Film opening

 I cannot express enough how relieved we are that this journey has finally come to an end. We struggled and worked but we also learned and had fun with the journey of making this project. Without any more introduction: BORDERLINE

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My Creative Critical Reflection

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Reflection

This was a very long and frustrating project nonetheless. Not because of the difficulty of it, but because of all of the elements and things we had to do in order to complete it. But surprisingly it was also a time of learning and gaining new knowledge as we had to learn to do stuff me and my partner Matias have never done before. 

We started the project with high hopes of learning and being able to develop our "media creation experience." Obviously, we started with the planning process. We brainstormed possible genres and ideas when we finally got to one that interested us both: the indecision in high school. Both of us were very familiar with this topic as we had seen it with close friends and sometimes even ourselves. After that, it was pretty much research. We spent the first week and a half researching the genre, what possible things we could use, where we could film, etc.

Planning and research became a huge part of the project and it took us longer than expected. We also had to make scripts, location searches, and storyboards. The next step was to start actually filming. At the beginning of the process, we contacted one of my friends who previously agreed to play the part of the main character. However, this came to be our first drawback on the project. We were supposed to start filming around week 4, but those plans changed. Our actor was not able to attend this shooting day. Therefore Matias and I decided to use this  "off" week to refine our planning. We revisited the storyboard and script, organized the set (my room), and we did all of this to make sure that once we could actually film, it would be an easy process. Due to conflicts in our schedules, we could only film on weekends, so we used the weekdays to prepare these things. Once week 5 arrived when we agreed to film, our actor yet again said he could not make it. At this point, we became frustrated and decided to completely take him out of the process. From there it was just me and Matias.

On week 5 we each had to take on the characters that we were not supposed in the first place. On the first day of filming, we assumed this decrease in "staff" would not affect us... but we were wrong. The first day we filmed scene one which was mostly one character, therefore while Matias was acting, I could easily film. But, day two of filming came and we realized a big problem. We did our storyboards and scripts based on the fact that there would be three people available (two actors, and a cameraman). Now that one of those people was out of the picture we had to basically quickly redo our previous planning and remake it to accommodate our current necessities. So, on day two instead of filming scene two, we filmed scene three which included fewer shots of the two characters together, therefore, making it easier to film. 

Another problem came when our schedule became tighter. In the beginning, we thought we would start filming in week 4 and assured ourselves that we would be done filming by week 6 at least. So, I had already agreed with spring break plans with my parents and would not be available for that weekend. Thus, we had to rush the filming to a weekday, but luckily that same Friday we did not have school and I convinced my parents to move the trip from Saturday to Sunday. This would give us two days in which we had to finish or shooting. 

As mentioned before we planned to use a cameraman who would handhold the camera. After we changed that we had to change most of our planning. Firstly, we had to change the scene itself. We were planning on doing a walking two-shot, but without a third person that was going to be hard. We moved our location and had to buy a tripod. And, since we changed how the scene was going to develop we also had to change the script.  Those two days Friday and Saturday (which were the only two days we had to finish filming) we basically had to race the sun. We had to be able to get everything done before it was too late. 

On spring break we agreed to work on the project. I would edit while Matias would do additional sounds. But, we committed the mistake we told ourselves we would not do: we took things too easy on spring break. We had the whole actually started working on Saturday, but the good thing is we still had a whole week to be able to finish editing and do our CCRs.

We are both currently working on our CCRs and finishing up editing. There were definitely some drawbacks, things we did not expect, and things we could have done better. But as I said at the beginning, this project allowed us to learn new things and learn from mistakes.

Additional/Foley Sounds

 During the process of editing in a previous project, we had an issue with wind and audio. So, we decided to use this previous experience to fix that. We knew that in scene 1 and 3 there was not going to be many audio problems are they are filmed indoor. However, scene 2 was going to be the one that will give us problems, but there were two ways we tried to fix that.

The first thing we thought about before starting filming was to record with an extra phone our audio up-close. As our characters are teenagers, they can get away with using headphones and airpods. Therefore, we would both use headphones connected to an extra phone that is recording just audio. One of the issues we had with this though was that when both characters were speaking, the headphones will pick up the audio of just one person. And since we just had one extra phone, we just tried to place the phone in a midpoint area, that would listen t both of us. 

In case the headphones technique would not work as much, we fixed sounds on the post production process. We used foley or additional dialogue. So, certain sounds we recorded separately such as traffic, nature, or certain dialogue parts. These would help us avoid extra sounds we did not want in such as wind, loud cars and honks, or at one point people speaking in the background.  Moreover, for the scenes we had to use the original audio, we would use apps such as Audacity to remove static audio, or lower the volume of certain loud scenes. Overall, I think it was really good the fact that we were able to look back and see into previous project mistakes and try to fix them on this one.

Editing

 Editing has been a smooth process, as we have been editing since after we did the first shooting. But there is still a lot to be done. After shooting the first day, we decided it would be a good idea to edit what we already got. And it was good in fact, as we were able to see what worked and what did not. Or maybe some stuff that we had to fix. Overall, that first edit week was pretty successful.

After the second and third days of shooting, we would not be able to meet up again due to spring break. So, that was our last chance to fix everything we had to. The editing would be done over this week (spring break) which would allow us to take it slow, smooth, and concise with things by doing it over a long period of time, but remaining constant.

At the beginning, we both wanted to edit. The problem was that since I have a school computer in order to have Adobe premiere Pro, me and my partner could not use the "share project" ability of Premier. And we found out really quick that it was not really practical ot be emailing the Adobe project back and forth. I would email what I got done, then it will take time for him to email it back, sometimes the file would get corrupted for some reason, or if I changed it after sending my part, he would receive an outdated version of the project. Conclusion: it was a mess. So, what we did was decided on a single person to keep the project on their computer, which was me. What we would do, is that sometimes we would make a call and I would share my screen with him, so that we both input on the project. We made it work.

Shooting Day 2 and 3

As spring break approaches, this was the last day we could film so we had to stay focused and get done what we needed. By this point we scheduled to film scene 3 on Saturday and scene 2 on Sunday. Again, as spring break was approaching, we both had different schedules, therefore we had to get everything done in these two days so that we could use the rest of spring break to finish up editing.

On Saturday we needed to film scene 2. We already had things that we previously filmed on the first day to get ahead. So, this day was not much of a hard day. And the scene was inside the house so we did not have any other variables that could affect the filming. So we just followed the storyboard and got done the whole scene. 

Sunday was more of a difficult day. On this day we had to film Scene 2, which was outside, and it required us both to talk. Like any other day we got to my house to firstly plan out the scene and make sure the location was available. After that we went to the location. One of the first things we noticed that was a little annoying: the Florida heat. For some reason that day was just way hotter than the entire week. But this was not a big thing that actually affected the project whatsoever.

Now, one of the big issues that actually changed our plans was the change in casting. Since me and my partner were not able to have a third person, then we had to rely much more in tripods for scenes where we both appeared in. And, it is also the fact that none of us actually like acting or are even good at it. So it was very time consuming all the bloopers, laughter, and mistakes that would randomly occur as we have no experience in acting. So at that time after having so many do-overs and bloopers we were racing the sun... and our battery. Since it was getting late, the sun was going down, and since we were outside, the natural lightning of the sun was a big part. And to make things worse, as we were not planning on taking that long, the phone we were using as a camera was running out of battery, and even forgot about bringing a charger. At the end, we rushed the filming, no time for mistakes and thankfully got everything done at a miraculous 5% battery.

Casting Issues

 So far our most major issue was the unavailability of one of our actors. Initially I talked with one of my friends (that has appeared previous projects I have done) if he wanted to be on this project, which he said yes. The problem came the week that we actually had to start filming where he said he was not going to be available. This happened even though we had several schedules showing what days we would film and what and how much we would film each day, even trying to adjust to his schedule, but he just could not make it. 

Because of this, we decided to replace him as the main character, so he would move on to be the secondary character while my partner would be the main character. This way, the weekend he was unavailable, I could be able to film the scenes that only required the main character (my partner) so that we would leave the scenes of the two of them for the weekend he was available. 

However, the next week came and he still put up many. At this point, me and my partner were tired of all these excuses, after even trying to change our entire filming schedule just to match his. So after this we just entirely replaced him. I had to take on the role of the secondary character.

This not only previously affected these schedules, but it also greatly affected our planning too. We did such planning, like the storyboard, while thinking of having three people: two actors, and a cameraman. Initially, I was going to be the cameraman. However, since both me and my partner were forced to act, we had to change up our plans and figure out a way to have both of us while still filming. 

Our solutions so far have been to film normally like I wanted to with the scenes were its just one character. But, for the scenes that require us both to be on the shot, we had to invest on a tripod. Even though, this entirely changed our planning, I believe that we can be able to overcome this and still produce a good outcome.