CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: group meetings

 Welcome back!

Today in class we got together in groups to discuss our progress. It’s the last week of this project, and the excitement of the end of the year is in the air. My group consisted of five people including myself, we all talked about our productions and what we accomplished during spring break. It was fun to hear other people’s stories. I was so caught up in my own intro that I completely forgot my entire class is going through the same thing. We all complained about how annoying exporting your videos is and finding music we won’t be copyrighted for. It was great to get to talk about it in a more relaxed way and tell each other about our own struggles. 

I shared some of my ideas and doubts, I shared my 911 call voice-over idea with them and they all went crazy. They all told me it was an awesome idea and that I should do it. I love their enthusiasm and support but I’m still thinking about it. This project is due next week, if I add that call it’s almost a whole new production I have to take care of. I have to make a script, record the audio and edit it. I think would be a great addition to my project, I’m just not sure that I have time.

Even if I end up doing it or not, my friend Ale (who also casually was in my group) offered me her help. We’ve worked on a couple of projects together in the past and she's also in drama. If I do this recording, the voice actor needs to portray that stress and sadness through their voice, and I believe this is an extremely hard task. I myself is not able to do it, that’s why I need to find someone up for the job and I think Ale is perfect. 

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: production reflection

 Welcome back!

Filming days have ended, our last day was yesterday and it was hard to say goodbye. Filming was a great experience for this project, I knew filming would be fun and very experimental. I knew where I wanted to film and had an idea of what I wanted but it was all based on the moment. I liked the idea of “anything can happen”, I kind of just told my friends where to meet up and how to dress and that was that. It all flowed naturally, it probably has to do with the fact that they’re all incredibly energetic and just fun to be around. I’m going, to be honest, I actually based my intro on them knowing that they would be perfect for a film. Every time we word hang out I always wished we had a reality show just to show how we can make so much out of so little. Some of my favorite shots were filmed at regional, all I had to do was give them some bikes, and they took over.

I owe so much to my friend kiki, she's like my adoptive sister. She goes to Cooper City and is a junior, she’s a hit in her CCTV program at school and she helped me out enormously. She lent me her camera and assisted me with directing the whole thing. The vinyl idea of recollecting memories together was all her and I believe it’ll be a game changer for the intro. Overall, although she’s not getting a grade for her help, I owe a great part of my project to her.

Next is editing, I personally really enjoy editing but not how long it takes. Nothing good is done fast, normally editing a video to the best of my ability takes around a week. I’ve downloaded all my videos and cleared some storage. I’m starting my editing journey this week.

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: production log #4

Welcome back!

    Today we focused on filming the ending of my intro. My friend kiki came to help me today, we waited for the sun to go down a little so that way we could still use natural light for our shots but it was still dim. We shot in my bedroom. Most of the shots surrounded the box in which the camera was found, and this box was so fun to make. I asked my dad for an old moving box and I put it back together, I edited and printed an old newspaper reading “MISSING TEEN” and framed it, I added some sweatshirts and books, cassettes, and vinyl to add some personality. 

    We used Mrs. Stoklosa’s camera as a prop for the over-the-shoulder shots. These scenes were simple and easy to film. Last minute we got a sense of inspiration from a Louis Armstrong vinyl, I just decided to take some shots to see if I would end up using them if I needed them. I filmed her playing the vinyl in the record player as she recollected some moments together. The sun was going down and the sunlight was perfect outside, my room has the perfect window to access my roof. We decided to also film some shots from my backyard looking into my roof. It would tell the story of the contrast between her listening to the vinyl and recollecting our moments there together. I’m not sure how I feel about this yet, but I think it could be totally awesome or awful. 

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: production log #3

Welcome back!

Today was quite the day:) It was filming day #3, we were all ready to go and film some shots at the beach. One of our main issues that I didn’t take into account was that we were filming at the beach during spring break, in Florida… The beaches were packed so we decided to migrate to a more low-key beach; Sunny Isles. I had to work in the morning and I got off at 2 pm, we wanted to film during sunset so this was perfect. I got off work and we were all ready to go. I picked up the crew and we were on our way.

We were ten minutes away from the beach, singing Bob Marley with the windows down. I had dosed off in the passenger’s seat exhausted from work until I woke up to a very aggressive hit next to me. I woke up confused and as I opened my eyes I saw the car going over the express lane white poles as my friends yelled. It took me a second to understand we had crashed. We pulled over on the side of the express lane as cars wished past us at 70 miles per hour (we were on a bridge so there was no alternative). My friend who was driving immediately got out of the car right after asking if I was okay. I turn around and ask what happened. 

A white sedan had tried to merge into our lane without checking its blind spots or turning on a turning light. They hit the right side of the car and completely scratched the whole door. Everyone was okay which was what mattered. To make the story shorter; after many discussions, insurance exchanges, and pictures the cops were called. This call was made around 4 pm, and the cops showed up around 7 pm. It was the most uncomfortable 3 hours of my life. We had gotten off the highway and we were stranded on the side of the road with a family of 7 who had just crashed into us swearing “we were just too young to be driving”.

It was a Cuban family of 7 driving a rental white corolla for 5, they had just gotten off their flight from New York and were leaving the airport. As you can imagine, they were not happy. After many hours of waiting all issues were resolved as the cops declared them guilty of the crash and responsible for all damages. 

Overall, by the time this was all over the sun was going down and all we could think about were getting those shots since we were so close to the beach. We drove to the beach as soon as the cops left. As we approached Sunny isles in its last hours of daylight. My friend and I decided to get off the car at a red light and sprint to the beach as the sun was going down in a matter of seconds. We got there just in time, and it was all worth it. 

I’m a big believer in “everything happens for a reason”, of course, I’m not happy my friend's mom’s car got demolished by a white corolla but those shots turned out truly beautiful. The timing was perfect, the water was turquoise blue and the sky pink, and it was the perfect timing for the building’s windows to reflect the orange sunlight. We shot fast and out of breath, but it was all worth it. Here is a sneak peek. 

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: editing software and gadgets

 Welcome back!

Today is my editing Sunday, I wanted to get started and start editing even though we’re not done shooting. I wanted to get a head start and see how all the shots worked together, but as I tried to download my videos from my camera I ran into some issues since my everyday device is an iPad. I’ve never had difficulty downloading material from my camera to my iPad since it was a wireless download. My camera used Bluetooth but to film this project I used a different camera. At the moment my SD card was full so I borrowed my friend's camera. I thought this wouldn’t be a problem until now. 

Her camera downloads the videos with a direct USB cable into a computer, the problem is my iPad has no USB port. I know the logical thing to do is find an alternative to my iPad, download it somewhere else, and email myself the link to all the videos. But since I also have some old cameras that have USB cables to export their content I thought I would just research another way of fixing it. 

It took amazon about 5 seconds to find me exactly what I needed. An SD card reader for IPads (kinda obvious right…) To be completely honest, I had no idea this excised and I feel like a grandma figuring out how to use technology. After this extremely hard and challenging search through the web, I decided to purchase this revolutionary gadget. It gets here at the end of the week so I’ll keep you guys updated through this journey. 

As I was not able to download the videos I still worked on some audio ideas on adobe premiere but I’ll save that for another post. Stay tuned to see how it turns out. 

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: production log #2

 Welcome back!

Today was filming day, for this weekend we wanted to take advantage of spring break and go to the beach and film our scenes. We all agreed on Saturday a week prior, as some of my other friends heard about my production even more wanted to join! I told them the upcoming schedule and we got to work.

We had planned to film in Dania beach as previously planned, but as we thought more of the plan we said why not take full advantage of the day :) We decided to go to peanut island, an island located close to West Palm Beach. We knew it was a far drive but we decided to go for it. This was a big group effort since we had to plan which cars we could take and the logistics during the trip.

Saturday came around and we got to the beach around 10 am, we set up and we got to it. Our plan was practically to just go in the water and have fun and take some videos. This actually ended up being a little catastrophic since the camera was not waterproof, and we had to keep splashing to a minimum (this was extremely hard for the guys). We all took turns with the camera and recorded each other. The good thing about this project is that it’s casual, there is no pressure to make the shots look professional because the look is “homemade”. This has been extremely helpful especially when we’re passing the camera around, not everyone has good filming skills so this was perfect. 

Eventually, we all had fun and got some pretty great shots. I’m very excited to see how this turns out. Here are some pictures of our work today :)

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: new ideas

 Welcome back!

    I’m trying really hard to stay away from new ideas, I don’t mean this is a bad way but my little director brain works 99% of the time thinking about new possibilities and ideas for my intro. This is dangerous because if I let them get to me, I’ll end up with a totally new and changed story. But there is one idea, this one idea that has been taunting me since I decided to incorporate the “MISSING” plot into my story. 

   

     I could add a 911 voice-over call of the montage of clips. I think the contrast between the happy energetic scenes would work really well together, but at the same time, I think it’s a big difference from my original story. Still, I think this is part of the creation process. I’ll probably decide when it comes to editing, ill add the voice-over and see how it works, I think it would be great suspense :)

   

 For the call I found this audio on Youtube, click here to listen. This audio only includes “911, what’s your emergency” and then I would have to record the actual call myself. I have a few friends in drama that I think would be great to make this call as realistic as possible. Since this is a phone call and there will be no acting involved the call has to reflect the characters' emotions well. I believe with the right equipment this could be an awesome outcome.

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: music

Welcome back!

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what song I’m going to have in my film intro. This is definitely something I should’ve figured out a while ago, but I take this very seriously :) The music of my film intro is what I’m basing the whole video on. I need my music selection to be completely representative of my story, I know that's too much but I refuse to settle for anything less. The first song has to have a good rhythm and radiate the clip’s energy. As an editor I also like to sync the beat to the videos, this is hard and time-consuming but I think it's worth it. 

These past few weeks I've been looking for some songs that would work for my videos. I think these are all good options but I think it all comes down to how they look with my video. Here are some of the songs I liked. 

More than friends - Aiden Bissett

Sometimes - Goth Babe

December - Indigo

Looking out for you - Joy Again

You’ve got the heart - Luster

Kids - MGMT

What a pleasure- Beach Fossils

These are some of my ideas but none are definite. We will continue shooting next weekend so stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: production log #1

 Welcome back!

    Today was our first filming day, this past week I’ve been extremely nervous about how this weekend was going to turn out. As I previously mentioned I’m working on this project “alone”. Not really alone but with no one from my class :). For my film intro, I asked my friends to help me out, and to be completely honest I was a little nervous about how this was going to work out. I think they’re perfect for this specific project but also extremely chaotic which I knew would make it hard to keep them on track. Today we filmed at the park and all of our car scenes. 

    We started filming around 4:00 pm and ended at 6:00, while filming I felt very confident about our shots and how they were going to turn out. I got home and watched them and I hated most of them. The background could look better and the quality isn’t good. They’re “good enough” but I think a reshoot of some scenes will definitely be necessary.

    Filming was actually really fun overall, we brought a speaker and just hung out which made it very enjoyable. My friends were happy to help which made it easier to film. The only issue that we had trouble fixing while filming was that we couldn’t get the bikes to fit in the car to take to the park. At the moment we only had one car in which we all had to fit plus two bikes. 

   Overall a great first day and I’m excited to keep it going. Below I’ll add some pictures of our progress.

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: story progress

Welcome Back!

So a little back story, I missed the past two weeks due to some complications with my wisdom teeth removal (I know it’s irrelevant), but because of this, I have not been able to meet with my wonderful teacher Mrs. Stoklosa. We have weekly meetings with her to discuss our blogs and our progress, but since I was out I was missing that feedback to continue my story. 

As I have discussed many times before, my intro starts with a very upbeat and intense sequence of shots but there has to be a story follow-up to those videos. I want to make sure I don’t give off the wrong idea of my intro being a documentary so I also want to focus that the editing reflects a vintage camera. The great question is “what are these videos? Where do they come from?”. There has to be a follow-up with the contrast I discussed and I want it to be a good one. I don’t want to be boring or predictable. After discussing many possibilities, I concluded that a “missing” storyline would be a good option. 

Let’s imagine the intense sequence of shots is over, we see a high-angle shot of the back of a girl kneeling over a messy box holding the camera. The quality difference is obvious, the color change is dramatic and the watcher wonders why the sudden change. A low angle follows a point of view from inside the box as this girl (the watcher realizes it is the same girl as the videos) moves objects around (blocking some of the shot). She opens a newspaper stating “MISSING” as it cuts to an intense close-up of her crying eyes. 

I fell in love with the idea as we discussed it, but we also had some good ideas for additions. 

- a Facebook page (to represent the time and setting)

- printed newspaper prop

Stay tuned to see how it turns out! 

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: special effects

 Welcome back!

    For today's blog post, I wanted to discuss how “special effects” are going to work for my film intro. The thing is I'm not going to really have “special effects”, is more like filters. I don’t intend to have to add anything that drastic to my film when editing but I want to be prepared just in case.

    As I mentioned before, I plan to record most of the into with an old camera that I own from old family vacations. The thing is… it won't turn on :). I’m still trying to figure out how to make it work but just in case I want to have the option of filming with a regular camera and then editing it into looking retro. Of course, that would take the essence out of it but that's the best I can do. 

    So, as I did some research on how to add this look to my videos I found some YouTube videos that gave me some great ideas on how to achieve the film look I’m going for. 

https://youtu.be/6m1Xli7Twqs

https://youtu.be/oT60rchznSc

https://youtu.be/D34p3oTRnY4

https://youtu.be/45z60vnPOBw

All of these videos were a great help and they definitely make me feel more calm about using a regular digital camera. I’m sure they’ll be extremely helpful during the editing process. 

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: location scouting

Welcome back!

    While planning the shooting schedule, I thought it would be a good idea to brainstorm some possible filming locations. While doing some research on location scouting I found this website called “Giggster”, this website helps you find places you can rent in your area for production. Prices vary and there are many different options to pick from. This is way out of my budget, but I thought it would be a fun thing to mention since it could be a great option for future projects.

Here are some locations I have in mind:

CAR SCENES:

Vista view park I believe would be a great option for our car scenes specially for the background. Since Weston is very dull, I think this location could add some great color with the hills on the background.

BEACH SCENES

Dania beach I think will be the best option, its clean and not very popular so that way it won’t be crowded during filming. Here are some pictures I took at Dania beach during sunset as an example;

RIDING BIKES

For the riding bikes scenes I have the perfect location in mind that I believe work best and are also the most aesthetically pleasing. Regional park has a bike riding section in the back of the park, i know this area very well and there is a specific trail that I think can give me the look I’m looking for. 

These locations may vary and might even be changed last minute. I think these are all great options for our future filming locations :)

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: mood boards, aesthetics and wardrobe

 Welcome back!

For today's post, I’m going to focus on how can I achieve the “look” I want for my film intro. As mentioned before I don’t just want the beginning of the intro to have a vintage look, but I want to actually film with an old video camera to make it as realistic as possible.  Down below I’m going to insert a picture on what’s the look going to be. 

I personally believe mood boards are crucial when it comes to wanting to achieve a certain “vibe” in a film. Especially if the film has a big artistic intake, I find mood boards as a great source of inspiration when it comes to filming. 

Here are some mood boards I’m going to share with my team when filming:

As of aesthetics and wardrobe I want to keep it as casual as possible, I want to include college sweatshirts to show and represent the age their in, baggy jeans, and t-shirts.

 

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

CAMBRIDGE PORTAFOLIO PROJECT: shooting schedule

 Welcome back!

I believe it’s time to get started with my film production :) I think I’ve done enough research to make this the best production I can with my resources. I created a shooting schedule with dates on how I’m going to organize everything:

Stay tuned to see how it turns out!