CCR 4 Reflection

 For my CCR 4 I decided to do a PowerPoint with a voice-over explaining how we integrated technologies into the project. This had a lot more information that I had originally thought to cover, and it did get a bit overwhelming once I started. However, I was able to cover how we integrated the use of software, hardware, and online websites into the project. I covered most of the information using bullet points to help organize my thoughts, and read them over as I spoke about technology in the voice over.

CCR 2 Reflection

 I decided that my CCR 2 should be a "get un-ready" with me video. I filmed myself getting ready for bed while also discussing how my product engages with audiences and how it would be distributed as real media text. I gave ideas to how we could market it better, what we were already planning on doing to showcase the film, and explained Audience theories and how they were related to our film. I was able to do all of this in a casual, informal discussion on camera.

CCR 1 Reflection

 
After a lot of thought, I decided that CCR 1 should be a magazine. "How does the film use or challenge conventions?" and "How does it represent social groups or issues?" Was a lot of content that could be nicely organized and displayed on a magazine with images to go along with it. I separated the information into pages and paragraphs for n easy read.

challenge conventions?​

CCR 3 Reflection

 For my CCR 3 I decided to do a podcast. There was so much information to cover on this one, and I successfully uncovered the entire process of filmmaking, explaining how my skills developed and the issues we ran into along the way. I was able to speak freely and discuss the learning curve Eden and I had throughout this project.

CCR 4

Click below to see my CCR 4!

CCR 4

Script for CCR Podcast

Host 1: Welcome back! Today, we’re peeling back the curtain on our latest project: a coming-of-age short film, “New Beginnings.” It wasn’t just a movie; it was our own "coming-of-age" story as filmmakers. 

Host 2: Seriously. We went from "How do you turn this camera on?" to actually understanding the "why" behind every shot. 

 Research & The Big Idea 

Host 1: It started with research. We didn't just wing it. We watched the classics—Lady Bird, The 400 Blows—to see how they capture that feeling of being "in-between." 
Host 2: Collaboration was key here. We spent hours throwing ideas at our notes app. We learned that a good idea isn't born; it’s built by the pair of us working together. We realized our best scenes came from merging our personal experiences into one character. 

 Leveling Up: Skills & Tools 
Host 1: Let’s talk about the gear. In the beginning, we were total novices. We started with a basic camera for taking photos. 
Host 2: And we hit a wall fast. The handheld footage looked like a shaky home movie, and the internal mic was a disaster. That limitation forced us to evolve. 
Host 1: Exactly. We moved to a gimbal for those smooth, cinematic walking shots and transitioned from basic phone editors to Adobe Premiere Pro. Premiere opened up a whole new world—color grading and sound layering—but man, the learning curve was steep. 

The Production Grind & Technical Fails 
Host 2: Production was where the "real world" hit us. We dealt with constant technical limitations. 
Host 1: Gosh, the website lag? We were trying to upload files to our shared drive, and the site just kept freezing. We had to be patient and work through lag by trying different Wi-Fi settings and hotspots just to get it to work. 

Host 2: And the camera struggles! We had severe autofocus issues. We solved it by switching to manual focus—a "beginner to intermediate" milestone right there. It’s all about problem-solving on the fly. 

 Post-Production & Final Polish 
Host 1: Post-production is where the movie is actually made. Taking those raw clips and finding the rhythm of the story. 
Host 2: It’s where all that planning pays off. Because we did the heavy lifting in pre-production, we knew exactly what we were looking for in the edit. 

 Outro 
Host 1: We’re still learning, but looking back at our first day versus now? The difference is huge. 
Host 2: Thanks for listening. If you’re a beginner filmmaker, just keep shooting. Your limitations are actually your best teachers. 

CCR 3

Click below to see my CCR 3!

CCR 3 link

CCR 2

Click below to see my CCR 2!

CCR 2

CCR 1

 This is my final CCR 1 in the form of a magazine on "How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?"

Check it out below!

Final Project

Click the link below to view my final 2-minute film opening!

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

Company Logo

After much discussion and brainstorming, we finally went with this as our opening company logo for the film. We originally thought "silver line" should include a cloud of some sort, but the logos we attempted to create using a cloud ended up looking tacky and we just couldn't find one we liked. The cursive writing gives it elegance and prestige, while the contrasting bold "SL" makes the logo pop. We also incorporated silver coloring and a shine in the background. 

 

Inserting Credits in Post Production

 We aimed to follow the Adventures of Babysitting credit reveal. Their credits flip forward towards the screen to be fully revealed. We first added in a credit, then changed the font position roles to we also made the position to be size... and the name to be at... 

We placed the basic 3D effect to properly be able to do the effect. This is under the perspective category. From there we changed the swivel at the starting point of the transition to be around -89.0 placing a key from there, and then we moved to where we wanted the graphic to fully reveal at the end of the transition and placing a keyframe at a swivel of 0.0. We also changed the opacity at the beginning to be at 0.0. This effect is to place less emphasis or pop to the reveal before all the words were shown. Then we moved to the ending point and placed the opacity at 100%, and we right clicked the keyframe farthest left and hit ease out and then the furthest to the right and hit ease in. This allowed for more flow. When the keyframes changed from diamonds to an hourglass shape we knew it worked. 

After all of this work, we were then able to copy and paste the full effect into other areas of the video that we need credits in.

Credits Research/Inspiration

We chose the following coming of age genre films to study their opening credits and what effects or fonts they used that could help us with our film.

Wes Anderson:

This film used the font geometric sans-serif typeface used in all-caps with wide, intentional spacing. It includes symmetrical, and pastel-colors to establish a whimsical, storybook atmosphere.

Perks of Being a Wallflower:

This film used a simple sans-serif font, like Arial, to keep it grounded.

Adventures of Babysitting:

This film went with a playful, retro font, maybe a script or bolder sans-serif, to match its fun vibe.

Sound editing

 To change and adjust the sound we went into Adobe and clicked the "Essential sound" tab under the section edit and loudness. We pressed auto match and pressed repair to ensure consistent sound quality throughout the film and fix recording flaws that would otherwise make audio unusable. 

We then hit reduce noise to get rid of background sounds that might have accidentally been captured while filming. 

These unwanted and unnecessary sounds include air conditioning, outside conversations, outside activities, cars driving by, etc. 

Clipping

 Clipping the film is a part of editing that is very tedious. Eden and I sat together side by side and constantly worked to shorten clips and cut out little bits of unnecessary or unwanted content out of the film.

Adobe was also working very slowly due to our school's Wi-Fi not being the best quality. 

However, we started with about seven minutes and managed to cut it down to about four and a half minutes. 

We will need to continue clipping together to collaborate on which parts we need to get rid of and what to keep, as sacrifices may have to be made about what stays in the film in order to stay within the maximum time limit.

Color editing

 To change the color grading of the film we went into Adobe and first clicked the tab "Lumentri color." Then we changed the settings by changing the inner tab to "basic correction" in input LUT to auto (auto color) to match with everything and clicked that for each clip so they would all align in color.

The point of doing this is to instantly balance, color correct, and enhance footage by automatically adjusting contrast, brightness, and white balance. 

The settings on camera were good establishing color, so the color did not have a super dramatic change. However, there are certain clips that might need more perfecting and manual color editing, such as the scene where one of the characters opens the blinds to a bedroom and the brightness becomes too white.

Editing

 1. Retrieving the footage

We removed the CFExpress Type A card from the FX6 and (using a card reader) plugging it into Eden's Lenovo Ideapad 3 However, the large file size produced by the camera made the footage take almost an hour to completely transfer. 

2. Viewing/playing back the footage

We used Windows Media Player Legacy to view and play back the video. This media player works very well with the footage from a Cannon camera, as it allowed us to use the cameras gyro-data to stabilize it. 

3. Select the footage

This part was tedious, we went through each individual file, viewing the footage in the Windows Media Player Legacy, and decided if footage was not needed/not usable, decent/possibly usable, optimal/Definitely usable, if footage was not needed/not usable, we left it.  

- If footage was decent/possibly usable, we put it in a a new folder (still on my SSD) called "Footage for edit", and we tagged it red.  

- If footage was perfect/definitely usable, we did the same as decent/possibly usable, but we tagged it green. 

 

4. Begin sequencing

Eden created a new Premiere Pro project. The project settings were 3840 x 2160 (Pixels), 4K UHP. She also changed to 16:9 to create a more seamless viewing experience for the majority of viewers. 

We put the "Footage for edit" folder into Premiere Pro and began placing the footage into the timeline. We used the footage which was tagged with green, and if there was none, we picked the best looking footage with a red tag. We did this process with a physical printed copy of the script handy. Eden also made separate notes on her own that she said she would like to discuss with me later.

With some exploring in Premiere Pro, we discovered some key frames which we added on a number of clips. These are subtle "fake camera movements" like pushes and pulls, as well as left-to-right and right-to-left movements. To make sure it wasn't too dramatic, we set the keyframes to "easy ease."

 

5. Further editing 

While it is very difficult, still in S-Log, and has a multitude of other issues, we now had a "rough sequence." From here, further editing had to take place, which included tasks such as music, sound design, special effects, colour grading, and credit design.  

Eden did add a simple conversion LUT to make the footage look more saturated, (colorful) and overall look like it came straight out of a camera.