Filming Blog: Movie Production during COVID-19

Since the outbreak of the CoronaVirus or COVID-19, the world has been on a standstill as social distancing is being encouraged through methods such as self isolation as well as mandatory isolation by state and federal governments. During this time, the film production is often overlooked and since this is AICE Media Studies, I figured I would look how COVID-19 is effecting it. After reading a couple of articles from different sources such as AP News and local news stations, it has been announced that all movie production has been halted. This closely relates to how COVID-19 is effecting us as well since we are also in the production process of our original movies. We have basically also stopped production since we cannot be in gathering places with multiple people as it raises the chance of catching the virus. Major companies such as Universal Pictures had to lay off people as a result of the virus canceling most if not all movies and shows resulting in a shortage of necessary jobs. I wonder how the movie industry will recover after being off of work for so long. I expect a surplus of advertisements as a result of the break to get the public eye back onto movies and off of the virus that would be over by then. If the movie cancellation continues, I wonder how it will effect our economy as well as the stocks of those major companies, only time will tell.

Re-editing Blog

After presenting the movie to my family and hearing their feedback, my group decided to plan for another re-editing day in order to make our film the best it could be. I took the rubrics from our peer review day as well as my family review of the film and made a super rubric that covered all areas of the film, from sound all the way to the angles of the camera. Due to the recent outbreak of the Corona Virus (COVID-19), our group has decided to not gather together as we don't know what each other has been exposed to. I began to edit what I could from the rubric to continue to hold my end of the work with the group. However, when it came time to share the work load, we decided the fastest and most efficient way would be to transport the film, once your end of the work is finished, to the next person via email where it would be shrunk and then enlarged once put into iMovie. We used this method for the remainder of the project since our parents did not like the idea of us gathering in an enclosed space together for a long time. This was another adaptation we had to make in order to get our film finished before the deadline, not to count are CCR's as well. I would set up the platform that we would discuss issues on. I used Group FaceTime since all of our computers are from Apple the brand. There was some difficulty when it came to moving our film around, but after a couple of tries and about an hour of work, I finally figured out how and told my group mates via FaceTime each time they were going to transport the film to someone else. This pretty much ended our re-editing day after we were done with our work.

Editing Blog: Presenting to my Family

In effort to perfect our project, I hosted a showing of our film after dinner at my house to get real feedback from people who I am close with. There was no bias or sugar coating especially since my brother has taken this course and knows what expectation I needed to meet in order to have a good grade on our film. I used a projector to show the movie that I connected to my computer where we had most of our movie done. I created a rubric similar to our peer review rubric that we did in class and asked them to fill it out after I played the movie through twice. Unfortunately, I miscounted when printing and do not have the homemade rubric anymore, however, I will use aa picture of the class rubric instead to show how it was graded. After the first showing I asked specifically what felt choppy right off the bat, most of my family members agreed that the titles needed to come in more smoothly. They also added that the transitions in the first two scenes felt like they didn't match resulting in them being a little confused. I then played the movie the second time through and waited until the end. At the end of the second showing I asked if there was anything new that they felt needed to be changed, my brother added that our sound would be slightly off from the scene which took his attention away from our film. I thanked them for watching and then immediately called my teammates to schedule an editing session to fix the errors. We plan on doing it later on this week as we are busy for the next couple of days.

Re-filming Day

After watching our film several times as well as it being critiqued several times by different audiences, we decided as a group to re-film. I noticed that in our film there were some scenes that could have been much cleaner moving through them and after both groups of critics, my family and our peers, mentioned the same scenes, we knew it had to be redone. Our original re film date was on March 23, 2020. This however changed because of the CoronaVirus (COVID-19) outbreak as a pandemic. Since the United States government recommened that we stay self-quarantined for some time until the situation has been put under control. This prevented my group mates and I from coming together to re film the scenes that we wanted to. Since we were stuck with our scenes that we already filmed, we knew we needed to focus on the editing to make it perfect to make up for the scenes in the film. I found this to be a major setback when it came to our original film because we couldn't re film what we needed to in order to make this the best it could be. I understand that all of movie production has been halted which also correlates to our dilemma right now. Our re-filming day was canceled because of the virus' outbreak.

Editing Blog: Titles and Sound

After filming at all of our locations, we decided that we needed to focus on the sounds as well as our titles in our film since these are the areas that would most likely not change as we moved forward. Also, our group had about an our to edit since we had other plans with our families that day making sound and titles the best thing to focus on as it wouldn't take too long. Once we met at our group mate Montana's house, we began to work immediately. I took the role of managing our titles, this included nearly everything related to titles; from how they come in, how long the title is there for, the fonts used in it and much more. While working, I found some difficulty at first with how to really work with the titles and change their fonts, however, after Montana and Reese showed me how it became a standard task only a little more tedious. Also, the most important part of the title is to integrate it into the film with a certain ease as the title should go along with the film smoothly. The positioning of the title is also important when it comes to inserting them. I suggested we do the bottom left corner for most of them and it juts so happened that it worked out. When it came time to insert our titles, I tried three different fonts and sizes and placed them all in the movie one at a time in the position we would want them. This way, we would know which looked best font-wise as well as the size of the title. We decided on size 20 font that would rest in the bottom left corner as the titles came in. Sounds were handled by Reese and Montana, however, I did help when it came time to finishing the project's sound as they would play it for me and I would tell them if it matched up well. Before we knew it the day was over and we had to leave which ended our editing day.

Filming Blog: Updated Location

After editing the latest footage from Wolf Lake Park, we decided we needed more footage to use in our film as the sequence of the film felt off.  So, I suggested a new park because one of group mates wasn't able to go to Wolf Lake again at that specific time, so the nearest park was Hugh Taylor Birch State Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At this new park, we faced no difficulty getting in as it was a State Park but we were under time constraints since the park closed at 6 PM sharp. At Birch State Park we really focused on the angles of the camera. For instance, although I was acting, I was also the director. We figured that we should film most of our story board but with completely different angles to ensure we are getting all of the ones we need. I suggested that we use alternate angles that may not be traditionally used in films to make our film stand out in a positive way. While we filmed I was still the "attacker". I continued to follow the story board of what to do. However, when it came time to direct I would suggest the angles we should do as well as make up certain movements while we filmed to fit the new angles that I suggested. I found that a lot of what directors face during the filming process is the need to be on your toes and ready to change your shots based on what is being filmed. I think that is why the most successful directors such as Steven Spielberg are so successful because they know how to change what they are shooting based on the circumstances. 

Filming Blog: New Location

Today my group and I filmed our final piece of our original film. However, this time we had to go to a different location as we were not going to make it to Silver Lake on time to get enough film done. I suggested that we use a park in the area where we were and after researching, I found the perfect park to go to. In this park, the scenery matched the one in Silver lakes with Pine trees surrounding a small bay of water; this made the park perfect to film at for extra footage as well as see what lighting would be best for our original film. We used a park named Wolf Lake Park that is also out in Davie, Florida as it is close to all members of our group. Both parks have the same kind of pine trees and lake enclosed into it, so I figured the match would be identical if we needed to use other scenes from a previous filming day. I also suggested we go at the same time as we did before as the lighting would be the same. While at Wolf Lake, I kept the same role as last time as the "attacker" or antagonist in the film. This park I found to be much better as the trails were more dirt trails rather than paved in trails making the film seem more realistic to our idea of the deep woods. While we were filming I made sure that we were getting the same scene in different angles incase we needed to add different perspectives of the scenes. I ensured that we got all of the angles we needed, these being: establishing shot, close ups, medium shots, point of view, pan, low and high angles, and many more. Each angle will add sophistication to it as well as push our story along gently. While at the park I used the same outfit as last time ensuring that we could cross edit previously filmed scenes. I was tasked with doing mostly the high angles considering that my teammates are not taller than five feet and three inches and I am six feet tall.

Editing Day: Overall smoothness of the film

Following the peer review day, my group decided we either needed to reshoot or re edit our movie because of the comments that our peers gave us. We decided since we did not have much time to focus on our transitions as well as titles that are in our original movie. I suggested that we focus on a particular part of our movie so each section would have our full attention to make it perfect. After some discussion, I suggested the bedroom scene as it was on of the shortest as well as it being the end of the movie so I found it as a perfect placement in our schedule. In our bedroom scene, I asked the group that graded us to tell me some specifics of those certain scenes that could be improved, the most popular answer was the transitions were too fast for the viewer to keep up with. After hearing this, I took the task of fixing our transitions to where they would make sense as the story progressed. Instead of the jumpcuts we used in our bedroom scene, I would substitute them with others such as fade ins and outs to keep the story flowing as well as keep the viewer engaged. Also, I used different footage than what was originally in our movie as it presented new angles that would reenforce the setting to the viewer as this was another common critique of our film. I inserted new footage that would cover zoom ins and outs as well as a birds eye view by placing the camera onto her ceiling fan where it would hang. These were the most major critiques that we focused on fixing in our bedroom scene specifically, other edits we did were small trims that made the movie seem choppy at sometimes. This was a successful editing sessions as we accomplished what we needed to in order to stay on schedule for submission. 

Peer Review Day

Today in class we finally were able to watch and analyze each other’s final task during my period. During the “peer review day”, we were each given a number to select and with each group corresponding to another, the group you chose is who would be grading you. Before we began the peer reviews, the final task itself had to be discussed. Each movie should be 1:50 to 2:00 minutes long with all aspects such as: editing, filming, and other techniques to help improve the film to a different standard. Once we got into class and we’re settled, we got our peer review rubrics from the front bins of the classroom and started to fill out out name and group numbers, it then came time to switch laptops and watch the movies. To make the process easier, all students must put their film on a flash drive or jump drive in order to receive a grade. Luckily, I had a flash drive and since I did a majority of the editing, I also put our finishers movie onto the drive. The group we were  given to review was Ryan, Luca, snd Camilo. Their movie was almost finished with just a few discrepancies that made it not as smooth as it could be, however, this peer review allow them to make the re shoots and re edits to ensure that their film is the best it can be. My group was reviewed by another group, the feedback was mostly positive except for some scenes where either the camera movement becomes choppy or a transition isn’t as smooth as it could be. We will be re shooting some extra scenes just Incase we want to incorporate them.