Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #22

 Today I got the majority of what was left of the filming needed to do in my house. I had one of my friends come over to help me with the filming. There wasn't too much filming that needed to be done in the house, however, I did come across one main problem. My siblings were home and my mom was busy so she couldn't take them anywhere. So, while filming I had to make sure they were quiet while we were taking a shot so that they wouldn't be included in the audio clip. This problem is what caused the longest setbacks, but it was overcome. Another problem we had which I had discussed before was that it was difficult to make sure the cameraman wasn't reflected in any mirrors or seen in a shadow. I will continue the filming of this part of the scene in the next couple of days.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #21

 Today I did a quick rough edit of the opening scene just so I could see what all the clips put together looked like. After putting all the clips together and watching it, I was pretty happy with how the shots had turned out as well as how they flowed from cut to cut. I still have a lot of editing to do but I wanted to have this done so that I could have an idea of what the final product was going to look like as well as so that I could ask people's opinions on it. I showed a couple of my friends and family members the rough edit of the film and asked them what they thought about it. Overall, the majority thought the piece was looking pretty good so I was happy with that as well as with the little bit of criticism I got because that way I can take it into consideration and fix it before submitting the final piece.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #20

 Today, I got the rest of the outdoor filming done with my crew. We went at around the same time that we had gone the other days so that the lighting would be about the same. The filming went down pretty smoothly with no real setbacks and we were able to get the shots we needed pretty quickly. One thing I wish that I could have used was a better camera. Though my phone camera isn't bad, I would have liked a better camera so that the video looked better. So far, I think the film opening is going in the direction I was hoping for. I plan on starting the editing process soon, but I am again going to freshen up on a couple of skills before I really begin. I'm also going to start looking for what background music to use during the opening. I have a general idea of what I want, but it may prove itself a bit more difficult to find the right one.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #19

 Today, my crew and I went to go filming again at the location since we were all available for filming today. We continued and redid some of the shots which we had done yesterday and tried to fix up a couple of things that we had noticed we needed to fix. One of these things included continuity errors in which one of the actors had a beanie on which showed a design and then switched it so the design wasn't visible, so we had to fix up the shot we had in which the design showed. The filming process was quite fun today and we had a fun time goofing around a bit with each other as well as laughing at when we would mess up takes. We got a good amount of the filming which needs to be done at this location done today, but we are going to go one more time to finish up the shots as well as fix up a couple things that I realized needed to be done. For example, I wanted to get another take of a specific shot I took which originally I thought looked good, but I feel like it may need something such as a different angle. Overall, the filming went well today other than the couple of cuts I got from all the vegetation.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #18

 Today, I got together with my friends that were going to help me film the opening scene and we went to try to get a couple of shots done so that I could see a bit of what I was working with. When we got to the location, we set everything up and I told my friends what I needed them to do when filming me and when I needed to film them. Since this was their first time doing this, the process was a little bit slow at first but after a while, they started getting the hang of it. We filmed a couple of shots of me running through this path as well as a couple shots of my friends following behind as people chasing me. To make the filming a little bit easier, we used a small tripod which can be handheld as well as set up to hang from locations. We weren't able to do too much today because it began to get kind of cloudy and I thought that it might be better if it was sunnier so that we could get better lighting. Overall, the day went pretty well and I'm looking forward to continuing filming.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog post #17

 A couple of days ago, we had a group discussion with a couple of classmates and discussed our opening movie scenes. I told my group about how I had changed my original idea a little bit because I thought that it lacked the action that an adventure movie entails. The group overall agreed with me on that aspect, so I am glad I decided to make that change. In discussing other members' projects, I remembered that I may want to start thinking about a title for the "movie' soon. I want the title to be interesting and attack people to want to watch it. However, I think I  may want to get a little further into the filming process and continue thinking about the title for a couple more days. So far, a leading contender is "The Trails End," but I am going to continue thinking about it.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #16

 Today, I went and scouted out the place where I wanted to film the beginning of the opening scene. My friends were also unable to help me film today so I just went to make sure that the area was a good place to film this. When I got to the trail looked almost the same as the last time I went, it was exactly as I remembered it. I walked a bit through the path to see where I could get a couple of nice angles and shots while Tommy is getting chased through it. The place has a good amount of lighting and when I was there, I didn't see anyone so having people getting in the shot most likely won't be a problem. Also, since the area is pretty secluded, we can be as loud as we need to be and take up as much time as we are able to filming.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #15

 Today, I reviewed some of the footage that I had gotten from yesterday and started playing around with it in editing. I'm not the most knowledgeable when it comes to editing, so I wanted to practice a little bit to become more familiar with the system and refresh my memory on how to do certain things such as adjusting volumes, cutting clips, and inputting sound effects. To further help me, I watched a couple of videos on how to work with Adobe Premiere and pretty much just learned the basics as well as a couple of other key things I may need to use. This is something I definitely needed to do and is something I am going to continue doing to ensure that when the time comes and I actually need to edit everything together, I am able to easily do it.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #14

 Today, I was unable to get my "crew" together for filming the shot in the forest trail, so I decided to start testing out what the shots were going to look like when the main character, Tommy, is getting ready. For the transition from the scene in the forest trail to the scene where Tommy is waking up to get ready, I want to have a graphic match and maybe try to match up the sound in some type of way to have a smooth transition. I wanted to think about this a little more though so I skipped on filming that bit. I focused mostly on what type of shots to get when Tommy was getting ready, making sure that the camera and cameraman aren't seen in any mirrors or shadows. Naturally, the scene I focused on the most today was getting ready in the bathroom, due to the fact that it has a window that lets in good amounts of light, as well as having two mirrors. This was quite tricky to get right because there were so many things that could have given away the cameraman. After a while of trying, I was successful and found some good angles and shots to take.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #13

Today, I was going to continue the filming process of the opening scene, however, I realized that I may need to simply switch locations on where I was filming that bit. It was too much of a hassle to make sure I had enough time to film there as well as make sure that I had someone to drive me there, which is not always possible. I started thinking of places a bit closer to me, either a short car ride or walking distance. When thinking about this, I got an idea to change up the opening "voice-over scene" to something a little different. I remembered that there was a path near my house that I could go to and use for filming. However, it would not be the voice-over idea anymore. My idea was to have it be more adventurous or intriguing by opening it up with Tommy running through this path, maybe with voices yelling in the background and gunshot sounds going off. The idea isn't 100% concrete yet, but this is what I am going to do now. 

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #12

 I have now just begun the filming process for my opening scene. I wasn't able to do much filming thought because I was on a time crunch and also came across some challenges. One of the challenges was that the location I was filming at for the voice-over scene is a bit far from my house and I don't always have someone to take me. Another challenge that I came across was that I was unsatisfied with the shot that I ended up getting. I thought that the shot wasn't necessarily "interesting" enough and it lacked something. Something else that occurred is that there is very little visibility due to it being at night, so I have to find a way to make it still look dark but with a bit of lighting around. I can most likely use the headlights of a car or maybe a bright flashlight.

Cambridge Portfolio Blog Post #11

 Today, I started planning out what I was going to say during the voice-over at the beginning of the opening scene. As I've stated in previous blogs, I want the beginning of my opening scene to be a continuous shot with a voice-over which then leads to the stars and a cut, which I'm now thinking should be a graphic match,  to the next scene. During the voice-over, I'm going to be talking about something most having to do with nature, something that I can somehow tie back to the plot of what would be the movie if we were making a full production. While tying it in with the story, Tommy, the main character, will probably be introduced by name, however, not much information is gonna be given about him during this. The goal of beginning the piece like this is in order to intrigue the audience with a mysterious vibe and an idea of what the story is going to be like. I plan on beginning the filming process very soon, I'm currently just tweaking a couple of ideas before.