Week 8 - Post 1

Hello!     

    So I pretty much finished my film (except for adding Santis updated version of the music). So I figure there is no better time than now to start my Creative Content Reflection Questions.

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

    My product challenges conventions by being a relatively quiet psychological thriller focusing on the satisfying noises of the dietetic sound. I use elements from movies that inspire me and make me appreciate the art of movies, Taxi driver is an example where it uses many shots of the scenery and puts you in the main character's situation. The other inspiration I drew from was The Favorite which uses music as an overwhelming noise in order to cause tension and anxiety. I also drew some inspiration from Wes Anderson using his iconic still cameras to showcase his set design. In my movie, I show the life of a group that while extremely common I feel is underrepresented in medial; the working man, I'm extremely interested in psychology and when working at Publix for a short 8 months I really hated the feeling and idea of doing the same thing over and over again in a workforce such as this, but this is an extremely common lifestyle for many. And due to the stigma associated with men often do not seek out mental health care. I think that this is a large audience that is relatively untapped.

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

    It engages with them by relating to them and playing into most people's fear of needing to live a lonely life working at a dead-end job with no means of escape. I would most likely start by uploading the movie to YouTube and then trying to get it enrolled in film festivals across the U.S.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

    I feel that I learned how to make a film which takes place in different places of time without actually having to film it on different days, I used different T-Shirts and different times of day to make it look like time was passing. I also toyed heavily with sound using some instances of Foley and I honestly think that in some scenes I have a very excellent soundscape, making for very crisp audio despite using a phone to record it. I toyed with audio A lot during the film, I wanted to cause anxiety trough the music and lack of it. In the final scene of my intro, my MC lies down and the music is increasingly becoming more and more intense and overbears all the Diegetic sound of the movie, then vanishes at the end of the scene. This detracts the viewer from the stressful situation they are placed in and almost relieves them of it, but then they are thrown back in with a loud breath sound almost serving as a jump scare as it places our main character back in his nightmarish life. The intro is supposed to make you resent his life and wonder why he is still in the situation he is in.

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

    As far as the technology involved when it came to the hardware, all I really used was my iPhone for all of the takes. When it came to the software I used Davinki resolve to edit the entire project as I am more comfortable with it.

Week 7 - Post 3

 Hello!

    Today I finally completely finished editing the first cut of the film with some of the credits and put in the music sample provided by Santi! Here's a snippet of the timeline. 

    (Full Project Timeline)

    I used Davinki Resolve to edit and it went relatively well, I ran into some other issues like the amount of footage I had was WAYYYY too much, and I ended up simply not including certain things and speeding up some of the footage. The sped-up footage looks fine in the middle but at the end, it looks a little goofy and I don't really like the effect it made.

    Also, I had to edit the sample Santi gave me because it wasn't quite how I imagined and I actually really like what I have so far, I still need to edit a few things but I also feel that I am done enough to begin work on my CCR.

Signing off,

    Nico, Sunday 3/26/2023

Week 7 - Post 2

Hey!

    Santi Rios has updated me! And it was a huge update, he sent me his first draft of what he's been working on! I will be posting it here. 

(Menial Intro Song)

    I did have some minor things I wanted to be changed, but the main thing was that the climax wasn't quite how I intended it to be. I sent him a clip of my final scene and I hope that he is able to use this clip to appropriately change the song to better fit my project. But apart from this it actually came out really well. He also spent a lot of time writing an explanation behind his thoughts. 

Signing off, 

    Nico, Saturday 3/25/2023

Week 7 - Post 1

    Hello!!!! 

I have some very exciting news today!!! I officially filmed the remainder of my project, meaning I am done with all the filming.

I and Cesar and his brother Gabriel did a day-long marathon where we filmed the rest of what was required in order to wrap it up. Here's a blooper from the film:

(Gabriel kept laughing for some reason)

It was hilarious and fun and instantly after writing this blog, I intend on getting to work on editing some of the editing because I'm looking forward to seeing the product. Very happy with some of the scenes and I'm so so excited with seeing it with the music and all. When it came to the light I ended up improvising and using a doggie bag as a filter for the light turning it red.

(Light effect)

    Anyhow I will get to editing now!

Signing off,

    Nico, Friday 3/24/2023

Week 6 - Post 2

Hiiiiii…

It’s been a bit since I last posted and that’s because for the past few days I have not been really working on my film, I’ve been on a trip to fsu visiting my colleges. That being said I have made some small developments, last Thursday Santi came up to me to apologize for not starting his music production (which caught me off guard because I never really told him it was urgent or anything and he still had time) and he told me he would begin work on it come spring break! I was actually really happy with him coming up to me and telling me about this.

A few days later and I haven’t heard much from him so I shot him a text to see what’s up;

I also decided to ask Cesar when we could film the rest of the project, since he is my friend I told him a little more informally;

Anyway, I definitely have a lot to do when I get back from fsu starting Tuesday so I CANNOT fall behind.

Signing off,

 Nico, 3/19/2023

Week 6 - Post 1

    We are coming closer and closer to the deadline and I'm getting anxious, it still feels like I have so much to do. But today I want to focus on picking a font for the title. Here are some of the options for the title.

    I want something sharp and kind of shocking that way when the audience gets met with the title they are jarred by it. All of these are almost there but I don't quite love them.  Then I saw this one;

I like this one a lot its stretched and that makes it kind of eerie, Its either this one or:

this one which is just visually exciting and looks sharp and a little evil.

    As for the credits at the beginning I'm going to go with something more obviously thriller related just because I want there to be an overwhelming tone of eeriness behind some relatively normal footage.

    I actually really like a lot of these options but I think I'm going to go with this one just because its a little more visually interesting and sharp like my title.

    I can make final decisions while editing but at least now I have them all laid out for me. One thing of the never ending list.

Signing off,

    Nico, Wednesday 3/15/2023

Week 5 - Post 3

HELLO!!!!

    Today I started filming!!! it was exciting to finally slowly see everything come together, I'm liking things so far and am looking forward to seeing the footage after the editing. It honestly took very long and that was a little frustrating because we kept stopping to talk and since it was being recorded while he was working there were some interruptions with customers, but he did a good job and put up with a lot of my nonsense. We recorded around 40 % of the project because some of it had some problems (I was standing in the shot through the mirror) 

Here's some of the footage (boring clip but it shows you Cesar and the store) Most of the footage we got today was just filler.

(Cesar Footage)

    I used the method of recording a lot of footage so that I would have more than enough for when I edited the film. I thought it went pretty well and the only things left to film now are the shots of the mc sleeping, waking up, and getting ready. I also need to make the flashlight prop for the final scene of the intro. 

    Overall though I feel pretty good about how things are going

Signing off,

    

    Nico, Sunday 2/12/2023

Week 5 - Post 2

 HELLLO!!!

    I have wonderful news! Today Cesar FINALLY sent me his schedule, which I will be posting here;

(Cesar's Schedule)

    Our schedule is tight but we decided that the perfect day to film would be this coming Sunday. This will likely be for all the work scenes and we will have almost all of the morning to film him at his workplace, I will also come back during the night to film the night scenes and also his night walk home. I hope with enough structure I should be able to complete almost all of the scenes at work and being working on some of the editing and the final recordings the week after. Im going to visit fsu at the start of spring break so I will only have half of the spring break to wrap up the project.

    Also, I think I came up with a title that I like. I think I will call it "Menial". From the start I wanted it to be one word that is eerie but simple, and I want it to pop so that it is impactful. I did some research and this word has never been used as the title of a film, I also think it has a nice ring and it heavily applies to my movie. I'm pretty happy with it.

    I haven't chosen a font yet but I've started to look at some. I'll probably decide by the next class.

Signing off,

    Nico, Wednesday 3/8/2023

Week 5 - Post 1

 Hello!

    It's getting closer and closer to the deadline and I really would like to start the process of filming soon, I like editing and do not think it will take me long to finish the final edit of my 2-minute segment, but I also want to have time in order to put a lot of effort into my CCR because I like the fact that I get the opportunity to put some of my personality into it and am excited to get to explain my project. Basically, it would be ideal to at the very least start filming this week, perhaps during this weekend, or at the very least early next week.

    My current main concern with the entire project is Cesar's schedule and my schedule, I am still working, and because It's my two weeks my manager scheduled me pretty heavily. This creates a massive conflict with our two schedules because I need to find a day that he works a night shift that isn't busy (because a Friday or Saturday is too busy) and that I also don't work a closing shift at my (now unbearable) job at Publix. This is why Cesar's schedule is crucial to me to set a day and time so we can film.

    This is where my other issue stands, Cesar has not sent me his schedule and every day I go without a schedule is one where I am possibly missing days I could take advantage of. Anyway, I still have plenty of time so I shouldn't be too worried about it.

    I also recently found out that one of my other friends featured Cesar acting in a previous year, I'm posting his film here (with his permission).

(Cesar's previous performance)

    His acting isn't the best (to say the least) and as funny as he is, I really want my project to be relatively serious, thankfully I hope since he is not saying any dialogue it is more likely that his performance will come out the way I want it to. Anyway, his performance scared me a little.

    I will update this blog when I get Cesar's schedule.

Signing off,

    Nico, Tuesday 3/7/2023

Week 4 - Post 3

  Hi!!!!!!

    Today I nearly completed all of the necessary final preparations for the project. Probably the most critical thing I did was contact Santi Rios in relation to the song I would use for my film. I was mainly concerned with whether or not he thought he was capable of creating the specific idea I had where the music escalates and creates a sense of tension while also having that final moment of climax at the very end, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that he said that he is very capable of making something like what I requested. I left most of the creative liberty to him and simply gave him an outline of what i wanted. Here is a snippet of a cute conversation I had with him!

 

(He said he likes the idea!!!!)

   He said he would experiment with sounds and send me snippets as he develops the track. He seems like a great dude and very much looking forward to working with him. I am very excited to see how his progress goes.

    I also talked to Cesar to try to schedule our filming session, he said his schedule comes out tomorrow so we will likely see then.

    The only thing I've yet to prep is how I'm going to do the lighting of the closet door that is crucial to the reveal at the end of my 2-minute segment, it's the part that will entice the viewers to keep watching. I'm thinking of using my dad's very powerful scuba diving flashlight and using a red sheet to turn the light red. I'm hoping this will give the effect I desire.

    I have a lot of work this upcoming week, but I actually recently resigned because my job makes me unhappy and have a lot of schoolwork so I hope that this will give me enough time to wrap up my project. My last day is on the 15th.

    I'll be sure to update this blog with anything relevant.

Signing off,

    Nico, 3/5/2023

Week 4 - Post 2

Hello!!!

    I have several remarks that I would like to briefly go over so I will do so in today's post.

    A critical part of my film's cinematography is all the shots need to be very still and square and symmetrical. I want the image of repetition and cyclical lifestyles to be present through the visual elements of the film and I think keeping things EXACTLY the same will do this effectively. This means that a tripod is necessary.

    My tripod recently broke but thankfully tripods aren't that expensive so I found this decent-looking one on Amazon that has a little bag and a remote that comes with it! I bought it and it is coming in today!

    More importantly, I think I found a song that works well in my project as an example and I might speak to Santi Rios to make something with a similar sound. The song I am thinking of is called Amandla's Interlude a song by steve lacy.

    I think it's a nice melancholic-sounding song that would fit nicely, the only thing I want to be different is that I want it to intensify as it goes on and I want it to end with a very extended violin note and cut to nothing. I will speak to Santi to see if this is possible.

Also at the time of writing this, my tripod came in so here's a brief unboxing of it:

Signing off,

    Nico, 3/2/2023