CCR

Anddddd here is my CCR!!!!!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KBlblNC_j-IfZVLtRxI5SfawweWd0EKB/view?usp=sharing

FINAL VIDEO

 After 9 weeks of this project, we are finally finished!!!!!

Click here or use this link to access "Spiraling"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt0xyL6FDo4 

CCR Script

Since I already wrote a reflection last week, I am going to talk about my CCR script and filming.

I decided to do a mix of both an audio of me talking with powerpoint slides and movie clips with also videos of me talking into the camera. I wrote a full script and while filming some parts I copy and pasted my script into a free teleprompter website to help me read off the screen.

Here is my script!!!

Hi, my name is Samantha Surico and I created the film opening to my new movie “Spiraling” with my partner Federica Briones. Spiraling is about a young girl in high school who is going through a lot of struggles with her friends that is later uncovered in the movie. The opening shows our character, Serena packing a bag and running away while her mom is home unaware of what's going on upstairs.

Spiraling falls under the thriller genre. The thriller genre is best defined as a movie that can evoke a strong emotion of intrigment, suspense or excitement. The protagonist, in this case Serena Thorpe, would be the character going against everyone or somehow feeling as if the world is against them.Film openings alone for Thriller movies start off causing high levels of suspense and already having the audience intrigued. Take the movie “US” for example, the movie opening consists of rabbits and intense chanting. Our film opening works to create suspense through the intense music choice, fast scenes, and parallel editing. Throughout the opening we want viewers to be wondering if she’s going to get caught.One genre convention we are challenging would be giving the protagonist a limited amount of time to act. We chose to do this to show how this was a spur of the moment decision rather than a well- thought out plan. Serena represents a lot of teenagers today. Easily confused kids who let their emotions get the best of them.From the start of the film we can tell this wasn't a thoroughly thought out plan and Serena is easily doing things in the moment without thinking of the next step. The mom is challenging the average motherly stereotype. Coming home from work, work attire, making dinner, and sitting down on the couch to watch the news and relax.Throughout the film we are trying to represent stereotypical families that look perfect from the outside but experience real struggles.

Our target audience is females and males ages 17-26. We went with this target audience because the average target audience for thriller movies are males ages 18-30. We brought it down a little bit and directed it towards females too because of the strong female leads in this movie. Which already challenges the thriller genre, as most thrillers star a male.But there are also thriller movies that represent strong female leads such as Gone Girl.Most young adults consume media through streaming.We believe our film engages with our audience since it’s about a young girl dealing with a lot of struggles and many people could relate or resonate with her.We plan on making our film available to our audience by posting it on our youtube account therefore anyone who wants access to it can view it.

This was a long process but we finally made it to this point. We started off stuck, unable to come up with an idea when finally we took inspiration from Gone Girl but with all the changes made you wouldn't even know how we got this idea because it's nothing like it anymore.We started off very confused and had a whole different storyline. We were originally planning to have Serena run away but make it look as if she got kidnapped so her parents wouldn’t be disappointed or angry with her for leaving. Once we realized that was something we wouldn’t be able to portray in a two minute film opening we changed our storyline into something that would make more sense. Once we created our storyboard we really got ourselves together and finally had a real vision. Filming went very well. We experienced a few difficulties but nothing we couldn't work with. We had to deal with our reflections, glares and a few bloopers because of course this was a very dramatic opening so sometimes it was hard to get a scene without laughing but it caused no problems. The room we chose to film in had two large mirrors so throughout the filming process we were constantly ducking and trying to move around as fast as possible to avoid being shot in the mirror but at the end of the day there were a few shots that we needed to retake.Previous projects we have completed helped us too. The one that helped me the best was when we were creating a movie pitch and had to create characters. This helped us build Serena's character.From the outfits to the smeared makeup I really believe we were able to achieve the look we were going for.Overall the whole project went smoothly and we were able to successfully create the opening we had imagined. 

So for filming we kept it simple. We used an Iphone 11 to film. We mostly had hand held shots because a few were tracking shots, close ups, zoom ins, etc. For the still shots we were able to prop the phone up against the window sill. We originally planned on using a ring light but we decided natural lighting would look better because we were filming at night and we wanted to make sure that was clear to the viewers. We then moved the videos to our laptops where we imported them into adobe premiere pro and started our editing. Editing took a lot of cropping, focusing, and adding effects to. Editing on Adobe premiere pro went smoothly. This gave us the chance to crop the scenes and create parallel editing in our film. At first we thought it was gonna be impossible to figure out but it turned out easier then we anticipated.We also used Canva to create our production company logo which helped us to successfully create a typewriter look.Throughout the project our blog posts really helped me stay on track with what we had done and our next steps.

This project has helped me a lot with working on long term projects, bettering communication skills and team work. This gave me the opportunity to be more open and experiment with my ideas and change them.Having this much time helped us create a story and then realize it wasn't what we wanted and we still had more than enough time to make it the way we wanted. If I could do anything differently I would work on my time management. I was able to manage my time better than in previous projects but procrastination was a very big problem in the beginning of the project. Next time I want to make sure I can stay on top of my work throughout the whole duration of my project.

CCR questions

 Today's blog post is mainly for me to briefly answer each question.

• How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

Thrillers are known for their intriguing scenes and creating suspense.The protagonist is constantly going against the antagonist.The protagonist in "Spiraling" is Serena. Serena planning her "escape" and running away just while her mom is downstairs is already creating suspense because it has the audience off their seat wondering, is she going to get caught? Is her mom gonna hear her? How is she going to mess this up?Serena represents a lot of teenagers today. Easily confused kids who let their emotions get the best of them.From the start of the film we can tell this wasn't a thoroughly thought out plan and Serena is easily doing things in the moment without thinking of the next step. The mom is challenging the average motherly stereotype. Coming home from work, work attire, making dinner, and sitting down on the couch to watch the news and relax.

• How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Our target audience is females and males ages 17-26. We went with this target audience because the average target audience for thriller movies are males ages 18-30. We brought it down a little bit and directed it towards females too because of the strong female leads in this movie. Which already challenges the thriller genre, as most thriller star a male. This is also a movie about a teenager and her emotions throughout the film which we thought a lot of young adults could resonate with. We plan on distributing our film opening on youtube.

• How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

This was a long process but we finally made it to this point. We started off stuck, unable to come up with an idea when finally we took inspiration from Gone Girl but with all the changes made you wouldn't even know how we got this idea because it's nothing like it anymore. Once we created our storyboard is the when we really got ourselves together and finally had a real vision. Filming went very well. We experienced a few difficulties but nothing we couldn't work with. We had to deal with our reflections, glares and a few bloopers because of course this was a very dramatic opening so sometimes it was hard to get a scene without laughing but it caused no problems. The research really helped us get create Serena's character. From the outfits to the smeared makeup I really believe we were able to achieve the look we were going for.

• How did you integrate technologies – software, hardware and online – in this project?

So for filming we kept it simple. We used an Iphone 11 to film. We mostly had hand held shots because a few were tracking shots, close ups, zoom ins, etc. For the still shots we were able to prop the phone up against the window sill. We originally planned on using a ring light but we decided natural lighting would look better because we were filming at night and we wanted to make sure that was clear to the viewers. We then moved the videos to our laptops where we import them into adobe premiere pro and started our editing. Editing took a lot of cropping, focusing, and adding effects to. We also used Canva to create our production company logo which helped us to successfully create a typewriter look.

Preparing for my CCR

 Soooo now it's time to get ready to film my CCR. This is definitely the project I was the most worried about doing. Although I'm not going to be presenting this to a full class watching me I'm still going to be recording myself talking for at least 7 minutes which already has me a little bit nervous. I plan on writing my script today and tomorrow and filming over the weekend. I already know a little bit of my answers for each question but I still need to write the script and really perfect it.

This blog post is mostly dedicated to how I actually plan on filming and editing my CCR...

I want to make my video very conversational and not like i am reading off a screen. I play on incorporating a few scenes in and comparing it to other films.

For example, a scene I want to make sure I talk about would be the scene where Serena is sitting on the floor, looking around her room, contemplating what to do and tie it back to the question about how this represents social groups. Teenagers now are under a lot of pressure and get stressed easily. We put things off to the side and get easily overwhelmed. This scene of Serena perfectly represented that and the confusion teenagers can feel at times.

Another scene I want to talk about is the scene where Serena is upstairs laying on the bed while her mother is just getting home from work. This scene will tie back to the question of how we integrated technology through editing. We worked on parallel editing to show these two things happening at the same time, in the same house. Which will also make its way back to the question of how it represents social groups because some families can be so clueless on what's happening in eachothers lives and this represents it. 

 

Reflection

Finally finished with the film opening, all I have left is my CCR. 

Creating this film opening has taught me a lot, not just about media. I learned how to better my time management skills and how to work and communicate with other people. To be honest, in the beginning we were kind of in a slump and it was noticeable. We managed get ourselves out of it and realize this is a real project that we need to do and if we have this much time to do it, its for a reason. Most projects will be short and the "long- lasting" ones im used to would usually be a 2 week long assignment. Having this much time helped us create a story and then realize it wasn't what we wanted and we still had more than enough time to make it the way we wanted.

My partner and I were already close friends so we didn't struggle with communicating our ideas but in previous projects that I have worked in groups on I was more quiet and didn't feel as comfortable communicating my ideas as I do now. I think this project has really helped me be more open to new ideas too and listening to other people's perspectives.

The project overall was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. We got to create our own storylines, characters, their backstories and then actually filming it and bringing our vision to life. I did a lot of the editing and I have to say that by far that was my favorite part of the whole project. At first I was nervous but when I opened adobe and realized I actually knew what I was doing I caught myself adding so many touches and not even minding. I can't say I want to pursue a future with my editing skills but it was definitely something I liked doing.

Sounds

As small as it seems, sounds were definitely the hardest part of the project for us, or at least in my opinion.

First off, we couldn't find the right site to use. Over and over we searched "Copyright free sounds" and we couldn't find a website that would allow us to download the sounds for free. Everytime we thought we found a sound we liked we had to make an account. We made the account and it then would give us payment options and none were there for free.So we would constantly get excited about a sound and then find out we couldn't use it..

 

Finally we find a website that's free and available to use, now we just need to find the perfect sound.

While filming and putting everything together we realized that the film may not be representing the thriller genre the way we envisioned it. The film seemed a little bit more like a drama rather than a thriller. So we searched through sounds which took forever. We searched up key words to help the search and we were down to a few options. We played them all through and by the time we found the perfect sound we were so thankful after watching the film so many times. The music played in the background really helped put it together and show viewers, this is a thriller. The music creates suspense throughout the video. Along with that, the music ends at the perfect time and has its last major beat the second we put the movie title.

Here is the website we decided to go with: