CCR!

My eyes hurt from editing, enjoy <3

Click also here to see my ccr

Okay, bye, that's all

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

I present you my film opening

Click here to watch it 

Hope you enjoy it!

Project Reflection

Reflecting a little bit

I wanna start by saying that for my last year of high school, in my senior year I really wanted to take a class that I would never see myself taking (this class) but I have to say that I learned a lot this year, this class made me think in such a creative way that not all of the classes allow you to.
Now, this project was a rollercoaster of emotions. It is true that more 3 heads think better than one, since the beginning at brainstorming the ideas for the movie to the final touches, I noticed that I'm not very quick at making certain decisions because I tend to be a perfectionist. In a lot of moments, I had to ask for my friends' opinion and then reassure what I was thinking, or remake it. On the other hand, with this pandemic, I know that for many of my classmates and I was really difficult to continue with the project, either because of time management of just things that happened and made the production process more difficult.
There were a lot of inconveniences along the way, the title, for example, it was a process of two days. It was a long list of possibilities that varied according to the genre, to Brandon's mental illness, to Thomas and Brandon's friendship, and the internal problem that was happening in Brandon's head. After a lot of consulting and list-making, I was able to decide the perfect movie title.


I wanted my movie idea to be something related to the health field since I'm really passionate about it and I want to become a health professional. I decided to represent a character that you don't see in many films, a mental illness person with schizophrenia. It also involves that self-doubt and lack of self-reliance. Since my character is a person who is emotionally dependable on someone else, who is not even real, I wanted to include the dependability and lack of emotional freedom that a person gets when they are so attached to someone and suddenly that person leaves. It does just leave, that person takes away the feeling of comfortability of the emotionally dependable person. I based this idea on a personal story, it is not the case that I have schizophrenia or that I was emotionally dependable on someone, but that when I was little I had a friend who was so attached to me that I never realized that she was missing her freedom of feeling whatever she wanted, she would ask me if something was right or wrong and depending on what I would say, she would follow that idea. One day I just left and started to talk less and less to her and realized that I was doing her a favor.

Fast forwarding the situation, I had to change completely my film opening because of the coronavirus pandemic. The week that I was going to record, people started to self-quarantine, I got sick, and was home alone without a ride. But that didn't stop me from thinking of a solution, I created a whole new opening with the same characters and same plot, but I created the pictures and the mise-en-scene.
The editing process was I think the most difficult part, it became a routine of staring at the screen trying to make the problems fix themselves, to editing and deleting a lot of material.

In the end, I can say that I'm really proud and passionate of how it came out and wanna thank everybody who had to put out with me these long weeks of process. Also, I'm really happy that I got to learn all these techniques and be able to apply them not just to a WhatsApp video that my mom asks me to edit, but to a project that got out a lot of my creative self.

Editing

Ah, the struggle 

Editing the video was one of the most complicated parts, I was using Wevideo as the primary editing software. Although it is easy to use, it doesn't have some advanced editing options that I was looking for, so I ended up asking for help from my cousin's husband, apart from having Premier he is a pro in editing. I actually gave him leeway on editing after I showed him the basic idea of the concept that I had, I, of course, explained to him what I was going for and what I needed to be done, he proceeded to edit the video. On the other hand, I did another like 2 edits to have candidates for the final product just because I wasn't 100％ happy with how it was coming together.
I'm gonna attach a video here for you to see one of the candidates, disclaimer this one is not the final project.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_WmEprZyDAdZZNWAi_nIQ7a23-R1kndD/view?usp=drivesdk

Now, for the actual final project, I used Wevideo but I had to do just layers and layers of video, text, and audio. Because this software doesn't have the option of adding a shadow to the text, I created it by doing two layers one in front of the other, one with the actual text and the other one with a dark color. 

Also, in the version above you can hear the rock version of Happy Together in the middle, I decided to take it out because the only purpose I decided to include it was because Brandon, the main character, is really passionate about rock, and after hearing it how it was in the video I felt it was just out of place so I took it out. I also came across the problem of not being able to separate the two bedrooms, so when it goes to the shots in Thomas' bedroom I changed the temperature, the tint, and the lighting to make it more obscure.
At the end of the day, and after hours in front of the screen, I'm really happy how it came out :)

Filming day

INK? Never heard of her

I had to create what Brandon's and Thomas' bedrooms would look like, so I had to print all the posters and pictures that would represent Brandon. Also, because I want it to take it back in time, meaning that I wanted the movie to take place in the early 2000s as opposed to 2020, I had to look for inspiration in some late 90s movies like 10 Things I Hate About You and tv shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to see how Brandon's bedroom would look like and what kind of posters would be hanged. I ended up choosing rock bands like Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kiss, Green Day, and more, due to their popularity during the 90s and early 2000s. Got to say... I kept some of these posters just because I love that music and I print them really well.

Also, I found some props around the house that resemble the early 2000s. Although I was hesitant if I should use the cassette or not, but I remembered that when I was little I had cassettes so I decided to use it in the video.

I incorporated the pictures of the characters' childhood into different parts of the wall along with the posters. The final result for Brandon's bedroom: 

<3