Creative Critical Reflection

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Final Project

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Studio Company Montage

Since I'm following the typical conventions for my genre, I'm only including a studio company montage rather than that and the one of the production company. Initially I used the "Picture in a Picture" setting in iMovie to lay my logo on top of a shot of the sea I got while in Barbados. While showing my dad the film he advised that it would look better if I omitted the white background and just had the blue words overlapping the video. My response initially was "I thought about it, but iMovie doesn't allow me to create my own title- I have to use the templates already provided and I don't like them." But alas! I have found a way to make it work. 

I substituted the white background with a green background and later used the "green/blue screen" setting to leave the logo standing alone. As the wave comes in the words start appearing word by word on the screen. Bellow are the pictures in order of appearance in their green template and the way they look on top of the video.

The designs were all created in Canva.

Original Layout

New Layout

Title Change

While adding the finishing touches to my film I decided to change the title of the film from "Prodigy" to "Renegade" as I feel like it suits the main character, Lily, better. Even though I did originally want her to be a genius I realized there is a big difference between being clever and being smart and I would like Lily to be more on the clever side of the spectrum.

The Makeup Department

Lily's makeup was nothing special - I wanted to go for a natural look since she's on the run it wouldn't have made much sense for her to be wearing red lipstick and jet black eyeliner. I opted for some concealer, some brown mascara, brown eyeliner smudged, and some chapstick.

Testing the look the night before

Alex's makeup situation was a little bit more complicated. He had to look like he had been lying in the forrest floor for a while so I tried to create the effect of dirt on his face using brown eyeshadow as seen on this video. I used the Naked 3 Palate from Urban Decay to obtain the brown eyeshadow and I blended it out with a simple makeup sponge. I also used a brown crayon eyeliner and blended it out with my finger. Bellow are the pictures of the finished product on the day of filming. Looking back at the footage the dirt wasn't as visible as I was hoping it would be on camera but I think him laying down on the floor will be enough for the audience to infer that something is wrong.

Another makeup aspect for Alex where a series of fake cuts. I drew three of these: two smaller ones along the right arm and a larger one in the left arm. I would've liked to draw one on his face but one of the markers I was using was a permanent marker and I didn't want to risk it potentially staying in his face for a couple of days. The cuts would've looked more severe and painful if I would've used liquid latex but going out to purchase it would've hindered our tight filming schedule a little bit. Bellow are the pictures of two of the cuts and how I created them.

An Ode to the Youtube Audio Library

I had another post scheduled to go before this one but I'm just so exited I can't wait.

I had to edit the entire sound of my movie from scratch since the one recorded with the film footage was not as neat and crisp as I wanted it to be. Having worked with royalty-free sound effect websites before I know how some of them are not very user-friendly or require you to make an account to download clips.

I have just found the most wonderful thing: The Youtube Audio Library. It is part of the "Creator Studio" feature (which I didn't even know existed!) and I'm not sure if you need to have a google account to be able to access it but come on everyone has a google account (and if you don't please get one...it has so much to offer). The sound effects library includes a wide variety of sound effects from foley to animal and a layout that is extremely easy to navigate and all the sound effects are conveniently placed in one place. No playing hide-and-seek to find the effect needed.

I'm so happy about this discovery since it made my sound effect search so much better and faster. Thank you Youtube!

P.s - I did double check to make sure that the sound effects are 100% royalty free- you can see for yourself here.

Filming Report

“Cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out” 

                                        ― Martin Scorsese

It is so strange to think that weeks of preparation all came together only to obtain two hours of footage. I always knew a full length movie must take an awful lot of time to film and edit but I never though about how much meticulous planning goes into them beforehand. There is so much to consider: the right location, the right places to shoot within that location, what costumes represent the characters best, what shots convey the story best... I only needed to make two minutes of what would normally be a 90 minute piece and I now have so much appreciation and respect for film and filmmakers. It is funny because most people only seem to pay attention to the actor names but you can have the most talented actors in the world and still create a bad movie if you don't have the right behind-the-scenes team putting every aspect of the film together.

I think filming went quite well today, I'm quite pleased with the footage. My only concern is that I was planning to use the natural ambience of the forrest as my sound. But even when I sat down to record the sounds in quiet it was disturbed by planes flying above or the sound just didn't come out right. Thankfully, our teacher showed us how to mix sounds in the Apple application Garageband earlier in the year and there are royalty-free sound effect databases like Audioblocks that will allow me to create the sound track I want from scratch.

Here are a couple of behind-the-scenes shots I took today during filming:

  

On Location: Tree Tops Park

I had initially intended to film in Markham Park but when we got there they had closed the park for the day because of some 80s concert taking place later. We didn't want to leave it to another day especially with the deadline fast approaching. We left Markham Park and got on the highway to Tree Tops Park. I had never been there, I had only seen pictures of it but it was the best location I could've asked for. The park had a wide selection of trails to choose from and it looked like an actual forest rather than a government park. I'm glad this happened because Tree Tops offered us such a wide space to work in when I know in Markham the forrest area is much much smaller.

Filming Checklist

I've created a checklist for filming to ensure I don't forget ANYTHING tomorrow. 

▢ Camara

▢ SD card

▢ Camara battery

▢ Make-Up (Brown eyeshadow and makeup remover)

▢ Lily outfit 

▢ Alex distressed shirt
▢ Rock
▢ Backpack

The Opening Credits

Today I overheard as my teacher mentioned to another student that for the opening credits we need to research what credits are conventionally included within our genre. I was so caught up with what I believed was the general structure for credits for all films (studio company, production company, director, actors, and title) that I completely forgot the very obvious fact that not all films follow this pattern. As I processed my mistake I started to think about the adventure movies I've seen and trying to recall their opening credits. I couldn't distinctly remember seeing the main actors names in the opening credits. I tried to find some openings online of films of the genre but I didn't have much luck.

When I got home I rummaged through my DVD cabinet and I luckily had a small but varied collection of adventure films. I watched the first ten minutes of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings:The Fellowship of the Ring, Sherlock Holmes (although action they are slightly similar genres so I thought I'd take a look a it too) and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

created using canva.com

Out of the 5 adventure films and Sherlock Holmes Narnia was the only one that included their actors names into the opening credits. All of them featured the title with the exception of The Hunger Games which I though was really strange given that it was already an established brand and a film with a wide expectant audience. I wish I had a film that wasn't a famous brand before release to see if anything was different; the only thing I got close to was Star Wars since it was the first film released out of the entire franchise. All of them included the studio/distribution company montage and 4 out of the 5 included their production company; wether it was a montage or A _ Production written in the begging of the film. Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter where the only two that did not include the production company. They are both Warner Brothers which lead me to believe that Warner Brother might not only be its own studio company but also its own production company but taking a quick glance at the back of the Sherlock Holmes DVD I see that it was produced by Wigram Productions. 

In conclusion, I can establish that actor names in the credits is not a typical choice for adventure movies so I will revise my storyboard to omit these. The name of the director is also not commonly shown so I will omit it as well. 

I chose to adapt the Lord of the Rings as a template for my opening credits: Studio company montage (Orinoco Pictures), studio company (Orinoco Pictures Presents), production company (A Streit Production), and the tittle (Prodigy) to best fit with the conventions of my genre and allow me to avoid altering to much my already-established opening.  

P.s: The studio company for Lord of the Rings is New Line Cinema, I forgot to include it in the chart.

Sources:

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Dir. Andrew Adamson. Perf. Tilda Swinton, Georgie Henley, William Moseley. Walt Disney Pictures, Walden Media, 2005. DVD.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Dir. David Yates. Perf. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint. Warner Home Video, 2011. DVD.

The 

The Hunger Games. Dir. Gary Ross. Perf. Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks. Lions Gate Entertainment, 2012. DVD.

The Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring. Dir. Peter Jackson. Perf. Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Orlando Bloom |. New Line Home Entertainment, 2001. DVD.

Bohush, Peter. "Opening Credits: Who, What, Where, When and Why." New England Film. N.p., 31 July 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2016. <http://newenglandfilm.com/magazine/2012/08/credits>.

Sherlock Holmes. Dir. Guy Ritchie. Perf. Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams. Warner Home Video, 2009. DVD.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Dir. George Lucas. Perf. Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness, Peter Cushing. LucasFilm Ltd, 20th Century Fox, 2004.