Filming again

          Today, we filmed a part of our video that we realized was missing and we still hadn't added to the video. This was completely unintentional, so it was best that we got it out of the way as fast as possible. We noticed the missing clip when we were watching it for fun in class. I realized that there was a part of the video we completely forgot to film. This was the footage of jack driving into his driveway, using a wide angle. This would just be a minor part in the beginning of our film, however I still believed it was necessary to film and add into the video. Jack checked out a camera and tripod once school let out. We all congregated at the student parking lot after school. Jack then drove us to his house. On the way there, we decided to get chic-fil-a a popular fast food restaurant. We arrived at Jack's house and headed inside. Before starting to film the single missing shot, we sat down and ate our food. After we were all done eating, We headed out to film. We started by setting up the tripod in the desired position. This was a struggle as many cars were passing by, and we had to film in the middle of the road. However, we were safe about it and made sure to have a person watching for cars at all times. We screwed in the camera, turned it on, focused on the desired point, and we were ready to film. I told Jack the camera was set up, and had him move his car into the desired spot, I, the cameraman, gave Jack the okay to start pulling into the driveway. There was a problem with the first clip however. Jack was looking in the camera, a crucial mistake that could not be looked over. We filmed the scene again, and this time it looked perfect.

Reviewing progress 3/9

          Today, we did not do much. Basically, we just reviewed everything we had. We also made a list of everything we still have to do. To make sure I was on the right track, I checked in with Ms. Katz and made sure I had all of my blogs submitted. I had all of my blogs submitted, except for the one I am doing right now. After confirming that i was on the right path for success in this class, i decided it would be a good idea to review out video so far and make a clear list of what still had to be done. After watching, we found a couple components were missing. We realized that we did not have a tilt shot in our video. This, however, will be easily fixable as my group is reshooting soon. We also needed to add the ending fade to black, which I just forgot to put in. This will be an easy fix as well. Then, we made a list of these two things so we can be more organized, and check off tasks as we complete them. my group had a realization while we were discussing our project today. The sewage roadwork is still happening near the park we are supposed to film at. This means that we probably will not be able to film at the park we intended to. But in life, not everything goes your way, and you have to learn to adapt and work around problems. We also added to our list, possible parks that we can film at instead of George English. We had to try to choose parks that were closest to Jack's house as we still need to film some clips there. We made a list compiling of Holiday Park, Hardy Park, and Mills Pond Park. These were the three closest alternative parks that would most likely be empty for when we film there. After reshooting, all that will be left to do is edit the final product, and submit.

Re editing

          For re editing, there was quite a lot that had to get done. We had to add in new scenes, a couple new transitions, and fix some of the titles. Also, I have to make some changes to the color grading of the video. First, I worked on replacing some of the scenes that weren’t adequate. In one scene, Jack was driving his car into the driveway. The problem with this clip is that when he was driving his car into the driveway, he looked at the camera almost the whole time. This was a vital mistake that had to be reshot, as we cannot have any of the characters looking directly into the camera. I added in the new and revised shot on jack driving his car into the driveway and not looking into the camera. Next, was transitions. I decided to put myself through the torture of making a very difficult transition to make. Basically, you take an object that covers the top to the bottom of the screen and as you pass by it, the new footage appears behind the o next moving by. It is a very long process in order to create this transition. First, you have to put the old clip on top of the new one. After doing this, apply the draw mask effect onto the new clip. Now, as the object covering the screen moves make the new video’s key points for the draw mask move with the object. Now, you move over two frames and redo the last step. Repeat these steps u til the new clip covers the entire screen, then un apply the draw mask once the entire screen is filled up. The last element in our video that had to be tweaked was the color grading. Color grading a video essentially makes the video look more professional and complete. The colors look more satisfying to the eye, and depending on the theme, different color grading can be used to build a different tones in the video. For example, if I color grade the video to have blue undertones, then the viewer might be more inclined to think that it is cold weather in the video. The easiest way to color grade is to apply a LUT onto the entire video. Essentially what a LUT is is a already made color grading formula that you apply over a whole video. I will use the LUT called Aspen. This LUT puts a cool blue tone over the entire video, and makes the coloring just a little darker making the cinematic experience when watching it more professional.

Peer Review

          Today, we peer reciewed each other’s videos in class. I had to bring in my computor and hard drive this day so that I could show the video. Basically, we first were assigned partners to peer review. I was assigned Macy as my partner for peer review, and the person I was reviewing was Kenely. Once we found each other and congregated, we were then ready to start the peer review process. I watched kenely’s video while filling out the peer review sheet. His movie turned out very good and ha da good storyline. There were many different camera angles used in the video which was very good. The titles were also all there which was good since they are a key component to the video.  His storyline was about a man who is in his room laying in bed. Doesn’t sound very interesting at first, however, then we learn that there is an evil mastermind watching this man in his sleep. We see him watching this man in his room through a computor screen, which was my favorite part of it.

           Now, it was our turn to show our video. The first time, we got half way through watching our video and then the usb somehow disconnected so we had to restart watching the video. After watching through the video completely, we silently waited as Macy finished writing her peer review sheet for our video. She liked everything in our video, and said they it just needed to have some more scenes. There was one part in our video that she also said had inadequate lighting. In order to improve this we are going to film during the day and not the afternoon when it is a little darker outside. We also realized one of our biggest mistakes, for example in one of the POV shots, we weren’t facing the camera the right way. When we were filming it, we just need to make sure the footage is more steady. Also one thing to be improved upon was our sound. There were some parts of our video that had poor sound quality due to cars moving in the background, or someone talking in the background. The last thing that could be improved upon was not looking at the camera. In one shot, jack accident looks at the camera. We will make sure to fix this vital mistake.

Editing Blog 2

          Over the span of this weekend, I have felt more stress than I have in a very long time. It was my responsibility to edit the video with my other group members input whilst on a group Face Time call. I ended up driving home Sunday around 8:00 PM as I had to meet with my group members for an AICE Euro project. It was at this point that i had realized I had to get the camera, SD Card reader, and the tripod from Jack's house. I also realized I didn't have a SD Card reader so there was no way of me to dump the information onto my computer. So here I am brainstorming in the car at 8:00 PM on a Sunday night, i know very irresponsible of me, but it couldn't be helped. Best buy was closed, and so was Office Depot. So I called my sister who also took AICE Media to ask if she had one. She said she did not, however, there was one built into her computer. After having the pressure of that lifted, I drove to Jack's house to pick up the camera. After this, i raced home and dumped all of the footage onto my sister's computer. The footage, however, then had to be transferred onto my Mac so I could edit. I manually emailed every video to my computer, downloaded them from the email, and moved them onto my external hard drive.
          Now, it was finally time to start editing. While referencing the storyboard, I started the editing process with a black screen. Then Jack, Jorge, and we decided on the font and color of the titles, we decided on handwriting font, and red lettering. I added all the clips in after this. Next was transitions, I mostly used dissolve transitions with some luma fade to blacks. I then added in all the titles, and it was done!

Our Journey So Far

        This weekend, we ended up finally filming. Jorge and I found Jack after school and went to his house after school to film. We got to his house, and decided we should grab a snack before we started filming. After fueling up for filming, we set up the tripod. There was one leg that wouldn't open, but after wiggling it for a while it finally loosened up. We then attached the camera to the tripod, as we were going to film shots of Jack's car. We set the tripod in position and Jack started to drive the car along the various paths that we would need to film. First, was a shot of him driving straight, then was a shot of jack turning a corner, and was of him parking. Jack was driving the car even though Jorge was playing the robber that drives the car, this is because Jorge doesn't have his license yet. We filmed Jack driving into the driveway from two different angles. We also used a panning shot when Jack was pulling into the driveway.
        At this point, it was time to start filming the scenes where the robber is breaking an entry. First we were trying to decide what weapon the robber would be carrying whilst robbing the house. We were looking through Jack's garage to look for potential weapon props. We narrowed the list down to a bow and arrow, baseball bat, and golf club. In the end, we decided it would be best to use the baseball bat. Jorge is seen taking the baseball bat out of the trunk. He then proceeds to walk to the door, and then opens it and walks inside. At this point, we thought we had filmed enough to be able to call it a day. We took apart the tripod and packed everything up. Now, all that's needed to be done is the ending scenes, and the editing.