CCR

  



1.      How do your products represent social groups or issues?

 

My short film does a critical thing to represent social groups of film enthusiasts by forcing the audience to look for specific details to figure out that the mystery has not been solved in order to try to connect with the audience on a deeper level. The short film tries to talk directly to the audience through the character's thoughts being told to the audience. For them to not be held back from any information. Another social group I tried to focus on was teenagers. By having the characters be teenagers and have a relatable club setting, it will attract that age group. This will benefit my marketing strategy as other locked room mysteries usually have only adult characters like Knives Out and Clue. I think that employing this unique technique as well as focusing on dialogue it will help make a unique mystery. I feel like the mystery genre overall is pretty saturated with the same format but a different setting (think the murder of the orient express). Sadly, my movie did not do anything in the terms of social reforms or political issues, but that’s because for a mystery I am more focused on presenting the case to the viewers than anything else. With only 5 minutes for the movie, I simply did not have the time to address social issues without wasting time to develop my characters.

 

 

 

2. How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of ‘branding’?

 

 

      I am proud of my marketing for the project so far as I put a bunch of effort into my postcard and have started on my website. I have gone for a more mysterious branding on my postcard and website. I am going to try and not reveal anything about the plot for my marketing other than the genre of the movie. Other mysteries have done this and seen success such as the marketing strategy for Knives Out. While filming parts of my movie I think I will use a filter to make the setting darker. While filming the walls are white which kind of ruins the vibe I am going with my movie. Luckily, I did this technique for my last movie in AS-level media, so I already know how to do this. I think in order to do the majority of things I want branding-wise in the movie it's going to come down to postproduction or editing. In the past couple of years in comm tech, I have become certified in After Effects and Premiere Pro. I may be able to use those in order to do some editing techniques. One thing I want to do for branding is with my social media websites. I am trying to think of some posts I can make to create a sense of mystery. Maybe make a teaser that also works as something to generate excitement for the movie.

 

 

 

 

 

3.      How do your products engage with the audience?

 

 

            As I said earlier, my product engages with the audience by trying to get them to think about the mystery as they watch it. I am going to try and make there be obvious holes in the mystery such as with the ending. This way the audience gets the opportunity to think. I think this is important for the mystery genre as a whole. Furthermore, I want to make some teasers that interact with the audience and talk to the audience. I don’t know how I am going to do this yet, but I have some ideas. One idea is by hinting at the cast and then making it so the audience can guess who the cast can be. I did something similar when running the social media for a club I am in. I have experience working with Instagram but not Facebook or Twitter so I don’t know for sure if it would work there. Engaging with the audience is one of the most important things you have to do when making a film and I will make sure to do so when filming. I hate when mysteries don’t give you some time to think about what just happened and breaking the fourth wall is debatable for how well it works. Overall, though, I think the plans for engaging with the audience will be sufficient for how big the scale of this project is.

 

 

 

4. How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?

I did a lot of research when it came to choosing my topic. Last year I had done a drama, so I felt comfortable making those but decided that I didn’t want to make another drama. When I decided to make a mystery, I knew I was setting myself up for a challenging experience. However, I took the risk and decided that I would make the common locked door mystery. My research tries to challenge the conventions by having a female lead. A lot of these mysteries have male leads taking the charge in the mystery. I cannot think of any of the popular locked door mysteries or popular court movies where they solve a case having a female being part of the detective solving. In my movie, I will challenge that convention. I also did research on the mystery genre and as I said earlier, I will be using teens which is uncommon. It is mostly adults who act in these mysteries, and I feel like it would be more interesting with teens as leads. One thing I will not include is a red herring. A red herring is a distraction from the main problem of the mystery, which is something that is usually obvious, and I hate when mysteries do this. I find it a waste of time and just annoying. For those reasons, I am not going to have any red herring or related distractions in my movie.  I may find more conventions in the future that I might try and not use in my products. I know I am trying to make a more unique advertisement than some of the generic ones I’ve seen.

Final Movie

 Here is my final movie. A quick synopsis is this. Shiki goes to the Math Club because he was forced to as his brother who graduated did it. He was given the key to the club and as he opens the door, Gregina is already in there. They have a conversation and it leads to a mystery on how Gregina got into the room as he didn't have a key and the door was locked. This causes Shiki and Gendo to work together to satisfy Gregina's curiosity. They finally think they may have a solution.

Link to video:

Final Video

I made this the thumbnail as I thought it was a good angle.

Overall Feelings

 

I am happy with the results of the movie. It is completely done right now and I have it downloaded as an MP4. The exporting process took like two hours for some reason though. It looks good when watching it and has no packet loss issues as well. Everything seems perfect so far in terms of the movie working. I am excited to show it to some friends. Since I am not submitting it to Cambridge, I might as well show it to some other people. I completely finished my editing as well. I don't think I need to add anything else. Overall, this process was really fun to do. I think I enjoyed this one more than the AS-level film. However, I will say that my editing was better in the previous films. This one did feel like I made more of a plot. Since it was over twice as long and needed an ending it pushed me. Reflecting, there are some things I would have changed. Primarily the lighting as I wanted it to be darker. Another thing I would have changed was the final scenes. It isn't as obvious as I wanted it to be. It isn't much else I would really change though. I think it turned out pretty good and my CR reflects that.

Sound Issue

 

Here I am going to talk about a sound issue with my movie. Before movie magic, it was really bad. I filmed during some busy times of school, so the background was littered with voices. This is a tiny bit obvious in the movie. But only if you pay close attention to the sound. Currently, I am working on getting rid of the voices. My plan of action is to try and add this plug-in for premiere pro. What it does is get rid of background noise. It isn't perfect, however, and some scenes require me to manually mess with Audio Gain. 

Edit 1:

After some work, I have reduced most of it. There is some that cannot go away since premiere counts it as the voice work that I need to include. I am still working on a workaround for this so I will update this blog once I think of one/

Edit 2:

I have found a little bit of a solution. While this isn't a complete fix, it definitely helps. So what I did is a bit complicated, but I will do my best to explain. There is this plug-in on Premiere called Sapphire. One thing on it is an Audio extension that allows for boosting voice. This is used to make a certain pitch louder than others. I boosted the voice lines that my actors used. What this did was make it really loud. Then I lowered all the sounds overall, making the background noise MUCH less noticable. This will be the final fix, and I am happy with the results.

Final Changes... Again..

 

My actors were really enthusiastic about this project. So much so that they watched me edit the video and had feedback of their own! This was really useful for me as I didn't have anyone to watch the movie. This was when the movie was barebones done with editing (to preface). They told me they wanted to redo their voice-over lines. I honestly thought it was fine, but they were adamant about redoing them. In my movie, there are 3 voice-over lines. One in the scene in the image. In this scene, Mayteetad is thinking to himself. I obviously didn't want the thinking to be not obvious by him talking. So instead, we just had him do a pose. The voice-over made it much more obvious. This scene is pretty important as it shows his character. The growth for this scene was important and he re-did it to make it more monotone. I think this helped show the character of Shiki. Someone who doesn't really care and wants to leave, but is very smart. They were able to figure out the mystery pretty quickly (or were they?). The other voice-over scene was at the end of the building. I didn't have to do a voice-over here, but it made the quality better. These scenes really help with the feel of the movie so I am glad it got improved.

Text Choice

 

Today I worked on making the titles for the movie. For a reminder, these are the titles needed for the movie.

Name of the Studio (PRESENTS) (Who owns the rights) 

Name of the Production Company (Which company made the movie) 

Actor(s) names (Who is in the movie) 

Film Title (What is the movie called) 

Music by (Who is the music you are using from) 

Edited by (Who edited the movie) 

Directed by (Who directed the movie)

For the first two, I used the website named Canva. I used Canva for my postcard and wrote a blog on it as well. In this blog, I mentioned how I used Canva before so I was comfortable making these. However, I will take that back for this project. You see, the project for Canva presets for videos is much different. This was hard to implement and I had to learn how to resize and control the effects. I finally was able to get it done after watching a tutorial. I took two presets for Canva for Name of Studio and Production Company. For the Actors, Music, Edits, and Direction I just used the simple text preset in my editing software. My reasoning for this was that it wasn't very important. Making it simple really didn't affect the experience of the movie. For the movie title, I actually put some more effort. I tried to make it fit the theme from my postcard. Kind of like an old-timey font. I think I used Papyrus in the end for the title font. This part of making the movie was honestly harder than I expected. Next, I have to do a bit more polishing. Some things you may see from me include my final project and CR.  As well as any other minor details.

Editing Blog

 

Behold, the editing blog is here! Editing is the thing I am most confident about for this project. Since I took comm tech for 3 years letting me practice. Comm tech helped me get certified in Adobe Premiere Pro and I used the free school account to edit this video. During this video, I didn't wanna edit it too heavily. The lighting was pretty bright while filming and I originally wanted to make the entire movie dimmer. However, after putting the effects on it just made it look terrible. So sadly, I went with the original brightness which was kind of sad. 

On a bright note, there were some good effects included. I think the audio gain is super important. I made sure the audio levels were even and the music was louder during intended effects. I finally found my two royalty-free sounds as well. Both these songs fit very well into the theme I was going for. They also combine pretty well. The first song is more background music-y. However, when it ends and the song switches to the second song it helps the reader understand that stuff is about to go down. The second song really is a signal to start paying close attention to what is happening. This intended effect hopefully will show the hierarchy of importance in the parts of my film. I have some more work to do, however. I will keep you updated on when I finish things like exporting the film.

Filming Complete

Today I finished filming all the necessary scenes. The reason I finished filming today was for a special scene that my friend Luc wasn't there for on the original days of filming. I had him act as a side character without any lines. However, his part was vital to understanding the story. He was the janitor who put up posters which ended up being what the characters settled on as the explanation. However, at the end of the movie, you notice that the poster isn't up. The way I set it up is the final scene which shows the room is for those who really paid attention. So technically there are two endings to this movie. For these new scenes, I had Luc wear a beanie and not shave his beard to look more adult-like. I also got permission from the actual janitor to take a quick recording of janitorial supplies. Combining these is pretty hard but I did an editing effect that works well. What I did was had an opacity transition so the supplies were over him unlocking a door. This took a little bit to figure out but it turned out great in the end. Editing has been taking me a while overall. I am spending a while looking for good royalty-free music. All of it is either really cinematic or romantic music. I need background music that isn't those two. I have a couple contenders right now but the main issue is it not being too distracting. Almost all of the songs kind of distract from the dialogue in the movie. Which is probably the most important part. Anyways, I think I will finish editing very soon.

 

Filming Issues

 Unfortunately, a good amount of footage was corrupted after I checked the clips. However, I have a plan to counteract this. There is another day we can film and I think everyone will be free. I also switched to voiceovers for a few lines in the script. I think it makes it a little bit more on topic for the movie. I also started the basis for editing today. I had to re-install my software but I was able to work on cutting and importing the clips. Luckily enough, the clips that are cut reach the time limit. This means I have a little bit of extra space to work with when editing. I think I will also help the two media students Grant and Nick (who are in the image) with their video. They invited me to be the dead body which is an exciting role. I was in the same role for their last movie so it should be a fun time. 

I had a lot of work in other classes so I wasn't able to work on my final CR this week. I have some plans for it though. I wrote a bit of a draft for the questions so I will be prepared. I was inspired by rewatching some of my old projects for AS-level media studies Overall, this week has been pretty productive for me. I think that everything will be finished on time.

Editing my Postcard

 

I actually changed my Postcard and Website recently. This was because I just wasn't too happy with what I put out originally, especially for the website. For the website, I did a little redesign with the side pages. I just wanted both to be more efficient. Another thing that changed was the Font on the postcard. I changed it to make it more readable. I also changed to put my name at the bottom. Just a small touch that I think enhanced it a lot. I finished the Postcard now but I still want to edit the website a little bit. Some things I need to do are finish the side pages. I also just need to fill in these blank areas I made on the website. That should not take long though. I should be able to finish before everything is due. Some housekeeping with the filming plans needs to be done as well. Like if my members will be here to film. I think that I will have everyone but I am not sure 100% as the actors are shaky. I also have a scene that needs props. I think I will film it later than everything else. Since that scene is probably the most important part of the film. I will be able to finish everything on time though. Right now I am thinking about adding some more recognizable things to my website. But I do think my original Philosophy is good. Just making it hard to recognize allows for mystery.

Filming Plans

 

In this blog, I will be telling you my plans for the filming process which should be happening on the 17th. On the 17th, I will have access for a classroom to film in after school. I happen to have a club on that day, so I decided that my friends in the club will be the actors in my movie. I only need 4 actors, so this should be easy enough. For outfits, I told them to wear anything they wanted. The main plot of this movie is not correlated to what they are wearing, as long as it is appropriate. For props, I have printed out a fake poster that is necessary as well as scouted out the area for a window I need to use for my prop. You see, in my movie one of the characters looks out a window at a small building. For my movie to work, this needs to be accurate. After looking at the classroom, there is a window facing a small building so it all worked out in the end. The other props I need are nothing too important. I need a key, as well as backpacks which are common items that most people have. I will be filming on my phone, and if that runs out of space or battery I have a friend who will have a back up for me to film. I think this will go smoothly, but only time will tell. I'll keep you updated, as tomorrow is the time to film. 

One more thing is the social media accounts. I have created a facebook, instagram, and twitter with the handle. I plan on making them look better as I go on. Perhaps the next blog will be about those accounts, but for now I am busy with some more college application things, so I do not know when the next blog might be.

Changes to the main character

 

This will be kind of like a background for my main character. You see, originally my friend Trent was going to be the main character. He agreed to do it a while before. But right before I filmed, he got nervous and couldn't do it. This role was very important so it makes sense that he got nervous. Thankfully, my friend Mayteetad was at the film location that day. He was originally going to be a cameraman for the movie. His brave volunteering helped the movie become what it is. I am happy with the result of him being the main character. While he had some trouble memorizing lines, it all was able to work out in the end. Funnily enough, the character Gendo was also a last-minute decision. I had another friend who goes to Pompano who was going to act as Gendo. Last-minute, he was stuck at a track meet so I had someone else fill in. We basically took whoever we could find. Since Nicholas was with Grant at the time, he filled in as Gendo since Gendo does not have too many lines. This rag tag team we put together really shined though. The actors were really enthusiastic to fill their parts. Overall, I am very happy with the results. I will be doing more with them if I ever make another film.

Postcard

 

Here is my design for the postcard. While making this, I used other real postcards as examples for how I wanted mine to look. I decided that I didn't want any obvious plot signifiers in this postcard as the movie is supposed to be a mystery. I think I did a good job of this, while also making it look nice. Another thing I must mention is the fact that I have used Canva before. This made the postcard process much easier for me. I know some other friends in this class asked me for help as they did not use canva before.  I tried to make the poster look mysterious with the key and background, and I think it worked! If I saw this postcard, id definitely be intrigued at the least. One issue is some of the parts I used were locked behind the Canva premium which costs money. What I did, was screenshot them and just upload the pngs to bypass that. I was able to do this by putting the overall postcard in photoshop and completing it there. Should be fine since im not profiting off of it. Even though I knew what I was doing, this still took me about an hour to do. I kept changing and changing every little thing. Before I knew it, I had 3 versions but this is the one I went with.

Website Work

 

Today, I finished the basis of my website for my movie. It was tough getting used to the new software, but after spending some time messing around, I was able to create a pretty good website. I have a pretty long main page with the actors, times for premiere, and everything else required. I made it so as you scroll the individual parts pop up so it isn't too much information overload. I also created the sub pages for things like the about page with a short summary of the plot. I tried to make it seem mysterious as the goal for this movie is to be a mystery. I hope it will work out and should finish this website quite soon.

On the other hand, I have not filmed yet. I was able to get an empty classroom to film in after hours. Since, this isn't going to Cambridge I think filming a school building shouldn't be an issue. However, I am still going to blur anything that makes it too obvious where it is recorded. The room in question is very empty though, and only one scene takes place outside it. As the mystery is a "locked room mystery" with no obvious answer. I don't know who I am going to get to act in this movie, but I have a rough idea. I have some friends in this class who I worked with last year on their movie. Hopefully, it all goes to plan.