spanish, alameda translates to walkway or promenade.

Next, I picked a design:
I just wanted to go with a simple black and white design with a minimalistic font. I used the graphic design tool: Canva to create the design. For fonts, I used Amiko Bold for the top line and Open Sans Light for the bottom line as well as add some dots to separate them.

Then, I used an animation application called Flippa Clip to animate a simple road or path stemming from the center of the logo to the right side of the screen at 25 frames per second.

Final Result:

Editing Day #1+ #2+ #3

Editing Software Used:
FINAL CUT PRO X

I chose to use this software because my years making home videos for myself and school research projects on iMovie has made me kind of an expert on the program. However, on my latest project, iMovie failed me :( When I made a music video for this class, after editing the whole thing, my video was full of glitches when I played it back and exported it, despite all of my uncorrupt footage coming from an iPhone, a format the software should be most familiar with. I did not want to take any chance for a project as important as this one, so I got Final Cut Pro X, a more advanced version of iMovie that still shares a lot of the same features. To start out, I watched a couple of videos on the program and was quickly able to catch on.

Day #1-Friday	Day #2-Saturday	Day #3-Sunday
Time- 01:45:34 - 02:03:59	Time-  00:42:07 - 01:45:34	Time- 00:00:00 - 00:42:07

Today I edited the last 15 seconds of my opening video. I originally wanted to edit it in order but found out restricting myself that way was just going to make me not do my best work on the part I was working. I really need to be inspired and have a purpose when I edit in order to stay motivated and churn out well-edited content. I noticed that a lot of my (supposed to be)still, long establishing shots for the opening credit scenes were really shaky and quickly got discouraged when editing the beginning. But, as soon as we "wrapped";) filming and I saw the second to last shot, I had already visualized the entire ending in my head. It was kind of a lucky shot because we only had one chance to do it, yet it came out PERFECTLY! At first, I was very anxious that my footage would end up disappointing me (Sorry my Wednesday post was kind of dramatic), but the ending remotivated me and got me super excited to continue editing. Even though I only edited a total of 15 seconds, they were definitely not an easy 15 seconds to edit. Once you guys watch my opening, you will understand how the last 15 seconds of the scene display my character at her most, creative, chaotic, and frantic state. In those 15 seconds, I make a total of 19 cuts, use 20 different pieces of video, and have videos 15 milliseconds at the shortest. To say editing this section was difficult would be very accurate, but the ⌘B(split) and the Precision Editor definitely saved me! The major editing technique I used today is called FAST CUTTING: "a film editing technique which refers to several consecutive shots of a brief duration. It can be used to convey a lot of information very quickly, or to imply either energy or chaos"(Wikipedia)

I did the bulk of the editing today; I am actually very pleased with how much I got done. I am happy that today was so efficient because I can finally see everything start to come together and it is turning out really cool in my opinion. I like the balance I am creating via editing. The goal is to somewhat disorient the viewer during times of chaos and bursts of inspiration, while still having long, more prolonged pauses at times when my character is in deep thought or frustrated. I don't want to make the whole video dizzying, simply use fast-paced editing to express and take the audience on the psychological journey that my character is feeling while she paints. It is cool how much energy and anxiety I can create in the "emotional aura"/vibe of a scene based on where and how I piece the video together. I am closely following my storyboard to edit. I am very glad that I made a storyboard that was so in-depth because having a second-to-second plan made the editing process go a lot more smoothly for me; I did not have the responsibility to make stuff up as I went, and I think this significantly contributed to my stamina and efficiency while editing. Although, I did end up slightly changing a few shots and editing techniques every now and then, my storyboard was still extremely helpful. Today I ran into a little bit of trouble editing some of the scenes at the beginning of the movie opening. A couple of my shots (ei: #12 on Storyboard: Splattering paint on canvas) were a lot shorter than I had originally blocked out for them, and since a lot of the shots were time-based and depended on the music, I had to use b-roll to fill in gaps between shots I took or slow the shorts down. Overall, this issue did not end up hurting my video in any way and only took some time to fix.

Today was probably the easiest day editing-wise. I mainly focused on retouching yesterday's work and the beginning credits. I have yet to choose a font, but I have all of my names picked out. I had initially planned to have the first 18.5 seconds be a single shot of my character sitting while using camera movement (zoom out from blank canvas to long shot) to maintain interest. However, I did not own or had space in the room to use a dolly and my camera's zoom function was very fast and non-dramatic. For that reason, I just planned on using ken burns cropping to get the intended effect. Unfortunately, when I tried using ken burns, it looked absolutely awful, so I just ended up scrapping the idea and used the best b-roll I had of my mother's sculptures to fill the space in. Overall, I actually think it looks better with the b-roll than what I had planned so it ended up helping me in the end. I wrote all of the credits necessary, found the correct sizing, timed their appearances and positioned them. Now all I have to do is pick an appropriate font. I know I want to pick something that looks handwritten and is art-related, but there are so many to choose from. I'll pick one soon though. Although today was relatively easy since I used a total of 8 different videos and cut 7 times, I did have to have a couple of challenges to deal with today. As I mentioned on Friday. Some of the shots that I got on Film Day #1 were not the easiest to work with- some were very shaky and unfocused. To remedy this to the best of my abilities, I used the "stabilizing" feature on my editing software and slowed down the footage to make the unwanted movement less obvious. Although it is not perfect, the quality is definitely better.

The video is basically done!!! I am so relieved with what I have :) I can wait for everyone to see it! YAYYY.
Checklist
-Folley
-Font
-Production Company Logo
-POST IT ON BLOGGER

Shoutouts:
Shoutout to the ⌘B (split )function- You SAVED ME and made editing infinitely easier!

Shoutout to my twin sister- she is a musical genius and helped me find the perfect timing for a shot.
Shoutout to the FAM!- They gave me a ton of feedback and did not get impatient no matter how many times I asked them for opinions. My video would not be the same if it weren't for the constructive criticism I got from my family group chat. We have all heard the song so many times that we could probably play the song on the violin ourselves.

What my final cut pro tab looks like now!

Editing Nerves

Ahhhh! I feel a lot of pressure right now! My whole family is invested in my project now and my relatives are starting to push wanting to see it. Now that I have everything filmed there is no going back, I am going to have to work with what I have got! (don't get me wrong) I mean I like/am proud of the footage that I got, I'm just scared that now its all in my hands and the only thing I can do now is edit... hopefully to perfection. For so long it was just an idea that was perfect in my head, but now I have the responsibility of making it perfect in real life you know what I mean? Before, I was really scared to film too, because I was constantly afraid that I wouldn't be able to capture the footage necessary to bring my idea to life; I had so many "visions" in my head for what my project could be that I was nervous that I could never get it out and make it something real/ catch the moments I wanted. It has happened to me before where I have this idea stuck in my head, and I confidently stage and later film it, but when I get to editing, only then do I fully get the soul-crushing feeling that all of my footage is trash and I am going to have to "survive" for this project instead make something I will be proud of; You don't entirely realize the quality of your footage until you get to editing, and now that I am here, I don't want to start editing because I am worried it will happen to me now. That was a little deep... whoops. Anyways, I have to start editing, I just wanted to get that off my chest before I start. Ok.. bye.