Final Submission!

 Hi blog! This is my final post as a Media Studies AS Student, and I am so proud of how far this course has allowed me to grow, and without further ado, here are my final links!

Film Opening

CCR 1

CCR 2

Just in case those links don't work here is the YouTube link:

CCR 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPSUCe5615Q

CCR 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acG41e2yqzE

Film Opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jteVLyxFAKk

CCR 2 Production

 Hi blog! Today was my final day of filming for my portfolio project, and I was very proud of how well it went. 

   So I ended up changing my idea from the board to a night show, because my dad wanted to be included in a way, and since he is like my best friend, I couldn't say no. He ended up being my host, which worked out very well. Our costuming was formal, as it would be on a real night show. I wore a sparkly bronze floor length dress, and my dad wore a suit to portray the host attire. Here is a shot of our costumes from the CCR itself.

    We had a lamp that matched the night show vibe and lighting as well as chairs that resemble couch-like chairs that could also commonly be found in a night talk show interview. I liked this idea much better than the original plan I had, as it was more connected to the audience, which was what many of the questions were about. It was also more entertaining, because of my dad's fun personality

    The editing of this CCR was much better in my opinion because I got to include laugh tracks and clap tracks, which I found really fun. Speaking of, I used Pixabay for those foley sounds, including the drum intro and it was very easy to navigate, as well as Canva for the talk show logo.

    That's all from me blog, the next post will be my final uploads!

CCR 1 Filming

 Hi blog! For my first CCR, I used a steady handheld tripod to keep my camera from being unsteady, because I was having my mom film it, and I wanted to make it as easy for her as possible, while still having it look good on camera. Here is what it looked like!

I was very happy with how it looked, and overall I think that on camera it looked pretty solid. It ended up being too cold to go to the pool, and there were a lot of people in the area so I filmed outside of the pool, but still showed the location in the background. Pretty much every shot other than that went exactly according to plan, and overall I was very happy with the results of this CCR. I think it represented my constantly busy schedule very well.

The editing was kind of stressful, as it is my least favorite part of the process, but it turned out better than I expected. Anyways, that's a wrap on this CCR, and I am very excited to work on my second one, because I changed up my idea a bit, so I can't wait to show you!

CCR Scripts

     Hi blog! As promised, here are the scripts for each of my CCR videos.

CCR 1:CCR script 1.docx

CCR 2: CCR 2.docx

    I do want to mention, I changed the idea for my second CCR because I didn't have the resources that I thought I did, so instead, I decided on doing a night show theme. The ones that I got inspiration from were The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Daily Show, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. These shows all have similar setups and usually have a guy interviewing, so I recruited my dad to help me with that part. I am even more excited with this idea, because I grew up with night shows, which makes me feel very nostalgic.

    Since my dad has problems memorizing things, I am going to give him the script in his hands to read off of, which will allow for the interview to run smoothly.

CCR Question 4

 Hi blog! For my last and final CCR question, about technologies, software, and hardware that we utilized during the creation of this process, I will be using the board concept I explained in the question 2 post. I made this choice because it is very specific and objective, which I suppose would be the easiest to explain with a visual representation of what we used. 

    Some examples of what I will include is:

• Adobe Premiere Pro
• SanDisk 32 GB card
• Camera (T7i Canon)
• 
  Voice Memos
• CapCut
• Music
• Foley
• Blogger
• Canva
• Pixabay
• Bulletproof Bear

    This question, while relatively simple in theory has a lot of parts, and truly is what will express what I used to bring the whole product together, and it is vital that I include as many examples as I can to show that the project was 100% created by my team and I. Here are some photos I will use on the board to answer the 4th question.

CCR Question 3

    Hi blog! To answer my third question of the CCR, which is about personal growth and development of skills, I will express my answer in the "WIRED" video alongside question 1. I decided to do these two together as I think they are the most personal, and I want to talk directly to the camera with no other distractions or focus shifts like I will require in my other video idea. This question is very particular to each person, which is why I am going to spend a large portion of the video discussing how my skills and understanding of media have developed and improved over not only the past few months of creating the film opening, but over the whole span of this course. 

    I would also like to mention that as I mentioned in a previous post about my group meetings, I will slightly change the style of the video to answer 1 and 3 to be more specific to me, and overall more creative. As I described my specific locations for filming this video, I will use 2/5 spots to answer this question, as I want to split the video to evenly express answers to both questions, since another 2/5 will be used for question 1, and a small intro in another location. I want the two most personal and lively environments to be answering question 3, to reflect the question itself. I am leaning towards doing the pool and the color guard scenes, since guard is such a huge part of my life and it connects to how we scheduled time and worked around problems.

    The guard scene is going to be the major part that makes it "Kenna", because it truly is my life, and was the only thing keeping my time management in check. I also don't think that anyone else will include the same concept, so it will make it even more specific to me. That's how I am going to end the video, since I think it would be the easiest to lead into a conclusion.

CCR Question 2

     Hi blog! I am now fully switching gears to the CCR, since we wrapped up filming, which I will make posts about later next week! So in honor of such, I was thinking about what I would like to do with question 2 of my CCR. The question is "How does your project engage with audiences and how could it be distributes as a real media text?" I would like to answer this question along with question 4, which I will explain in a future post. I selected these two questions to partner together because they are the ones that I feel I can answer best with a physical board next to me, which I will explain.

    You may be thinking: Kenna, what prop are you talking about? Well, as I plan to do my CCR with half of the videos in one (1/3 in the wired video) and the rest in the other (2/4 in the board video), I needed to come up with a second creative idea on how to sell my answer to this question. In my head, I like to organize things in a specific way, and I am a visual learner at my core, so I thought a creative way to express my answer to some of the questions was to map out my thought process for the camera to see exactly how my brain was organizing it. I am going to create a chart where I can connect my plan for distribution and audience as if on a murder mystery episode. I got this idea because one thing I learned from this project is that you have to work around things, and connect dots that are not going to be very clear, but it is needed to get the finished product (which I will also post next week once editing is concluded).

    I also planned to do this because I am still new to editing, and I want to make it easier on me later to edit and not have to include numerous amounts of images on screen, as I can print them out physically. I will include images of the actors, with their diverse appearances, movies that inspired our film, film festivals we aspire to distribute to, social media to advertise where we are going to distribute, and much more about our process that relates to the question.

    Here are some image examples of what I plan to do to answer my question 2:

    I will upload all of my scripts next week once I have finished them all for easy access.

Group Meeting #2 (CCR)

     Hi blog! This week, I had another group meeting (thank goodness) with a new bunch of individuals, which were extremely helpful when it came to deciding on what to do for my CCR. I got ideas on how to group my questions per video, plot ideas for the videos, and overall just a good insight to how other people are viewing the project. I always am open to criticism, especially on something as important as this project, so I was also thrilled to aid other members of the group in their projects.

    Specifically, they gave me an idea on how to change my previous idea of the WIRED web's most asked questions to be more personal and less copying an already created idea. Since I am such a busy person and I am always on the go, around my town going to different places, they gave me the idea to find the questions written on random objects in the most random locations possible. That may sound confusing, but hear me out. For example, one of the locations will be in a library, so I will film myself talking to the camera in a typical interview style, but rather than having someone behind the camera ask, or have a board with prompts, I will grab a book from the shelf with a question taped on it. 

    The places I want to film need to be completely random and chaotic, because I want the video to feel silly and entertaining. Some places I have planned to film as of right now are my bed, a library, a pool, a park, and at my color guard rehearsal, which I will explain further in a future post. 

    For my other video they told me it does not have to be as high maintenance as the first one, because I am of course restricted on my available time. So, for this one I plan on doing a pinboard with cutouts of images depicting things related to the questions that I associate with the video. I am less enthusiastic about this idea, so I'm sure that I will change it up a bit on filming day to be more intriguing, but for now that it the plan.

Here are the links to the members that helped me in the group!

Nicole Bauer Galindo- https://nicbau.blogspot.com/ 

Diego Ruz- https://ruzlog.blogspot.com/

Dani Chollett- https://intomediastudies.blogspot.com/

Anastasia Campero- https://myblogisthecoolest777.blogspot.com/

Charlee Oshins- https://blogbycharlee.blogspot.com/

CCR Question 1

 Hi blog! For the Creative Critical Reflection, I was instantly excited because I knew what I knew I wanted to do the second I heard we got to be creative about our choice of presenting the information. I have always been a fan of the YouTube "Web's Most Searched Questions" by WIRED, and I had the idea to recreate one for one of my videos that I submit. The first question of the CCR is  "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?" which means that it is related to the genre and representation of our project.

    In it, I will discuss how our story is based on the queer community, as all of our actors and production team are members of it, so we wanted to express that in the story, as well as how they come from different backgrounds, specifically Sam being from a Latin country, etc. We will also discuss the genre typically involving love interests, which we did use in our project, however we did not explicitly assign Kai a gender, so that could be a unique factor, as it is very rare to see a mainstream coming of age film connecting to the LGBTQ+ community. We also decided to steer away from having an objectively bad character, as Kai may be the antagonist, but we plan to humanize him later on in the film, and don't want the story to feel like any other coming of age film. I will also discuss how my story represents bullying, stereotypes, self discovery, and abusive relationships. I plan to do my own spin on the autocomplete interview, and I have been brainstorming ways how.

    Although that is a brief overview of what I plan to so with my first question of the CCR, I will upload my script for it later next week once I have finished filming, because as of right now, due to STN and several problems occurring, I do not feel that I can thoroughly answer the question with so much of the filming and official plot that we go with on production day still in the air.

    Here is an example of a WIRED video of Josh Hutcherson answering the "Web's Most Searched Questions" that I enjoyed and will take inspiration from when I film my own for the CCR to answer questions 1 and 2.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yj-3ECizqmk&t=104s&pp=ygUcd2VicyBtb3N0IHNlYXJjaGVkIHF1ZXN0aW9ucw%3D%3Db 

Foley and Credits

     Hi blog! For the editing process, we needed to create some foley sounds, which we worked together to come up with ideas and decide on what ones we would need to film ourselves in contrast to the ones that we could easily find online. We had the idea to film us creating the sounds, however we did not have the time to get together with all of us, which was a major setback to what we wanted. So instead, Lee volunteered to film it herself to upload on our blogs!

    The ideas that we came up with were using a couch for drawing sounds and to imitate the chair sounds of Sam, although we may have to change that if we use a more metal based chair. We also used a pillow to represent Sam falling on the pavement when he almost gets hit by Kai's car. There were several others, but for the most part to save time we are going to use sounds from online. 

    We also needed to come up for what font we would use for the credits, which we decided would not actually represent our jobs because we all worked together for each job. So instead, we put all of our names down on two random jobs to fit the typical style of a real production. For the fonts we knew we wanted it to vaguely resemble handwriting, so here were the options that we did not choose.

    We ended up choosing one that was not cursive like the third option, cause we wanted it to be easily legible, not too thin like the second option so it would show up well on a busy background, and not as large as the first one because we wanted the actual video to be the main focus. The one that we did choose is the closest to handwriting, as it is not as perfect as typical Arial or Times New Roman font, which we definitely didn't want, as the coming of age genre is more relaxed and a kind of unserious genre.

Aurora's Room Design

    Hi blog! When we filmed Aurora's scenes, we needed to officially set up and design her room the way that we had planned, so here is how that went. As we showed in the mood board and the character description, Aurora is really into photography, which we expressed in her bedroom. We displayed several cameras like a Polaroid camera, Lego camera, small handheld camera, etc. on her nightstand, which all three of us there to film worked together to acquire, as we each owned a camera or two. Here is how that turned out!

    Since her main interest is photography, we asked the actress of Aurora (Lee) to bring some printed photos of her and her friends to Sofia's house so we could stage the room. She brought polaroid photos, photo booth strips, baby photos, family photos, etc. It looked really good once we had set it up! Luckily for you, we filmed the whole process of setting it up prior to filming!

    Although the video does most of the explaining on how we set up the room, it is also important to mention that it looks simple, but it took a decent amount of the time we spent to take down the decor in Sofia's room and replace it, and vice versa at the end. But it was worth it to be able to ensure every detail will match our storyline and a huge part of the production is finished!

Aurora's Scenes!

     Hi blog! So, we filmed more this week with Madison and Sofia back in town! However, Madison got extremely sick and Sam was busy, so we were left to film Aurora (Lee)'s scenes. It went extremely smooth and we got everything we needed done in about an hour. We filmed at Sofia's house, as we needed a location that had a window facing the road. We took many behind the scenes photos and videos as well as began editing the clips together. I will explain more about the set decoration in another post, but here are some behind the scenes clips!

    To edit, we used Adobe Premiere Pro, which we have access to through our school production program, and it worked super smooth, as we have practiced using it earlier in the year on projects like the OWF, Music Marketing, and Sound projects.

We used a T7i Canon camera to film, which we didn't have a single problem with, so we will probably continue using that one for the rest of the project to keep consistent quality throughout. We are lucky enough to have access to very good equipment.

    The clips came out great and we are really excited about how it is coming so far! It has been a real struggle finding time for all 4 of us to meet up, as we all are extremely busy, however we were grateful to be able to get the majority of us together on one day with good weather. We are a little behind on our schedule for this reason, but we will hopefully be finished filming by the end of this week to focus on our CCR. 

Getting filming started

    Hi blog! As I mentioned in my last post, Madison and Sofia had to leave for STN this week, but earlier before they had to leave for their trip, we filmed some inserts of the mustang! Here are some behind the scenes photos we took!

    This process was really easy, but it still allowed us to get started on something in the mean time, so that when the two of them return from their trip, we will not be starting from a blank slate of having absolutely no footage. I am a little bummed that we couldn't film much at all this week, because it was planned to get the majority of it done by now, but we gotta roll with the punches.

    However, I am confident in my team and I's ability to stay on time during this next coming week, since we work so well together and do not hinder our creativity when we are together. Since the mustang is such a big part of Kai's character, we wanted to get an immense amount of clips to insert later on, because the car scene is the very first thing that the audience will see appear on the screen.

    We got our hands on a camera to use before CBTV needed them all back for the Tampa trip, which was great because filming on such good quality equipment will allow our film to truly shine more than it would if we were to use a normal iPhone camera.

    Alright blog, that's it from me for this week! I can't wait to keep you updated and I am pretty happy with where we are so far in our production process as of week 5!