Sunday, April 7, 2019

CCR

And here is my Creative Critical Reflection!!!


Thank you and enjoy!
Film Opening

Here it is!!!!


FAST LANE

Written, Directed, Produced & Edited by: Joshua Keller
Vocals by: Ethan Gaer and Joshua Keller
Main Actress: Andrea Martinez
CCR Planning

Now that I have completed the film by adding in the audio that I was missing, it is time to plan for my CCR. I used to provided questions as a guideline and tried to specifically plan and write a script where I answer them individually throughout my CCR. I will do this by screen recording my computer while doing a voiceover explain everything that the audience is looking at.

At first, I will take them through my blog and explain my developmental process throughout filming as well as explain all of the inspirations I took from my research and how I will use it to connect to the audience and reach out to as many viewers as possible. I will then take the viewer to iMovie, where I edited my film, and GarageBand, where I edited my audio. This will show how my production skills have developed and grown throughout this process.

Eventually I will show a YouTube video explaining how I was able to understand and mimic how real announcers talk at Track meets. I will post the outcome in my next post.
Editing

This week is going to be crazy, as it marks the end of my journey in this project. All I have left to do is record all the vocals as well as the CCR, and edit them into what I have done already in my project.

I met up with my friend Ethan and got him act as the announcer in my film. I went to his house and we recorded the voice over together. Here we are recording.



When adding in his voice over, I had to edit his actual voice and make it sound fuzzing and more realistic. I did this in garage band using the telephone feature as you can see below.


Sunday, March 31, 2019

Editing Starts

After my filming took place at UF, I had a long car ride home to begin sorting through and editing the shots I had. I knew that I could not possibly finish it all because I still have two more shots/scenes to film back at my high school. However I decided to go ahead edit anyway. I pieced together my shots into an order that made the most sense and cropped them to fit each other as seamlessly as possible. I also threw a filter over every shot, this dealt with the problem of differing light situations at each shot location.

The image above is a screenshot of part of the opening scene that I filmed. This shows how I dulled the colts in the shot and over exposed it, allowing me to mask the differences between my two main film locations, my high school track and the UF track.

To wrap up my fist editing session in the car, I also slowed down all of my shots to 75% speed. This allows for more of a "flash-forward" feel without too much of a noticeable difference. All in all, I am very happy with the way my film is coming together at this point and look forward to wrapping everything up this next week!
FILMING!!!

This week marked the my journey up to the University of Florida to film most of my project. I arrived on Thursday and scouted out the location, to make sure everything was to be in place. To my liking, it was! With the knowledge that my filming was going to be executed well, I went back to my hotel and prepared for the physical filming I had to do the next day. I forgot to take pictures during my location scouting session on Thursday, but trust me, I did it.

Friday was pretty eventful and I was able to gather a collection of roughly 100 different shots from around the track. I mostly followed the map I had prepared for myself in my past post and hopefully executed the shots well enough to make a complete film opening with no holes. Below are 4 of the  pivotal shots that I captured in their unedited versions.



Sunday, March 24, 2019

While waiting to film, I decided to create my film title and title screen. I brainstormed with my main actress and friends, and we settled on the title of "Fast Lane". Now all that's left to do with the title is create the title screen. This is my process in creating the title and adding into the rough cut of the first shots of the film.


Film Day at Cypress pt. 2

A couple of days ago, I realized that in my rough cut of my first shots in my opening scene, I made an error. One of the background actors accidentally false started and the clip can no longer be used. As you can see below, it is clear in the unedited version.

Because of this, I now have to reshoot at my school and cast all of these actresses again. I plan on doing this tomorrow because that is when I have my next practice scheduled and will have access to all the equipment and actresses. However, that first day of shooting didn't go for nothing. I might have been able to salvage some shots after all. I will attach them below.



These two shots could be used to smoothly transition between future shits and set up for the dramatic title screen.

CCR #2

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

The story of my film is about a young female athletes journey to the Olympic Games through track and field. As this is most track athletes dream, I feel they will be able to relate to this film and gravitate towards its message. Knowing that, I could set up flyers and advertisements at low-level local meets, gaining popularity within small communities at first. This would mean that I would originally have to share the film on free-to-use streaming services like YouTube or Vimeo.

As the film would gain more popularity and profits off of the streams it receives, I could enter it in film competitions or festivals hoping for more exposure towards a different type of audience than it previously reached. 

Also, as the previously stated marketing techniques are being used, I could also keep fans up-to-date through social medias. With the help of these platforms, even more fans will hopefully be introduced to the film, and exposure can be gained this way. At first, while the film is being distributed free, I could also provide a link to it on the social media sites, to allow for more streams and profits to be acquired.

To summarize, I will first distribute the film free until it picks up enough momentum to carry its self to the next level of distribution (aka. theaters and DVD). I will also be able to engage with my audiences through their own personal reliability to the topic of the film.
Accepted Entries

This week is going to be my major filming week. I was planning from the beginning to get all of my shots during the next couple of days, but I had a hiccup along the way. This year at Florida Relays, they changed the qualifying standard to run and I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to meet the standard. This morning, they released all of the accepted entries online and I found out that I was accepted. Below is a list off all entries, and you can see my name: Joshua Keller


If I wasn't accepted into this meet, I was going to have to redo all of my prior filming as well as the rest of my shooting schedule. I would've had to find new shooting locations, if not write an entirely new plan and script.


Sunday, March 17, 2019

Shooting Schedule for Florida Relays

Now that I have shot the meshed scene at my school, it is time to plan out the rest of my shots and when they will take place. Later this month I will be at the University of Florida for a track meet, and think it is the perfect opportunity to accurately portray the Olympics in my opening. This will be the largest track event I will be at all year and will have memorabilia everywhere. This means I will have to keep my shots tight and do a lot of location scouting to find the perfect shooting locations once I am there. However, in order to save myself as much time as possible, I created a map similar to the one that I made of my school track and labeled it accordingly.


The red line illustrates the route I am planning on originally taking when filming at UF, and the blue box emulates the key area that I am going to mainly focus on while filming. Of course I am going to have to audible a lot once I am there, and look forward to writing about it in future posts.

Connecting Shots

When connecting the shots from the previous post, I had to edit them a little first. I used the iMovie and GarageBand softwares on my computer to crop the videos to the prefect length and take out the sounds.



I also wanted to add an intensity pitch to see if it would fit in with the scenes, and to my surprise it did! Below is the finished product of my filming test run.


First Shots!

Sorry for the delay in posting, I was having trouble uploading the videos from my new camera, but I figured it out and now I truly fully understand how to use the camera. Now back to my current posting...

That day that I went out to the track to shoot my first round of shots went fairly well. I went in with the idea that I was going to film two separate scenes and try to blend them into one. This day acted almost like a test run to see if that was going to work as well as I had envisioned. I took the two scenes I filmed and made sure that I started and ended each shot with a quick or sudden motion. As you will be able to see in the provided shots below, I had trouble mastering this as well.




In my next post I will discuss the piecing together of these shots to see if it would work.

Monday, March 11, 2019

My Plan To Film Today

Today I will begin filming. This filming process will last throughout the rest of this month and conclude at the University of Florida. I will not be filming my opening in chronological order and actually will start today with one of the last scenes. I am going to film the portion of the opening where the camera finally gets to the starting line and the gun goes off. In order to clarify my route and shot locations, I created a map. The red line resembles my filing route, the blue box is the vital part of the scene and the most likely portion of the film I will use, and the yellow oval is where my main actress Andrea will be placed in the scene:



(MAP DISCLAIMER: My school recently resurfaced the track and changed its color from black to red. On the map you will see a black track but in the picture below you will see the new red track that will be in the film.)

This is a close up of the exact spot that we are going to be filming on the red track:

 



Sunday, March 10, 2019

New Camera!

Aside from figuring out my story and brainstorming ideas with my actress, I had a bigger problem to conquer. I had to get an actual quality camera thatI could use to film my entire opening. I asked all around and even went through my friends old high school TV equipment, but to no avail. I was going to settle with using my phone to record video, but a miracle occurred instead. My older sister, who lives in Boston most of the year, came down for spring break. I filled her in about this project and told her my camera dilemma. She shocked me when she took me into her room and emptied and old bin onto her bed. In this bin was a collection of cameras and equipment she had used for a similar project that she had to work on while in high school. She allowed me to borrow her camera and SD cards, so that I can film my project in good quality.



The only thing that I have left to do is learn how to use the camera. I looked up YouTube videos about the camera and all of its specs, and I believe I am now a pro at using the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-RX100.

Brainstorming With Andrea

In my last post, I talked about recruiting Andrea to be my lead actress. I also left it with a cliff hanger stating that I would be talking about my shared ideas with Andrea. Here are those ideas:

IDEA #1

In this opening, the story would be set at the Olympic Games. It would start off with with the camera making its way through a crowded stadium and winding up down at the starting line where Andrea is about to start her race. While the camera is making its way to the line, it will be showing the types of people and confusing that happens at track meets. You will also be able to hear the announcer in the background announcing races and calling events, all to make the viewer feel like they are actually experiencing this in their real lives. Once the camera finally reaches the starting line, the starter gun will go off and a white screen will suddenly appear with the title of the film in big, bold letters and the opening will finish. The idea the viewer will get about the purpose of the film will be that they are about to find out the journey and obstacles that a young female athlete went through to make it to the top.

IDEA #2

This opening follows the same sequence as the last, but instead of taking place at the Olympics, it will be taking place at a small local meet and give the reader insight on an athletes journey of recovering from an injury. In the scenes where the camera is going through the crowd, there will be subtle hints of Andrea being injured, as she will be in the advertisements placed around the stands and on flyers that are scattered on the ground. When the gun goes off a different title will appear (One that would fit this film), but the opening isn't over there. There will be a short scene that follows the title shot, that will act as the first scene of the actual movie story. This short scene will further instill what the film will be about, and insure that  this opening does not look like a trailer, or a short film itself.



Above are some pictures of Andrea and me brainstorming ideas that would fit her as an actress. We eventually chose to go with IDEA #1 as our story.
Choosing Actors

After gathering pictures of the track and the equipment surrounding it, I went around asking who would like to act in the opening for me. To my surprise, a lot of my friends and teammates volunteered, even though I do not have a definitive story yet. After careful consideration, I chose my teammate Andrea Martinez. I chose her because I felt as if she could resemble the most amount of separate storylines compared to my other candidates.

Andrea is someone who has had to overcome many obstacles in her own life, therefore I can use inspiration from those obstacles, and be able to resemble them in the film opening.

I showed Andrea the photos from my location scouting and we brainstormed ideas for the film that would fit her in a fictional way. You can read about those ideas in my next post.

Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Location Scouting

Today, I want to go out to my main filming location (the track at my high school) and scout out good areas around the location that allow for good shooting angles. This will allow me to develop my storyboard and piece each idea with an actual set shot location. I will also be able to create a detailed plan to portray my potential actors.

Below are some shots I gathered on my scout..







I also want to include the following image. This is an image of an old abandoned cart of track and field equipment. This equipment is important because I now can use them at my will and won't have to check out or borrow any equipment or props from the school. The cart contains old starting blocks and hurdles (not pictured), all of which are vital to my upcoming storyboard.

Sunday, March 3, 2019

I Made A Mistake...

As you can probably tell from my last post, I got a little bit confused. I started to work on the project as if I was doing a magazine, and about a week in I realized that I actually signed up for a film opening. However, this error won't prove to be a drastic one because I can still use all of my ideas for the magazine, and turn it into a film.

With my "cover story" being about track, I can turn that story into what the film is going to be about. I will have my fellow athletes work as actors for my opening and this error will have no noticeable effect on the final outcome.

Back On Track

So now I need to brainstorm how I am going to construct this opening. To do this, I decided to watch another film. Field of Dreams (1989). After watching this film, I studied its opening. I liked how they used a voice over to set the scene and establish characters. I believe I will use that same technique in my film opening. I will also take inspiration from this film by setting mine in the past as well. The opening to Field of Dreams is able to capture the narrators nostalgia as he is looking back on his life and setting up the character and plot to come.

 

Today, I was brainstorming ideas for what I want my film to be about. Like I have stated in previous posts, it is track season, so I have decided to make it about just that.

Now that I have a topic, it is time to look at examples of track and field movies from the past.



Race is a movie that highlights the life of a young Jesse Owens and his ability to overcome racism around the world while competing at the Olympics in Berlin.

With my film, I want to use similar techniques as this one to tell the story of a different track athlete and the experiences they have overcome.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Magazine Theme

Today, I started to brainstorm ideas on what type of theme or genre I want my magazine to follow. My two top choices are food and sports because if I want to be able to put my full effort into the project, I have to do it about one of my two favorite things in the whole world. However, I am leaning more towards the sports category.

My reasoning behind choosing a sports theme for my magazine is simple. This project happens to lie at the same time of year as the high school track season. I also happen to be on the track team and therefore will have the perfect amount of time and resources available to conduct interviews and put together research about all types of sports and athletes around the local area.

Portfolio Project Begins...

Today marks Day 1 of my long quest in creating my own magazine creation. I will be documenting all of my progress in this blog and will try to include every single little detail as the come.

I have begun my research on magazine design and layout, as well as content. I have noticed many trends amongst magazine covers as they all like to include bright colors or large contrasts in order to catch the eye of potential customers. I also learned about the layout inside of a magazine. As shown below, each individual part of every page serves its own unique purpose.

I will keep these elements in mind when creating my own page spread use them to enhance my project as a whole and make it seem as professional as possible.


Credits:
Nikola. (2017, March 16). Elements of a Magazine Page. Retrieved from http://www.magazinedesigning.com/magazine-page-elements/

Sunday, February 17, 2019

In our music marketing project, we created an outline of a campaign that a marketing company would propose to new and up-and-coming band. In order to create this campaign outline, my group and I researched other bands that were similar to ours and we looked at the approaches that they took to rise to fame. In our presentation, we showed two case study examples of two different bands and what it was that they did in their own marketing campaigns. We then highlighted ideas from these bands that we would use for our own campaign and came up with our own ideas to pair with them. Our research in these case studies and the genre market in general really influenced our decision making and proved to be very important to our campaign as a whole.

We also created many tangible and intangible products to propose to the band that would help in marketing them. We created hoodies, water bottles, and fidget spinners, as well as social media accounts and a website. These products have the bands name plastered all over them and will act as free promotion, because all the fans that are wearing or engaged with these products are acting as promoters themselves for the band. Here are some products below:



In this project, I learned many different ways to market a brand. I think the techniques I learned will definitely benefit me in my portfolio project. For my project, I will be creating a magazine and will now be able to use proper marketing techniques to ensure its success. I now know that I have to do research on the genre and similar types of magazines to be able to fully grasp the market and I know that I have to follow the guidelines of these well established, researched  magazines to be successful.

Thank you!