A Glimpse Into The Past (Reflection)

Critical Reflection Link: Link To Critical Reflection Document

The social group my product represents is teenagers and how they are in a difficult stage of life where making friends isn’t as easy anymore because socializing can be awkward. For teenagers making friends can be a challenging task. You don’t want someone you just met to think you’re weird, so you must watch what you say and be mindful of how you dress, etc. Our film focuses on two random girls meeting in an elevator for the first time and deciding to go on an adventure together. That’s not something you’d do regularly. Most of our dialogue, especially in the elevator scene, plays into that awkwardness and shows that it’s okay not to know how to talk to people. At first, Riley is a little cold to Sam, and based on her facial reaction, you can see that she was only asking her what floor she was going to so she could click the button for her, common courtesy. Sam also displays awkwardness by asking Riley if she is going to the beach despite her being in a swimsuit top and having clicked the floor to the beach, which is where Sam was initially headed. There is also an awkward sappy moment when they discover the last clue that Sam brushes off. The point is that teenagers are awkward people. Our production takes note of that and uses it to help them showcase the awkwardness in everyone. Our message, in the end, tells them to take risks and do what they usually wouldn’t because you only get one life, so you might as well live it.

The face of our brand was the name. Chance Encounter is short, sweet, and straightforward. It’s catchy and easy to remember. My team and I made it extra memorable by making it a cute neon blue wiggly font that glows on a black background. It wasn’t overdramatic, but you’re automatically drawn to it when you see something glowing. We used this logo on all of our social media so that we were easy to find. We kept the bio description consistent too. An essential part of branding is having a target audience. Our target audience is people who enjoy the thrill of life and love a good adventure. These are the people who would enjoy a treasure hunt. We kept this consistent on our postcard by giving it a vintage feel similar to a treasure map and adding small images of a treasure chest and compass. We also target teenage girls or girls who struggle to make friends. Our film deals with strangers discovering friendship over time, so I felt that this could help encourage them to be bolder and more outspoken, which would help overcome their shyness and anxiety. Girl Boss Studios is an all-female-led studio, so empowering women is a massive part of our brand. The overall look of our product was very vibrant and youthful. From the fonts, we used to the color scheme of our media pages. It is meant to attract a younger audience. Which fully encompasses the audience of our film. 

Making the short film engaging was the most important part of the filmmaking process. No one wants to watch a boring film. The first step in engaging with the audience is creating relatable characters. Sam, the main character, is the bubbly, outspoken one. She’s the one who starts up the small talk and invites Riley to go on the treasure hunt with her. Generally, extroverted people will relate to Sam and are more likely to favor her character because they can see themselves in her. Talking to new people and ultimately making friends is what they do. Riley, on the other hand, is the quiet, sarcastic one. She didn’t want to go on a treasure hunt but tagged along for fun. More introverted people will relate to Riley and are most likely to favor her because they can relate to not being talkative but accepting an invite from an extrovert for a moment of fun. I also engaged with the audience by being active on many platforms to inform and entertain them until the film premiered. The film took a while to premiere, so I had to find a way to keep the audience interested and keep the film relevant so that when it did premiere, it’d attract viewers. These platforms included social media pages such as Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and even a website. Here we posted things such as behind-the-scenes pictures, posters, and trailers. It wasn’t long before people started following us and liking our content, so I knew our film was being seen. 

Our product follows a lot of the typical conventions of an adventure film. The girls pushed themselves out of their comfort zones and went on a once-in-a-lifetime treasure hunt. There were a lot of wide shots and panning shots, which showed the location and created a fast pace. Our mis-en-scene was also very important to creating that adventure aspect. We had a mix of lighting which showed that the day progressed as the journey did. The costumes were also accurate because many of the adventures occur on or at the beach, and the girls were both in beach wear until it started getting darker and colder when they wore jackets. The film challenged the typical adventure genre because there was no protagonist. The protagonist is what makes the adventure so action-packed, but because there was none, it wasn’t as exciting as a typical adventure film. There were no weapons or fighting scenes because there was no villain to fight. The soundtrack was also very lackluster adventure-wise because it lacked suspense and the edge that you need to think the characters were at some unexplored place. There was no imminent danger or risk to their lives, so the journey wasn’t much of an adventure. Our plot also had nothing to do with our genre, making the film more wholesome and lighthearted instead of nerve-wracking. The only anticipation was waiting for what was in the treasure box.

Short Film Package for Chance Encounter

Website Link: https://chanceencounterthe.wixsite.com/chanceencounter

Screenshot of Homepage:

Postcard Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZXdr5jsx3zRFfPJ45ehYERiqL_5vhXNQLfiLBWyCsbs/edit

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Short Film Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q5HLcv8uvs

Short Film: 

Production Blog: The Opening Act

 The first step in the opening sequence is adding your studio name and production company. We agreed to keep the ones we created last year, so it was time for Girl Boss Studios and Dagger Production to reappear. I found the video we made last year and cut off the opening clip from there, and attached it to this video. So it's a total of three seconds more to our time. Next, we had to decide what font, color, and size we wanted the other titles to be. Capcut has saved font styles, so we reviewed those to see which one we liked best. Ash and I picked out eight and then sent them to Siena to pick her favorite. Out of the eight, I liked Mokgech, Playfairdisplay, and Wargod. Ash also Liked Mokgech and Wargod, but she liked Rackham as well. Siena favored Mokgech but said we should go with whatever font closest to the poster. In the end, we decided on Mokgech because of its medieval look. It felt right for an adventure film.

Next, we needed a size that would be big enough to see but not too big where it's distracting. CapCut doesn't do sizing by number, so we had to drag or pinch the words to the size we liked. We also needed a color that would stand out from the background but not become the scene's focal point. I thought of pink since our studio name is pink, but I figured black was more subtle yet still visible, so we went with that. The words will wipe in from the bottom right corner of the screen for transitions. For the movie title, I thought we could have the words come off the paper to spell out the name. Easier said than done because as hard as I tried, I couldn't get it to look less tacky. We found a better spot for the title anyway, so it was okay. After finalizing the editing, I couldn't be happier with the film. It's indeed come a long way, especially with all the problems we had initially, but we're finally finished, and I'm so excited to show you the final copy. 

Production Blog: Putting out the flames

 After our film review, I realized there's still work to do before we can call the film finished. One thing we needed to work on was the lighting. Going back into CapCut, I started playing with filters until I found some that made the clips brighter. I had to choose between Sunlit, One Day, and Oasis. I'm leaning towards One Day. It makes the scene brighter, looks natural, and doesn't have as drastic of a hue as the others. We also turned down the brightness in the places where the sun was causing a glare. Then we tackled audio once more. We decided to do voiceovers for the garage to eliminate the background noises.

We couldn't turn the siren down low enough and still be able to hear Siena, so that wasn't working. We fought long and hard to separate the wind even more from the dialect in the beach scenes. It was hard because there was only so much we could do without switching to a voiceover here. Lastly, we turned to CapCut transitions to help smooth out the passage between scenes. The only one that wasn't drastically obnoxious was called mix. It's a subtle fade, so the scene will easily flow from one to the other without showing that we actually used a transition. It'll look like we did it all in one take. We've exhausted all our options, and there's truly nothing else we can do editing-wise without enlisting the help of a professional. Since we don't know any, we'll have to trust ourselves and make do with what we have. We managed to cut the film to a near-perfect time which shocked me because I felt we were so far from it. We're missing the titles and the end quote, and then we're finished. These are relatively easy to add, so we saved them until the end. I can't believe we're almost there. 

Production Blog: Friendly Fire

Every good movie needs a good review team. So I chose two of my friends who I trusted to be honest with me, and honest they were. A few seconds in, Karine paused to tell me how corny it was. I reminded her we're high schoolers in Media Studies, not professional actors. This convinced her to continue watching. Asia finished first and gave really good criticism. She said it was hard to hear Siena talking right after she answered the call. We can do a voiceover here since her back is turned, so we won't need to match facial reactions. We killed the background noise, but she was talking too low.  She also gave positive remarks. She mentioned how she noticed we used a lot of angles, and it's good to show the actors from different perspectives. She also noted how well done the clues were and praised our creativity. Unfortunately, Karine only had negative things to say. Despite our attempts to perfect the audio, she says there were times when it could have flowed more nicely. For example, you can tell where we muted it to remove the sirens and add wind sounds.  She also noted that some scenes' lighting glared or was dull. She took a stab at the acting, saying it's a bit lackluster and could've been better. Lastly, she mentioned that the transitions are jumpy. I assume she means the clips don't flow together as well as they should. I would've loved for them to elaborate further, but they said this is all the current criticism and that they'd love to see it again after we've made edits. I would've loved to hear more positive reviews, but everything is never perfect on the first try. So, back to the drawing board we go.  

Production Blog: When in doubt, YouTube it out

This next part of editing is not my favorite, especially not with this film. Editing sound has never been my strong suit. I've always worked with visuals. Extracting audio is easy. It gets complicated when you must overlay them and ensure everything is lined up perfectly. Still, I tried my absolute best to help Ash. Ash is our main audio person, and she always does a great job. I told her about areas that I thought needed fixing. This includes places where the sirens were too loud, or the wind was too strong, and you just couldn't hear the actors. I also told her about sounds we could add. For example, the closing clip is a voiceover of an inspiring quote at the end. We could use an inspiring song but the instrumental version as background noise so that it's a little more interesting. After listening to several inspiring instrumentals, I decided they needed to be more exciting and ventured into Hip Hop instead.

I found a song by Rihanna that would make an excellent outro, mainly since our quote deals with not letting life pass you by. It's upbeat and gets you pumped up. That's a great way to end an adventure film. We needed to ask for the rights to use the song, so I contacted Rihanna through social media, asking her the best way to contact her regarding permission. We'll likely have to find an uncopyrighted YouTube song if she doesn't respond. I hope it doesn't come to this because the piece is perfect. As of right now, the movie has really come together, and I'm happy with our progress.

Production Blog: Working Overtime

The day after filming, I decided to put all the clips together. The three days' worth of clips increased the video from one minute and 41 seconds to seven and 42 seconds. Some scenes overlapped, so I cropped them and other clips that I thought could be shortened, bringing it down to six minutes and 54 seconds. I still had to take into account the opening scenes, which would need a few extra seconds for the production company, and the closing scene, which also needed a few extra seconds for the quote. In total, it would probably go back up to seven seconds. We need to go down to five, so this is an issue. As I watch the video, I notice a lot of the audio has really harsh wind overshadowing it. I'm not usually in charge of audio, but even I can tell this will be hard to isolate. As an alternative, Ash and Siena could individually do voiceovers, and we can mute the audio of the original clips and replace it with the voiceovers. Then we could add a softer wind sound in the background so you can tell we're on the beach, but it's not overshadowing the talking. We can also add walking and birds in the background to make it more natural. My only concern is that their voices won't match up with the emotion on their face. In the moment, they were acting, but at home, they were alone and not in the moment, so it might be hard to recreate their original emotions.

Another thing that needs fixing is the lighting. In the parking garage and the hallway, it's a little dimmer than I would like it. Since it was supposed to be set mid-day, I can make those scenes a lot brighter, so the day doesn't look as murky. I can also make the night scenes darker, so it looks like the hunt went on for longer than it did. Overall, I need to go back and crop out a lot more filler clips. I will try to bring the time to around four minutes and 50 seconds so that we have a 10-second wiggle room for the opening and closing. It will be tricky to cut that much off because I didn't see that much that needed cropping on my first two run-throughs. However, I like a good challenge, so I'm ready.