Final Project!

    Hey guys! So down below is the official reveal of our film opening, Footsteps. I had a blast working on the film and am happy to finally show you guys! Thanks for staying tuned all this time> Enjoy!



Footsteps

Reflection

    Hey blog! It's been great talking to you guys and keeping you guys updated with my project. I'm going to show you guys everything I talked about in my CCR down below. I just want to say that this has honestly been a learning process that has taught me so much. I am pleased with the way that our project turned out and I hope you guys like it as well! Thanks for everything!

   I played as the actor for our film opening, Footsteps. My partners for the project were Alejandro Carranque and Artur Diniz Santos. The film is a thriller based on a veteran from war suffering from a very severe from of PTSD. Alejandro worked as the director for the project while Artur was filming. The project began 7 weeks ago and started off great as we thought of our idea as soon as the project commenced. However, we hit some bumps on the road as one of our group members left our group. Even though we had hit a rough patch, we decided to go with our initial idea of the war veteran. We drew up a couple of different screenplays with a couple of different scenarios. Even though our general idea was always planned out, we were trying to come up with a way to successfully deliver all our information in the span of two minutes. We originally planned to have the flashback occur in a different setting and way, but decided to go a different route later on. We thought that we could portray the PTSD as much more serious if we went with the therapy scene at the beginning.

  So a typical genre convention generated from thriller is the sense of anxiety. The films try to stress out and cause an act on the viewers. For example, they’ll try to get viewers very attached to the characters while at the same time be interested in the thrill of the film. Our film does so by giving off a negative vibe at the beginning while trying to attract the viewers more to the character throughout the film. Once we reach the last shot, I believe that the viewers have already become attached in a way to the character and sort of feel for him. Another aspect of thriller films is that they tend to contain very dark colors and shades in order to add suspense to the film. In this case, however, we decided to go the other way. We thought that we did not really need dark colors to add meaning to the film. We thought that the film would look much better if we used as much natural lighting as possible and also include lights. While this was challenging the natural conventions of a thriller, we believe that in this case it just worked best to include as much light as possible. The film opening also very much represents issues faced today as PTSD is a very real thing, which thousands of veterans suffer from. Therefore, we believe that our film could raise awareness to the issue and we wanted to show how horrible it really is. We researched as most as we could about the topic so what we filmed could seem as realistic as possible.

  Our film is relatable to hundreds of thousands of families. Since PTSD is such a common thing, we believe that we are engaging with our audience because they can identify themselves with what they’re watching. As they watch the film, they may become attracted to the film because of the reality of the issue or just because they feel for the character. The script of the film is not at all comedic or sarcastic. Therefore, we believe that our film would definitely be looked as a real media text because it’s so real. The issue is so real and so common that people would feel enticed to watch our film. While watching our film, they become attached to Lieutenant Harvey and they then see our film as real and serious. Our film is portrayed as real and therefore would be interpreted as real.

   

 Technology played  a huge role in our film opening. From the camera we used to film to the software we used to edit. Alejandro decided on Wevideo to edit. Since he was the editor, he got to choose what he used. To film we had a camera that Artur borrowed from his dad that really upped the production. Overall I believe that the technology we used helped us improve the overall quality of our film.

  

CCR

     Hey guys! Can't believe how quickly time has gone! I remember choosing our groups as it was just yesterday! Any ways, I wanted to thank all of you guys for staying up to date with this awesome project! Here's my CCR for you guys to see!

Script changes

    Hey blog! So yeah we decided to change something up while we were filming. It just looked more natural this way. We had originally planned to film the indoor scene with the idea of something causing the flashback while the person was watching tv or relaxing, however, we changed it to a scene with a therapist. We thought this looked much better and made kind of more sense with our film.

   So while we know that changing script midway through is not recommended, we thought that it was absolutely necessary. We thought that the original concept did not look at all real and looked to planned out. Therefore, we sat down and started brainstorming midway through our session and I had the idea of changing it into a therapy session. Artur suggested that we can do something like asking someone to "get him" a cup of water and this would recite and cause the flashback.

   Ultimately we do believe that we made the best decision for our project, we think that this now looks much more realistic and it makes more sense and relates much more with the concept of the film. While we have not finished editing, our filming has concluded and I'm going to prove my loyal blog readers to a sneak peak of the scene that goes into the flashback. Remember that this is unedited so it may not look perfect but let me know what you think!

 

Update

  Hey blog! Huge news on our project! we were finally able to film our scenes and it couldn't have gone nay better. We had to do some minor changes, however, even though we still haven't edited it, we believe that the shots and scenes look great! We met up on Thursday and managed to film everything that we needed. We filmed both our indoor and outdoor scenes all in the course of a couple of hours.


  So the change that we made (not including script changes) was the decision on where we were going to be filming. We luckily found a more than perfect location in the neighborhood in which Artur and I live in so it was convenient and worked out perfectly. Instead of having to go to the park and seek new locations, we found everything that we were looking for right here! The filming was quite a lot of fun as it we all got to bond and work together. We got the chance of working together and everyone did their part in helping our ideas come to life.


  While the indoor scenes are first in the film, we decided to film the outdoor shots prior as we had some problems with the weather. Luckily, it was quite a windy day and we used that to our advantage and included what we could as it made it more realistic. Also, some type of electrical machine was near our location and it was actually perfect because it added sounds that made everything sound much more realistic. I'm going to put a sneak peak of one of our shots down below, let me know what you think. ( these are unedited and are not at all the final product!!)

P.S.   Check out my next blog to find out what we changed in our script!

Class discussion

   Hey Blog! So in this post I'm going to be talking about what my fells classmate, Ethan, said during our discussion in school the other day.

  Ethan's idea was that the character should be handed something during the first scene and, with the same exact shot, it should transition to the flashback. Sophie also suggested that we should use the same exact item throughout the scene. She said that the character should be handed the same item in both the scenes in order to maintain the relativeness of both scenes.

   After talking about this with my group, we have decided that these were both great ideas that we should really incorporate into our scenes. All in all, I believe that this peer discussion was very valuable as it helped us gain a new perspective and idea for our project. See you next week once we've filmed!

Finally meeting

  Hey blog! So we are meeting this week to film our project!

   We have decided that it will look better if the main character is with more than one person when the flashback takes place. We want to show that he is with people, however, he is not really close with anyone. We don't know if we can really show that easily but the idea came from aAlejandro. He said that maybe we could make it seem that his PTSD is so severe, that he needs help from people and never really was able to maintain a relationship.

  I don't know if this will be very noticeable but I believe atet, because the little details matter, that this will help the film in a way. The people near him will console him while he is panting and screaming in order to help him.