Creative Critical Reflection

In addition to my film opening I have created a creative critical reflection. I attached it to the link below, thank you for watching.

Creative Critical Reflection : Onedrive

Film Opening

The film opening, "In the Blink of an Eye" is finally finished! I have put in lots of hard work and effort into this project, to make it as best as possible. I hope you enjoy it, thanks for watching!

"In the Blink of an Eye" : YouTube

"In the Blink of an Eye" : Dropbox

Research: Sound

We already have the basic idea of what we want to do with the sound elements of the film opening. We want to have both a background music with a semi-upbeat tone and a voice over that explains and gives further background information of what is happening. We believe that by incorporating these two sound techniques we will be making the opening more attractive to the viewer as well as making it easy to understand. I began to watch film openings based on the same target audience as ours, such as "Teenage Dirtbag" and  "Teen Spirit".

"Teenage Dirtbag"

The film opening of this teenage movie has a similar objective of what we are trying to accomplish. This film has a mixture of diegetic dialogue, a voiceover that helps establish the plot, and background music that keeps the viewer engaged. In our film we will have all of the components included in the opening of the film above. We will have diegetic sound or dialogue from the phone call. We will also incorporate background much and a voiceover.

"Teenage Dirtbag (2009)." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2017. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1091207/>.

Sound

We have basically finished filming the whole opening. The editing is almost done, I just need to add the sound and edit the film accordingly to match the rhythm. Since the beginning of the project we had decided that we were going to use a voiceover that would help develop and explain the plot. Gabby had already written a rough draft of the script but, since we have had changes in the film opening we must alter the script as well. The voice over would start off by foreshadowing what drastic events will happen later on that will dictate how the rest of the film will play out.

The voiceover will be accompanied by a semi-upbeat music that will help create the rhythm of the film.  We have also asked permission to use several songs but, we haven't heard a response. So far we are focused on finding un-copyright music to be safe, just in case the music is not approved.

My group members and I have found an acoustic instrumental song called chasing cars, by acoustic instrumentls. Down in their bio they allowed us to use their song as long as we give credit to them within our video. We are going to use this song as background music to engage the viewer.

The special sound effects of the car crash will be a mixture of sound effects provided by the software, IMovie, and the foley sounds that Gabby and I created. We used exterior sounds such as a recording of tires screeching, to create the sound of a car collision.

Filming Pt. 2

Today, my group and I got together for the second time to take additional footage that we needed and had errors the first time. We made sure that to not have continuity issues within the film, the main actor, Gabby must wear the same clothing. One of the problems we had was illustrating the phone call shot. For round two, we want this shot to look more realistic and to clearly express her excitement. Below I attached the second, and improved shot.

We made this shot be a close-up shot of the main actor's face while she is talking on the phone. In this shot the dialog is extremely important, because it adds emphasis on what is going on in the opening and helps establish a tone. The se of the close up was also relevant because it focused on the facial expressions and reactions of Gabby, while she was delivering the exciting news to her friend.

Car Crash?!?

On the storyboard we has planned to include a car crash accident at the end of the film opening. We had first planned on showing the main character reach out for her phone while driving and then having sudden movements and making the screen turn black with sound effects of a crash. We have already filmed the "car crash" but when I combined all the footage, it doesn't flow correctly and doesn't get the point across. One problem about this, is that when Gabby very valiantly volunteered to become the main actor she forgot to mention that she cannot sit in the drivers seat because she is afraid to drive. In my opinion, it is very difficult to film a car crash without the car moving but hey, who's not up for the challenge. After the problem arose we had to find a solution, or we would of had to film the whole thing from the beginning with a different actor.

I decided to turn to the web and research new ways on how to fake a car crash. I encountered a YouTube video that shows what specific shots we could use. The video "How to make film a fake car crash" is very helpful, and I strongly believe that with the help of this tutorial we can definitely make the crash work. It begins with one shot of a car approaching a street with a cut in the middle of the driver reaching for their phone. After, the shot is paired with a front shot of the point of view of the incoming car, then the screen switches to black and it relies on sound effects. This is very useful because since our main actor, Gabby, can't actually move a car, we could use another actor in this scene since the face doesn't necessarily have to show.



"Shooting a Low-budget Car Crash..." Studentfilms.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2017. <http://www.studentfilms.com/threads/shooting-a-low-budget-car-crash.1385/>.

Photography, J&N. "How to Make Film a Fake Car Crash." YouTube. N.p., 30 May 2016. Web. 02 Apr. 2017. <https://youtu.be/rh_T0xicO-Y>.

Editing

This week I began editing the film opening. As I was putting each shot together and unifying it, I noticed that some need to be re-shot and fixed. I have already spoke to my group members about re-shooting some shots and they have agreed. We had thought of filming this weekend, but sometimes it is very difficult for everyone in the group to be available. I spoke with Gabby and she has a stomach virus, but hopefully she will be feeling better tomorrow so we can film on Monday.

I have made the storyboard, filmed, and now I'm editing the film opening. So far the film opening is coming out somewhat as planned. We have enough footage to meet the time requirements, of 2 minutes, and even more if we want to alter and improve the plot. We still have to incorporate the production companies intro as well as the credits. Other than the delays of filming, we are on schedule.